Wisdom of Solomon 12:3
1 For your immortal spirit is in all things. 2 Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass, and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin, so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord. 3 Those who lived long ago in your holy land 4 you hated for their detestable practices, their works of sorcery and unholy rites, 5 their merciless slaughter of children, and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood. These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult,
2 Maccabees 1:7
5 May he hear your prayers and be reconciled to you, and may he not forsake you in time of evil. 6 We are now praying for you here. 7 In the reign of Demetrius, in the one hundred sixty-ninth year, a we Jews wrote to you, in the critical distress that came upon us in those years after Jason and his company revolted from the holy land and the kingdom 8 and burned the gate and shed innocent blood. We prayed to the Lord and were heard, and we offered sacrifice and grain offering, and we lit the lamps and set out the loaves. 9 And now see that you keep the festival of booths in the month of Chislev, in the one hundred eighty-eighth year. b
Notes and References
"... Three more elements in the material on Jason merit attention: the identification of Judea as “the holy land,” the role of prayer, and the ascribing of Jason’s defeat to the Lord rather than to a human agent (1:7–8). The summary refers to Jason rebelling against both Israel and the Seleucid authorities, which are the entities implied in “the holy land and the kingdom” (1:7). The “kingdom” refers to the territory under Seleucid jurisdiction throughout 2 Maccabees (4:7; 9:25; 10:11; 11:23; 14:6, 26). “The holy land” occurs nowhere else in 1 and 2 Maccabees. (In the LXX, “The holy land” in 2 Maccabees 1:7 occurs elsewhere only in Zechariah 2:16 and in Wisdom of Solomon 12:3) Nevertheless, this expression refers to the territory associated with the “holy place” in the second letter (1:29; 2:18). In the epitome, “holy” variously qualifies the city of Jerusalem (3:1; 9:14, 16; 15:14), the Temple (13:10; 14:31; 15:32) and the Jewish inhabitants of the land (15:24). Hence, by employing the expression “holy land,” the authorities in Jerusalem endow the territory of Judea with an unprecedented sacred status that their Jewish counterparts in Egypt need to acknowledge ..."
Duggan, Michael W. "Hanukkah in 1 and 2 Maccabees: An Intertextual Reading" in Corley, Jeremy, and Geoffrey David Miller (eds.) Intertextual Explorations in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature (pp. 172-201) De Gruyter, 2019