Texts in Conversation
2 Maccabees quotes the Song of Moses from Deuteronomy, declaring that God will have compassion on his servants, to frame the martyrdom of the seven brothers within a broader tradition of judgment followed by mercy.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 32:36
Hebrew Bible
34 “Is this not stored up with me?” says the Lord, “Is it not sealed up in my storehouses? 35 I will get revenge and pay them back at the time their foot slips; for the day of their disaster is near, and the impending judgment is rushing upon them!” 36 The Lord will judge his people, and will have compassion on his servants;62 when he sees that their power has disappeared, and that no one is left, whether confined or set free. 37 He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock in whom they sought security, 38 who ate the best of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise and help you; let them be your refuge!
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
2 Maccabees 7:6
Deuterocanon
4 When these were immediately heated, he gave orders to cut out the tongue of him who had been their spokesman, and to scalp him, and to cut off his extremities, with the rest of his brothers and his mother looking on. 5 And when he was utterly maimed, the king gave orders to bring him to the fire, being yet alive, and to fry him in the pan. And as the smoke from the pan spread far, they and their mother also exhorted one another to die nobly, saying this: 6 “The Lord God sees, and in truth is entreated for us, as Moses declared in his song, which witnesses against the people to their faces, saying, ‘And he will have compassion on his servants.’” 7 And when the first had died like this, they brought the second to the mocking; and they pulled off the skin of his head with the hair and asked him, “Will you eat, before your body is punished in every limb?” 8 But he answered in the language of his ancestors and said to them, “No.” Therefore he also underwent the next torture in succession, as the first had done.
Date: 160–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The vocabulary that the author introduces resurfaces in the words of the seven brothers and their mother. The last son to die employs all of the author’s distinctive vocabulary in the succinct interpretation of his people’s suffering that he voices to Antiochus IV Epiphanes (7:32–33, 37–38; compare 5:17–20; 6:12–17). His solidarity with all Jews derives from a shared consciousness that their suffering is the consequence of their sins (7:32). He foresees the Lord soon becoming reconciled to the Jewish nation precisely because the martyrdom, which he and his brothers endure for upholding the ancestral laws, will mercifully put an end to God’s wrath (7:33, 37–38). The six brothers and their mother articulate the foundations for this depiction of retributive justice as constituting the advent of divine mercy, by introducing their reflections with the only scriptural quotation in 2 Maccabees, “The Lord will have compassion on his servants” (7:6; Deuteronomy 32:36). In the song of Moses, this verse describes the Lord embracing the offspring of Jacob after having rejected them in response to their covenant infidelity. By citing one verse, the author directs attention to ingredients in the larger message that refer to the people’s foolishness that had provoked the Lord’s anger and then to the Lord’s capacity to heal after wounding and to give life after allowing death (Deuteronomy 32:19–42). The last son to die introduces his discourse by reinforcing his allegiance to the law of Moses (7:30) ..."
Michael W. Duggan, “2 Maccabees,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 169–187.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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