Texts in Conversation
2 Maccabees 7 uses language that echoes Isaiah 51, its call to observe the heavens and the earth. This shared language reflects the use of stock imagery drawn from earlier texts, likely intended to connect 2 Maccabees to established prophetic traditions.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 51:6
Hebrew Bible
5 I am ready to vindicate, I am ready to deliver, I will establish justice among the nations. The coastlands wait patiently for me; they wait in anticipation for the revelation of my power. 6 Look up at the sky. Look at the earth below. For the sky will dissipate like smoke, and the earth will wear out like clothes; its residents will die like gnats. But the deliverance I give is permanent; the vindication I provide will not disappear. 7 Listen to me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in their heart.22 Don’t be afraid of the insults of men; don’t be discouraged because of their abuse.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
2 Maccabees 7:28
Deuterocanon
27 But bending toward him, laughing the cruel tyrant to scorn, she spoke this in the language of her fathers: “My son, have pity upon me who carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you three years, and nourished and brought you up to this age, and sustained you. 28 I beg you, my child, to lift your eyes to the sky and the earth, and to see all things that are in it, and thus to recognize that God made them not of things that were, and that the race of men in this way comes into being. 29 Don’t be afraid of this butcher, but, proving yourself worthy of your brothers, accept your death, that in God’s mercy I may receive you again with your brothers.”
Date: 160–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The appeal to contemplate is expounded with commands to 'observe' (the deeds of) heaven and earth. A similar command occurs at Isaiah 51:6 and at 2 Maccabees 7:28. At Isaiah 40:26 the prophet focuses attention on the heaven and the stars, and the same vocabulary occurs in Psalm without the imperative ('when I see the heavens, the work(s) of your fingers, the moon and stars that you have established ...') All of these passages except Isaiah 51:6 explicitly emphasize God's creative activity ..."
George W. E. Nickelsburg, A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 155.
* 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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