Skip to Content
intertextual.bible
Go to Related Reading
About this book

4 Maccabees

About this book

Reason Governs the Emotions

Chapter 3

1 The argument is completely ridiculous, for reasoning is not shown to rule over its own emotions, but over those of the body. 2 For example, none of you can root out desire, but reasoning can enable you not to be enslaved to desire. 3 None of you can root out anger from the soul, but reasoning can help you against anger. 4 None of you can root out malice, but reasoning can fight on your side so that you do not give in to malice. 5 For reasoning does not uproot the emotions, but fights against them.

David Masters His Thirst

6 This can be seen more clearly from the thirst of King David. 7 After David had been attacking the Philistines all day long, and had killed many of them with the help of his nation’s soldiers, 8 then, when evening came, sweating and very tired, he went to the royal tent, around which the whole army of our ancestors was encamped. 9 All the others were at supper, 10 but the king, who was extremely thirsty, although he had plenty of springs, could not quench his thirst from them.⁠ 11 Instead, an irrational desire for the water in the enemy’s territory grew stronger, burned within him, and wore him down until it consumed him. 12 When his bodyguards complained about the king’s desire, two strong young soldiers, out of respect for the king’s desire, put on their full armor, took a water jar, and climbed over the enemy’s ramparts. 13 Unnoticed by the guards at the gate, they went searching through the whole of the enemy camp. 14 They found the spring, and boldly brought the king a drink from it. 15 But although he was burning with thirst, he reasoned that a drink regarded as equal in value to blood was a terrible danger to his soul. 16 So, setting reasoning against his desire, he poured out the drink as an offering to God. 17 For the self-controlled mind is able to conquer the pressure of the emotions and to put out the fire of frenzy, 18 and to wrestle down the pains of the body even when they are extreme, and through the nobility of reasoning to reject with contempt all the domination of the emotions.

The Background to the Persecution

19 And now the moment calls us to demonstrate self-controlled reasoning from history. 20 At a time when our ancestors enjoyed deep peace because they obeyed the law, and were prospering, so that even Seleucus Nicanor, the king of Asia, set aside money for their temple worship and recognized their way of life, 21 then certain people rebelled against the common harmony and suffered many kinds of disasters.

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Samuel 23:15 and 4 Maccabees 3:11

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry

Share:

Summary

In 2 Samuel 23, David asks for water from the cistern in Bethlehem, which the Philistines hold. 4 Maccabees retells this, but leaves out Bethlehem and adds that springs were plentiful nearby, making David's craving about an irrational desire.

Passages

2 Samuel 23:15

Hebrew Bible
13 At the time of the harvest three of the thirty leaders went down to David at the cave of Adullam. A band of Philistines was camped in the valley of Rephaim. 14 David was in the stronghold at the time, while a Philistine garrison was in Bethlehem. 15 David was thirsty and said, “How I wish someone would give me some water to drink from the cistern in Bethlehem near the gate!” 16 So the three elite warriors broke through the Philistine forces and drew some water from the cistern in Bethlehem near the gate. They carried it back to David, but he refused to drink it. He poured it out as a drink offering to the Lord 17 and said, “O Lord, I will not do this! It is equivalent to the blood of the men who risked their lives by going.” So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three elite warriors.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Samuel

4 Maccabees 3:11

Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
6 This can be seen more clearly from the thirst of King David. 7 After David had been attacking the Philistines all day long, and had killed many of them with the help of his nation’s soldiers, 8 then, when evening came, sweating and very tired, he went to the royal tent, around which the whole army of our ancestors was encamped. 9 All the others were at supper, 10 but the king, who was extremely thirsty, although he had plenty of springs, could not quench his thirst from them. 11 Instead, an irrational desire for the water in the enemy’s territory grew stronger, burned within him, and wore him down until it consumed him. 12 When his bodyguards complained about the king’s desire, two strong young soldiers, out of respect for the king’s desire, put on their full armor, took a water jar, and climbed over the enemy’s ramparts. 13 Unnoticed by the guards at the gate, they went searching through the whole of the enemy camp. 14 They found the spring, and boldly brought the king a drink from it. 15 But although he was burning with thirst, he reasoned that a drink regarded as equal in value to blood was a terrible danger to his soul. 16 So, setting reasoning against his desire, he poured out the drink as an offering to God.
19–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4 Maccabees

References

“... The author of 4 Maccabees, however, departs dramatically from the interpretive guidelines provided for the episode in the Jewish Scriptures, and indeed thoroughly rewrites the story to illustrate and support his very different rhetorical goals. Here it truly becomes the “story of David’s thirst” (4 Macc 3:6). Stripped of the interpretive frame of the “deeds of valor” of David’s warriors—and of the historical context of the Philistine occupation of the Valley of Rephaim and Bethlehem—the story now focuses on David’s experience of thirst (which is absent from the Scriptural story), the irrational desire that drives him to crave the water that the non-Jews have in their territory, when plentiful springs are to be found close by (another detail absent from the original story), and the means by which he finds the strength to do what is just rather than wrongfully self-indulgent. The story is so crafted as to become a narrative demonstration that, though one cannot eradicate certain “passions,” one can master them so as to discern and choose the virtuous course of action. ...”
David A. deSilva, Fourth Maccabees and the Promotion of the Jewish Philosophy: Rhetoric, Intertexture, and Reception (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020), 154.
“... Third, the author suppresses in 3:11 the fact that the water for which David longs is the water of his own home town in Bethlehem, a city currently under enemy control (2 Sam 23:14b–15; 1 Chron 11:16b–17). David’s longing for the waters of Bethlehem in the biblical accounts expresses his desire to retake what is properly his, to be deprived of the proper state of affairs (with access to Bethlehem open to Judeans) by the intrusion of the Philistines no longer. However, by referring merely to the enemy camp rather than Bethlehem, the author of 4 Maccabees subtly turns David’s desire into an expression of “I want what they have,” a desire that is excessive and irrational, as the author says, when what David has close at hand is truly sufficient for him. ...”
David A. DeSilva, 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus, SEPT (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 107.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Your feedback

2 Samuel 23:15 and 4 Maccabees 3:11

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library