1 Maccabees 13:51

Deuterocanon

47 So Simon reached an agreement with them and stopped fighting against them. But he expelled them from the city and cleansed the houses in which the idols were located, and then entered it with hymns and praise. 48 He removed all uncleanness from it, and settled in it those who observed the law. He also strengthened its fortifications and built in it a house for himself. 49 Those who were in the citadel at Jerusalem were prevented from going in and out to buy and sell in the country. So they were very hungry, and many of them perished from famine. 50 Then they cried to Simon to make peace with them, and he did so. But he expelled them from there and cleansed the citadel from its pollutions. 51 On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.

Revelation 7:9

New Testament

4 Now I heard the number of those who were marked with the seal, 144,000, sealed from all the tribes of the people of Israel: 5 From the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000, from the tribe of Gad, 12,000, 6 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000,from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000, 7 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000, from the tribe of Levi, 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar, 12,000, 8 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin, 12,000 were sealed. 9 After these things I looked, and here was an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb dressed in long white robes, and with palm branches in their hands. 10 They were shouting out in a loud voice,“Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

 Notes and References

"... [Revelation] 7:9 as a reinterpretation of 7:4-8 indicates not so much the replacement of the national people of God as the abolition of its national limits. This is consistent with the picture of the new Jerusalem in chapter 21, where gates inscribed with 'the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel' (21:12) stand open to die nations (21:24-26). If 7:9a contrasts the great multitude as innumerable and international with the 144,000 Israelites, there is as yet no reinterpretation of the military theme as such. Indeed, it could correcdy be translated 'army,' and verses 9b-10 can readily be understood as continuing the military theme by depicting the army victorious after battle. The white robes are the festal garments of the victory celebration (compare Tertullian, Scorpiace 12; 2 Maccabees 11:8), and the palm branches may be compared with those which the holy warriors of Simon Maccabee's army waved in celebration of their recapture of the citadel of Jerusalem (1 Maccabees 13:51; compare Testament of Naphtali 5:4) ..."

Bauckham, Richard The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (p. 225) T&T Clark, 1993

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