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Definitions: MACCABEES |
MACCABEESNoun plural1. The name of two ancient historical books, which give accounts of Jewish affairs in or about the time of the Maccabean princes, and which are received as canonical books in the Roman Catholic Church, but are included in the Apocrypha by Protestants. Also applied to three books, two of which are found in some MSS. of the Septuagint. 2. The name given later times to the Asmonaeans, a family of Jewish patriots, who headed a religious revolt in the reign of Antiochus IV., 168-161 B. C., which led to a period of freedom for Israel. |
Date "MACCABEES" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Bible | Maccabees This word does not occur in Scripture. It was the name given to the leaders of the national party among the Jews who suffered in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes, who succeeded to the Syrian throne B.C. 175. It is supposed to have been derived from the Hebrew word (makkabah) meaning "hammer," as suggestive of the heroism and power of this Jewish family, who are, however, more properly called Asmoneans or Hasmonaeans, the origin of which is much disputed. After the expulsion of Antiochus Epiphanes from Egypt by the Romans, he gave vent to his indignation on the Jews, great numbers of whom he mercilessly put to death in Jerusalem. He oppressed them in every way, and tried to abolish altogether the Jewish worship. Mattathias, an aged priest, then residing at Modin, a city to the west of Jerusalem, became now the courageous leader of the national party; and having fled to the mountains, rallied round him a large band of men prepared to fight and die for their country and for their religion, which was now violently suppressed. In 1 Macc. 2:60 is recorded his dying counsels to his sons with reference to the war they were now to carry on. His son Judas, "the Maccabee," succeeded him (B.C. 166) as the leader in directing the war of independence, which was carried on with great heroism on the part of the Jews, and was terminated in the defeat of the Syrians. Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
From the beginning of Grece-Macedonian rule over the Near East, the Greeks had been more or less respectful of indigenous cultures, though exploitative in terms of governance. The area of Judea was particularly well treated, since it was a buffer state between the Seleucids and Ptolemaic Egypt. The reasons for Antiochus IV's change in policy have perplexed historians. Beginning in the 180s BC, Seleucid fortunes certainly were declining, in the peace of Apamea the Seleucids lost virtually all of Asia Minor to the Attalids of Pergamum, around this time the Seleucids were also humiliated by the Ptolemies.
Other than the book of Maccabees, there is no corroborating evidence that the Seleucids suddenly wanted to Hellenize all the peoples of their empire, it is probable that the revolt started when the Seleucids tried to establish a garrison in the Jewish heartland, where none had existed before. Antiochus IV may also have tried to establish a ruler cult.
In 165 BC, Judas Maccabaeus started the revolt against the Seleucid overlords of Palestine (though at this time the area was known as Judea). After defeating them militarily, he entered Jerusalem in triumph and cleansed the Jewish Temple, reestablishing traditional Jewish worship there.
Independence was achieved gradually. It was not until 140 that Simon ben Jonathan had himself crowned king (in a Hellenistic ceremony). Jewish historians have said that Simon's claiming of kingship is what did in the state, since no one who was not of Davidic stock was ever supposed to have that title. In any case, the Maccabee kings ruled in similar manner not altogether different from the Seleucids. Their bureaucracy was filled with people with Greek names.
Judas' victory over the Seleucids is celebrated each year at Hanukkah.
The story of the Maccabees can be found in the Biblical books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Maccabees."
Crosswords: MACCABEES |
| English words defined with "MACCABEES": Asmonean ♦ Crown tax ♦ Maccabean. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "MACCABEES": Maccabees, Books of the ♦ Notarica. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "MACCABEES" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "MACCABEES" is used about 40 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 100% | 40 | 54,274 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
maccabees | 45 |
lamonts maccabees | 6 |
book maccabees | 4 |
maccabees royal | 3 |
bible maccabees | 3 |
knight maccabees | 3 |
maccabees messiah | 2 |
2 maccabees | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "MACCABEES"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Dutch | Makkabeeën. (various references) | |
Esperanto | Makabeoj. (various references) | |
Greek | όακκαβαίοι. (various references) | |
Hungarian | Makkabeusok. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | accabeesmay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | Macaibeira. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-c-c-e-e-m-s" | |
-2 letters: ambsace, amesace. | |
-3 letters: amebae, amebas, baccae, became, meccas. | |
-4 letters: abase, abeam, acmes, ameba, bacca, beams, bemas, cacas, caeca, camas, cames, cease, mabes, maces, mecca, samba. | |
-5 letters: abas, aces, acme, amas, asea, baas, bams, base, beam, bees, bema, cabs, caca, came, cams, casa, case, ceca, cees, ease, emes, mabe, mace, macs, maes, mesa, sabe, same, scab, scam, seam, seem, seme. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 41 43 43 41 42 45 45 53 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-- .- -.-. -.-. .- -... . . ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01000001 01000011 01000011 01000001 01000010 01000101 01000101 01010011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M A C C A B E E S |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0041 0043 0043 0041 0042 0045 0045 0053 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)473537373536393953 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions: Internet 7. Translations: Modern 8. Anagrams | 9. Orthography 10. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
