A crucial biblical figure to
understand the description of the Hasmoneans in 1 Maccabees is Phinehas,
grandson of Aaron, a priest zealous for God to the point of taking arms and
killing fellow Israelites who had committed idolatry (Num 25). Mattathias’s
murder of a fellow Judean who was willing to sacrifice to foreign gods, in 1
Maccabees 2, is to be understood in light of Phinehas’s behavior in Numbers 25,
as 1 Maccabees 2:26 clearly indicates: “[Mattathias] became zealous for the law
as Phinehas as had been [lit. “done”] against Sambri son of Salom” (ie., Zimri
son of Salu in Num 25:14). In his testament to his sons, Mattathias then
states: “Phinehas our father, because he became zealous with zeal, received a
covenant of everlasting priesthood” (1 Macc. 2:54). Noteworthy is the fact that
Phinehas is described as the Father” of Mattathias and his sons, who are thus
depicted as heirs to the Aaronide priesthood. This is probably another way to
confer legitimacy on the Hasmoneans. Yet as Torrey Seland notes, there is a
slight difference between Phinehas’s zeal and that of Mattathias and his
followers: what was zeal for God in Numbers 25 becomes a zeal for the law
(Torah) in Maccabees (2:27, 50). (Katell Berthelot, “1 Maccabees,” in Apocrypha
and the Septuagint, ed. Bruce W. Longenecker, Marieke Dhont, and James K.
Aitken [Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies 1; Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Zondervan Academic, 2026], 138-39)
