IV.  The Battle of Emmaus.  The first great Jewish victory was a severe blow to the power of Antiochus Epiphanes, for at that time he was confronted by a depleted treasury.  He therefore left his kingdom in charge of Lysias, one of his nobles, and set out on a campaign into Persia from which he never returned.  Three generals with a large army were sent by Lysias against the Jews.  So confident were they of a Syrian victory that a horde of slave merchants accompanied the army that they might purchase the Jewish captives.  This time the Syrians avoided the difficult pass of Bethhoron and chose the Wady Ali, along which the modern carriage road winds up from the coast to Jerusalem.  The main camp was pitched at Emmaus at the southeastern side of the Plain of Ajalon under the Judean hills.  Meantime Judas had selected as his head-quarters the lofty hill of Mizpah, associated by earlier tradition with Samuel and the scene of the short-lived rule of Gedaliah.  It was well chosen, for it commanded a view of the territory to the north, south, and west.  While the army of the Syrians, sent by night to surprise Judas, were marching up the northern valley, the Jewish patriots were led westward toward the plain along one of the parallel valleys that penetrated the Judean hills.  Having appealed to the patriotic memories and the religious zeal of his followers, Judas led them in a sudden early morning attack against the Syrians encamped near Emmaus.  Soon the Syrians were in wild flight across the plain to the Philistine cities, and Judas and his followers were left in possession of the camp and its rich spoil.  Panic also seized his pursuers when they saw their camp in possession of the enemy, and Judas was left for the moment undisputed master of the land of his fathers.  This victory in the year 166 B.C. was in many ways the most sweeping and significant in early Maccabean history.

V. The Battle at Bethsura.  The next year Lysias himself gathered a huge army of sixty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry and led them against the Jews.  This time the Syrians advanced through the broad valley of Elah where David had fought against the Philistine giant.  Thence they followed the Wady Sur, turned southward and then eastward, penetrating to the top of the Judean plateau a little north of Hebron.  Approaching from this point the Syrians were protected in their rear by the Idumeans, the descendants of the Edomites.  They succeeded in reaching the point where the road from the west joins the central highway from Hebron to Jerusalem.  There on a sloping hill crowned with the border town of Bethsura, Judas was able to rally ten thousand followers to meet the huge Syrian army.  From the parallel account in ii Maccabees it is clear that he did not succeed in winning a decisive victory, but a crisis in Antioch suddenly compelled Lysias to return, leaving the Jews in possession of the battle-field.