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0 God killed Antiochus with an incurable bowel disease

I kill ... I wound ... I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh. Deuteronomy 32:39-42

152.

God killed Antiochus with an incurable bowel disease

Antiochus was a Seleucid king who, according to 2 Maccabees, mistreated the Jews. So God paid him back by giving him "an incurable and invisible plague" that caused "a dreadful pain in his bowels .. and bitter torments of the inner parts."

The Lord the God of Israel ... struck him with an incurable and an invisible plague ... a dreadful pain in his bowels came upon him, and bitter torments of the inner parts. 2 Maccabees 9:5

While Antiochus suffered from his God-given bowel disease, worms swarmed out of his body, "his flesh fell off and the filthiness of his smell was noisome." No one could get near him because of the "intolerable stench." It got so bad, in fact, that Antiochus couldn't even "abide his own stench."

Worms swarmed out of the body of this man, and whilst he lived in sorrow and pain, his flesh fell off, and the filthiness of his smell was noisome to the army. And the man that thought a little before he could reach to the stars of heaven, no man could endure to carry, for the intolerable stench ... being admonished by the scourge of God, his pains increasing every moment. 9:9-12

As you can probably imagine, this was getting annoying to Antiochus. So he did what any wicked man would do in this situation: he became a Jew and begged God to stop tormenting him.

Then this wicked man prayed to the Lord ... to obtain mercy. ... Yea also, that he would become a Jew himself, and would go through every place of the earth, and declare the power of God. 9:13-17

But God didn't stop tormenting him. And Antiochus "died a miserable death" from his God-given bowel disease.

Thus the murderer and blasphemer ... died a miserable death. 9:28

Or did he?

There's another story about Antiochus's death in the same book. In this one, Antiochus is smashed with stones as he entered the temple in Jerusalem. His head is cut off and his body chopped into pieces -- all with God's help and blessing, of course.

When Antiochus was come in: and opening a secret entrance of the temple, they cast stones and slew the leader, and them that were with him, and hewed them in pieces, and cutting off their heads they threw them forth. Blessed be God in all things, who hath delivered up the wicked. 2 Maccabees 1:16-17

Although neither story is true, both give God the credit, so I will too.

(There's another account of Antiochus's death in 1 Maccabees 6:1-6, in which he is scared to death by the Jews, without any clear involvement from God. No mention is made of bowels, worms, stench, dropped stones, decapitation, or dismemberment.)

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