Hero Kills War Elephant, Dies When it Falls On Him
Not that many people shuffle off the mortal coil in such a remarkable way that it ends up getting mentioned in the Bible, but Eleazar Avaran managed to pull that off in 162 BC. Eleazar, whose death is described in 1 Maccabees, was the younger brother of Judah Maccabee, who led the 167 – 160 BC Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire.
The revolt erupted when Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king, issued a series of decrees banning Jewish religious practices and ordering the worship of Zeus instead. Understandably, that did not sit well with the Jews, and particularly not with Mattathias the Hasmonean, a rural Jewish priest and the father of Eleazar and Judah Maccabee. He sparked the uprising by killing a Hellenized Jew who sacrificed to Greek idols, in violation of the First and Second Commandments – although in killing him, Mattathias probably ran afoul of the Sixth Commandment. The priest then fled into the wilderness with his five sons and began a guerrilla campaign against the Seleucids. When Mattathias died, his son Judah took over the revolt, continued his father’s guerrilla campaign, and in 164 BC, he succeeded in entering Jerusalem and restoring Jewish worship at its temple – an event commemorated in the feast of Hanukah.
His younger brother Eleazar Avaran’s remarkable death came at the Battle of Beth Zechariah in 162 BC, two years after Judah Maccabee had defeated Judea’s Seleucid overlords and entered Jerusalem. However, the conquest of Jerusalem was incomplete, as a Seleucid garrison retained control of a fortress inside the city, near the Temple Mount. Judah Maccabee besieged that fortress, but a Seleucid army of 50,000 men, accompanied by 30 war elephants, marched to its relief. So Judah lifted the siege and marched out at the head of 20,000 men to meet the foes.
For once, Judah decided against the guerrilla tactics that had won him victories and served him well so far and formed his men to meet the Seleucids head on, in formal battle. It did not work out well. Judah’s forces were outmatched by the Seleucid heavy infantry, professional cavalry, and armored war elephants. The last was particularly terrifying for the defenders, who began to panic and break in fear of the pachyderms.
Seeing the Jewish battle lines unraveling, Eleazar Avaran sought to encourage his comrades by demonstrating the elephants’ vulnerability. So he charged at the biggest elephant he could find, got beneath it, and thrust his spear into its unarmored belly. He killed the beast, but he did not get to enjoy his feat of derring-do for long: the dying elephant collapsed on top of Eleazar and crushed him to death. His comrades did not rush in to try and replicate the feat, and the brave demonstration failed to keep the Jewish army from breaking and taking to its heels soon thereafter.
However, while Eleazar’s tragicomic death was not rewarded with victory, it was rewarded with a mention in the Bible, thus earning him everlasting fame – 1 Maccabees, 6:43-47: “43 When Eleazar Avaran saw that one of the elephants was larger than the others and that it was covered with royal armor, he thought that the king was riding on it. 44 Eleazar sacrificed his life to save his people and to gain eternal fame. 45 He ran boldly toward the elephant, which was in the middle of a battalion of infantry. He rushed forward killing men to the right and left, so that the enemy soldiers fell back before him on both sides. 46 He slipped in under the elephant and stabbed it to death, and it fell on him and killed him. 47 But when the Jews realized how strong the royal army was and how determined it was to fight, they retreated“.