Modein
Village in the hills north-west of Jerusalem, home of the priest Mattathias, where the Maccabean revolt began and where the Hasmonean family tomb stood.
Modein was the home of Mattathias and the place where he refused the king’s sacrifice (1 Maccabees 2:1, 15–28). He and his sons were buried there (1 Maccabees 2:70) (1 Maccabees 9:19), and Simon Thassi raised over the family tomb a monument with seven pyramids that could be seen from the sea (1 Maccabees 13:25–30). The village lay in the foothills between Jerusalem and the coast, in the area of the modern city of Modi’in. Its exact site has not been settled; the coordinates are those given by the Pleiades gazetteer.
What happened here
- 167 BC to 164 BC, estimated dateThe Maccabean Revolt and the Rededication of the Temple
The priest Mattathias and his sons take up arms against the decrees of Antiochus IV. Judas Maccabeus defeats the king’s generals, cleanses the temple and rededicates the altar, an event kept each year as the feast of Dedication, Hanukkah.