Ezekiel 39:9-10

And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years:

They that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons. The burning of the foe's weapons implies that nothing belonging to them should be left to pollute the land. The seven years (seven being the sacred number) spent on this work implies the completeness of the cleansing, and the people's zeal for purity. How different from the ancient Israelites, who left not merely the arms, but the pagan themselves, to remain among them! (Fairbairn); (); so the pagan among them became, by God's judicial appointment, "as thorns in Israel's sides, and their gods were a snare" unto Israel (Ezekiel 2:2; ). The desolation by Antiochus began in the one hundred and forty-first year of the Seleucidae. From this date to 148, a period of six years and four months ("2,300 days," ), when the temple-worship was restored ( 1Ma 4:52 ), God vouchsafed many triumphs to His people: from this time to the death of Antiochus early in 149 BC, a period of seven months, the Jews had rest from Antiochus, and purified their land, and on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month celebrated the Encaenia, or feast of the dedication () and purification of the temple. The whole period, in round numbers, was seven years. This is an earnest and type of the corresponding event yet to come under the New Testament Antichrist. Mattathias was the patriotic Jewish leader, and his third son, Judas, the military commander under whom the Syrian generals were defeated. He re-took Jerusalem and purified the temple. Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, succeeded him; the independence of the Jews was secured, and the crown vested in the Asmonean family, in which it continued until Herod the Great.