The obstinate Hellenist party within Israel had not yet learned their lesson, and appealed to the new monarch, Antiochus Eupator, to take up their cause. So war broke out again in 163. It was the Sabbatic year, when nothing is sown and the land lies fallow. (See Leviticus xxv.) So these circumstances added further embarrassment to the usual evils of war. It meant scarcity of provisions and the terror of long siege. A brave fight in the open field against large odds brought reverse to the Maccabees. One of the brothers, Eleazar, died on the field, a martyr to his bravery. He stabbed an elephant supposed to bear the king, though like Samson, he fell in the overthrow he designed. The army retreated before the second siege was begun. Meanwhile Philip, the rival regent of Syria, raising an army against Lysias, compelled this general's withdrawal from Jerusalem. So Lysias concluded an honorable peace with the Judeans, allowing them the religious liberty for which they had at first taken up arms. The blessings of peace were now theirs for a space. Judas Maccabeus was made for the time being High Priest. He was not of the priestly line, but the office involved the wielding of temporal as well as spiritual authority. For the former, none more fitted than he. Yet the more strict were not satisfied that it should pass from the traditional priestly family! The Hellenist menace had not yet disappeared, though Jason and Menelaus, its fathers, were now both dead. This party now supported a new Syrian claimant for the throne against the one endorsed by the Maccabees--Demetrius (162), whose agent, Bacchides, appointed one of these very Hellenists, Alcimus, as High Priest. Thus discord was sown anew in Israel. Death of Judas.