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But in a very short time he learned to repent of his perfidy. Attached to the court of the late usurper Balas was a Syrian Greek, named Diodotus, or, as he was afterwards called, Tryphon, the Luxurious. Perceiving the growing unpopularity of Demetrius, he repaired to the Arab chief Zabdiel, to whom Balas had entrusted the care of his young son Antiochus, and by dint of much importunity prevailed upon him to surrender the young prince into his charge. Then returning to Antioch he shewed him to the disaffected soldiers, whom Lasthenes had disbanded, and easily persuaded them to revolt against Demetrius. A battle was fought in which that king was defeated, and the young prince was crowned at Antioch, and assumed the title of Theos, the God.

One of the first steps of the new monarch was to secure the co-operation of Jonathan and his people. Accordingly he not only confirmed all former grants made to the Jewish nation, and remitted all arrears of tribute, but sent him a purple robe and gold chain, and invested his brother Simon with the command of all the royal forces between the “ladder of Tyre” and the frontiers of Egypt. Jonathan, who had every reason to resent the ingratitude of Demetrius, readily accepted his proposals, and at the head of a large army speedily subdued the entire country, as far as Damascus, to the power of Antiochus, while Simon captured the fortress of Beth-zur, and garrisoned it with Jewish soldiers (1 Macc. xi. 65, 66)42.