Poitier-Young emphasizes that Antiochus IV’s plundering of the temple was not merely utilitarian but symbolic. He removed the lampstand, “a symbol and assurance of God’s sustaining presence,” and thus effected “a symbolic de-creation.”
Likewise, taking out the curtain that divided the temple. Division is a key component of the ordered creation in Genesis 1, and by removing the curtain that served as “a symbol of God’s ordering of the gosmos, marking in space the divisions between what was profane, what was holy, and what was most holy,” Antiochus “aimed symbolically to negate these divisions, making of ordered space an undifferentiated chaos.”
Antiochus knew was he was doing: Women who circumcised their boys in defiance of the king’s decree were thrown from the wall: Instead of being a sign of inclusion in the protected covenant community, circumcision had become a sign of exclusion. Those who cut were cut off.
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