Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
Women received their dead raised - the widow of Zarephath. The Shunammite, (2 Kings 4:1-44.) [So C. But 'Aleph (') A Delta f, read gunaikas (G1135) for gunaikes (G1135) - 'they received women of aliens (connect allotrion with gunaikas (G1135)) by raising their dead ( anastaseoos (G386), the verbal noun, thus governing nekrous (G3498)) (1 Kings 17:24).] Through raising the widow's son, Elijah took her into the fellowship of faith, an alien though she was before. Christ, Luke 4:26, especially notices that Elijah was sent to an alien from Israel, a woman of Sarepta. Elijah's faith appeared in that, at God's command, he went to a Gentile city (contrary to Jewish prejudices), and, as the fruit of faith, not only raised her dead son, but received her as a convert into the family of God. [So elabon (G2983), 2 Corinthians 12:16.]
And, х de (G1161)] - 'but:' in contrast to those raised again to life.
Tortured, х etumpanistheesan (G5178)] - 'broken on the wheel.' The sufferer was stretched on an instrument like a drumhead, and scourged to death.
Not accepting deliverance - when offered. So the seven brothers (2Ma 7:9 ; 2Ma 7:11 ; 2Ma 7:14 ; 2Ma 7:29 ; 2Ma 7:36); and Eleazar (2Ma 6:18-21 ; 2Ma 6:28 ; 2Ma 6:30), 'Though I might have been delivered from death, I endure these severe pains, being beaten.'
A better resurrection - than the resurrection which their foes could give them by delivering them from death (Daniel 12:2; Luke 20:35; Philippians 3:11). The fourth of the brethren (referring to Daniel 12:2) said to King Antiochus, 'To be put to death by men is to be chosen to look onward for the hopes which are of God, to be raised up again by Him; but for thee there is no resurrection to life.' The writer of 2 Maccabees expressly disclaims inspiration; so that Paul's allusion to it cannot sanction the Apocrypha as inspired. In quoting Daniel, he quotes a book claiming inspiration, and so tacitly sanctions that claim.