On the evening of Saturday December 24th,
began the eight-day
“Festival of Dedication,”
HANUKKAH.
It does not always coincide with the Christian Christmas dates as it did this year but is normally earlier in the year, as the Hebrew Calendar runs on a different cycle to that of the Gregorian/Julian calendar that most of the western world follows today.
(Notes on the various calendars will be added shortly on a separate post.)
Hanukkah is a Hebrew word phonetically transliterated as both Chanukah or Hanukkah.
Historical documents record that the first Chanukah/Hanukkah Was performed on the 25th of Kislev in 164 BC.
Although Chanukah/Hanukkah is thought of by most as an exclusively Jewish holiday found in the Old Testament, in reality the only place it is mentioned is in the Gospel of John 10:22,23
‘At that time it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, it was winter, and Yeshua/Jesus was walking in the temple, on Solomon’s porch.’
The Hebrew word
Chanukah/Hanukkah
means ‘dedication’ and is therefore called the Feast of Dedication.
This feast commemorates the Jewish peoples freedom from Greek rule and the purification and rededication of God’s house, the Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BC.
Dedication is an eight day process that requires the use of sanctified oil for the menorah in the Holy place, which is the first room of the Sanctuary in the Temple*.
*(For brevity here, the Temple and Sanctuary are the focus of a separate post.)
A brief history that preceded the first Chanukah/Hanukkah:
The Greek Empire had risen to power under Alexander the Great after Judah had served as a vassal state to Persia for two centuries. After Alexander’s death, the state of Judah was wrested back and forth, seven times, by two of Alexander’s generals .
All the while, clashing starkly with the unique holiness of the Hebrew religion, the pagan culture of the Greeks was wildly offensive. Even though the Greeks influenced the language and culture of Jerusalem and the state of Judah (Judea), they allowed the Jews to run their own country, declared that the law of Judah was the Torah, and attempted to preserve Jewish religion.
Two Greek monarchs, Ptolemy and Seleucus, battled for Judea until 198 BC, at which time Antiochus III, a Seleucid Greek, won the prize.
He allowed the Jews autonomy, until, a stinging defeat at the hands of the Romans, began a program of Hellenization that threatened to force the Jews to abandon their monotheism for the Greeks’ paganism.
After Antiochus III raised idols in the Jewish Temple, the Jews rebelled, forcing back the Greeks. However, Antiochus IV took the throne in 176 BC and did not accommodate Jewish customs as his father had.
Antiochus IV defiled the Jewish Temple by offering a pig on its altar, erected an altar to Jupiter, and prohibited the Jews from Temple worship.
About 167 years before Messiah came to earth, there was a Greek-Syrian dictator known as Antiochus. Antiochus took over the 2nd Jewish Temple and he set up an abominable image of Zeus, in whom the pagans believe. They believed and celebrated his reincarnation each year on December 25th.
Antiochus also believed that he was the “incarnation” of Zeus and so he gave himself the title “Epiphanies” which in Greek means “God Manifest.” This means that he was claiming to be a reincarnation of “God” on December 25th in 167 B.C.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he also forced the covenant people of the one true God to bow down to this image of Zeus. If they did not comply, they were brutally tortured and killed.
Interestingly, the word “Epiphanies” adds up to 666 in the Greek alpha-numeric system.
History records that the reach of that defilement was wider than the Temple and included such cruel punishments as:
Women who insisted that their sons be circumcised were killed along with their babies.
Brides were forced to sleep with Greek officers before they could be with their husbands.
Jews were required to eat pork and sacrifice pigs to the Greek gods.
The teaching of Torah became a capital crime.
Although a great darkness had come over Judah and Jerusalem, most Jews did anything and everything to remain Jewish, including studying Scripture and getting married in secret.
At the same time that Antiochus IV gave himself the last name “Epiphanes”, (also meaning “the visible god”); he destroyed every copy of the Scriptures he could find. H began selling thousands of Jewish families into slavery and murdering anyone who had a Scripture scroll in their possession.
Antiochus tried to eliminate Judaism, not so much by killing the Jews as by forbidding the practice of Judaism.:
The reading of the Torah was forbidden, along with circumcision, honoring the Sabbath, and celebrating the seasons of the Lord.
In 167 BC, a priest by the name of Mattityahu Hasmonea started guerrilla warfare along with his sons and a few followers.
What they did in the hill country of Judea and Samaria was so amazing that books on their exploits are still studied by modern guerrilla fighters. Early in the war Judas Hasmonea took over after his father’s death and he is the one who came up with the legendary tactics.
His motto was:
‘Mi Camokha Ba Elim Adona’y’
from Exodus 15:11.
The translation is:
‘Who is like you lord among the gods?’
The initials of the words in Hebrew spell Maccabee
(MCBE) which is the name that was later applied to Judas and its followers.
(There are no vowels in the Hebrew Language like our a,e,i,o,u but if you pronounce the letters MCBE it sounds like the same word Maccabee with the vowels inserted.)
(For more on Hebrew Language Please See the ‘Alef Bet Our Alphabet’ and ‘The Ancient Pictograph Hebrew Language’ Pages.)
Although it is spelt differently in Hebrew, the Hebrew word for ‘hammer’, sounds like Maccabee and because of that he was called ‘the hammer’.
The books of Maccabees are in the Apocrypha and were written about their successful wars.
(These books are not included in the Canon, the 66 Books of the Bible, but they are historical records of great importance.)
In 164 BC they took back the Temple and this was the first war fought over a principal, religious freedom, and the first successful type of guerrilla warfare in its style and tactics.
The Last Straw:
Earlier in 168 BC the Greco-Assyrians under the leadership of dictator Antiochus 1V had invaded and overtaken Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. They made ruthless attempts to destroy the culture and religion of the Jews, including desecrating the Temple of the Lord.
The situation took a radical turn when a group of Greco- Assyrian soldiers marched into the Jewish settlement of Modi’in demanding that Mattathias the Jewish priest there sacrifice a pig to their pagan god Zeus.
Because Mattathias feared the Lord more than the Greco-Assyrians, he refused.
A fellow Jewish onlooker feared the Greco-Assyrians wrath and so volunteered to sacrifice the pig.
In response to this Matthathias drew his sword and killed the compromising Jew.
This act of conviction and courage so inspired the rest of the Jews assembled there, that they joined Mattathias and formed an army.
Under the leadership of Judah, (Mattathias son), this newly formed army of the Lord successfully stopped the Greco-Assyrians from overtaking Modi’in. They eventually drove them out of the whole region, including Jerusalem and the Temple.
With the Temple recaptured from the Greeks,
the newly restored family of Tudor Maccabi reestablished the seven-day Autumn Festival of Sukkot ( the feast of Tabernacles).
They also added the extra day of Simchat Torah. (Rejoicing in the Torah, which also includes the annual cycle of Parashoit/ reading through the first five books of the Bible.)
This was important because they were able to freely keep the Torah once again and celebrate the annual cycle of appointed times/ festivals of the Lord.
This is very significant because, as Hanukkah represents the renewed ability to study the Torah, and the Torah is compared to light in the scriptures.
This victory climaxed with the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 164BC
and
The inauguration of the Feast of Dedication, (Hanukkah), which is referenced in John 10:22 It is believed by many,though not specifically documented, to have been celebrated by Jesus/Yeshua the Messiah.
As it is recorded in the Scriptures that Jesus/Yeshua, observed and celebrated all the Appointed Times/Annual Festivals of the Lords Calendar, it is not unrealistic to suppose that He also celebrated the Feast of Dedication.
Part 2 to follow…
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