Hanukkah: Its Roots And Prophetic Meaning

Hanukkah

Its Roots and Prophetic Meaning

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This is one of the few years with the Jewish feast of Hanukkah falls on December 25th, when Christians, and a lot of the world celebrate Christmas. Therefore, I’d like to give a crash course in the feast, how it came about, and how it looks forward and finds it’s prophetic fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

The word Hanukkah is made up from two Hebrew words telling the date of this special day of when the Jewish people rested from their enemies. In the Greek language, “Hanu,” means rest, and “kah,” means 25.

It was on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev, the 9th month on the Jewish Calendar, that the Jewish people rested from their enemies, under Antiochus IV, or Antiochus Epiphanes, which means illustrious one.

As a point of reference, Antiochus was considered crazy, and so later the Jews changed his name to Antiochus Epimanes (Epi’-manes), which means madman because he tried to make himself God.

The story goes back to 157 B.C. when King Antiochus of Syria, who was ruling Israel at that time, tried to force the Jews to give up their faith and to adopt the Greek custom, practices, and gods. Those Jews who refused were persecuted and put to death.

He then converted the Temple in Jerusalem to the worship of Zeus, the head of the Greek gods. He completely looted the temple and placed a statue of Zeus in the Most Holy Place and demanded the Jews to bow down to it.

He then had a pig slaughtered, or sacrificed, upon the Altar completely desecrating the Temple. Why? Because a pig was an unclean animal according to the Law of Moses.

And to top it all off, he put out the “Ner Tomid,” or the Perpetual Light of the Menorah.

At these atrocities, two groups of Jews began a revolt.

The first was the Chasidim (Chas’-idim), a group of religious traditionalists who were the forerunners of the Pharisees.

The second group, the one that was the most associated with the revolt were known as the Hasmoneans, whose leader was Judas Maccabee, or “The Hammer,” because of the hammer like blows he struck for freedom from the Syrians.

After several years, the Maccabees, or Hasmoneans, drove out the Syrians, a miracle when you think about it, but that’s not the miracle of Hanukkah.

After Antiochus was defeated time and again by this no name ragtag army, he went for the jugular. He gathered an army of 60,000 men against Judas’s force of 10,000. It should have been a slaughter, but instead Antiochus was dealt a crushing defeat, and Israel became an independent nation.

In great joy, Judas and his army entered Jerusalem, and began to cleanse the Temple. After cleansing the area, the articles and implements, and consecrating the priests. An eight-day feast of dedication was held on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month of Kislev in 165 BC.

However, to their horror they found that to rekindle the light they only had a one-day supply of the oil that was needed to light the Menorah, and it would take another 7 days to make and consecrate more.

This is where the miracle comes in, and why the feast today is more known as the Festival Lights than it is the Feast of Dedication.

But, not having enough of the sacred oil, they still moved forward by faith, knowing that they had to light the Menorah, Ner Tomid, or the Perpetual Light. And from this act of faith, God miraculously allowed the one-day supply of oil to last a full eight days.

From that event, every year thereafter the Jews would celebrate Hanukkah.

In the Babylonian Talmud it says, “On the 25th of Kislev are the days of Chanukkah, which are eight … these were appointed a Festival with Hallel [prayers of praise] and thanksgiving.” (Shabbat 21b)

Hanukkah isn’t a very important feast in Israel, mainly because it isn’t one of the seven listed in the Bible, in fact, it not even mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is brought out 1 Maccabees 4:59, which is an Apocryphal book written during the time after the Old Testament, and prior to the birth of Jesus, or between the last writings of Malachi and the coming of Jesus, which was a period of 400 years. These books are not considered inspired by God, but they do provide a history of that time.

But the festival is found in the New Testament and was celebrated by the Jews.

“Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter.” (John 10:22 NIV)

It was at this time that Jesus said that He and the Father are one, and the Jews picked up stones to put him to death for blasphemy.