Step into the light of Hanukkah and discover a story that still speaks with power today. You’re about to uncover the courage, conviction, and faithfulness that shaped this ancient feast.
Have you ever wondered why believers today should care about Hanukkah? In this uplifting teaching from God Honest Truth, we delve into the historical and spiritual depths of Hanukkah, blending Christian education with biblical insights to reveal its profound relevance for believers today. You’ll learn why Hanukkah is far more than a cultural celebration—it’s a call to stand firm, to resist compromise, and to let your faith burn brighter when darkness presses in.
We share this teaching because too many believers today simply don’t know the story behind Hanukkah. By understanding the past, you strengthen your footing for the future. If you’re ready to grow, ready to learn, and ready to reclaim a piece of biblical heritage that still speaks today, this is your moment. So join us as we learn the God Honest Truth about Hanukkah!
#Hanukkah #Hanukkah2025 #Chanukah #Chanukah2025 #FestivalofLights #FeastOfDedication #BiblicalFeasts #GodHonestTruth
Transcript
Teaching Introduction
You’ve heard of the festival of lights, but do you know the fire that goes behind it? Hanukkah is more than just candles and dreidels. It’s a battlecry of courage and a victory that still speaks to us today. This celebration was forged under oppression when scripture was outlawed and faith was hunted. This feast survived because ordinary men and women refused to bow and become part of the world. Their courage was fierce. Their resolve was unyielding. And their story reaches straight into your life today. Their story is fierce, gritty, and deeply relevant. My friend, it is time to light the lamp and see clearly. Stay tuned because this teaching will open your eyes to a feast you’ve only begun to understand.
Video Start
This episode or this teaching is going to be all about the feast day of Hanukkah. where it comes from, why or why you should not celebrate it as a believer in Yeshua nowadays, how to celebrate its various symbols and customs, of course, the food that goes along with it. It’s going to be all that information packed into one little teaching. Probably not going to be short, so stick with me. We’re also going to have a bunch of historical and a little bit of prophetic information in there as well. So definitely stick around for this so you can learn what Hanukkah is or even learn more about Hanukkah if you’ve already celebrated in the past. Before we get to that though, I just want to remind everyone that you can go to our website, look on the article post for this particular teaching, this particular episode, and there you’ll be able to find the on demand video. You’ll be able to find the slides that you see here on your screen if you’re watching on video. You’ll also find the notes that we took for this particular episode, which is always helpful. And you’ll be able to find the transcript that we have after this video has been completed if a transcript is helpful for you. I know it’s helpful for the search engines. I just don’t know about you. Hopefully, it is for you as well. But you can find all that on our website at godhonesttruth.com or we have also placed a convenient link down there in the description. And that link should be there whether you are watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform. It should be down there in the description all the same. Click on that and it’ll take you directly to the article post on our website where all that information is waiting for you to see it. So starting now with Hanukkah this year, want to remind everyone that Hanukkah is what it starts on December 14th at sunset and runs through December 22nd at sunset. So, after you get done with this particular teaching, this particular episode, you’ll be able to have all the information to celebrate Hanukkah, and you’ll have enough time to get everything together and ready in order for your family to have a wonderful and joyous Hanukkah season and Hanukkah celebration. However, for this particular teaching, I do want to bring up a quick warning real quick. the content that we’re going to be going over and discussing, especially the historical content, it can get rather graphic at some points, speaking about the whole occupation by the Creek Greeks and all this other stuff and what they did to the Judeans at that time. That can be rather graphic for some of the younger viewers. It’s your family. You do you. But just wanted to put that warning out there before we actually get into it and all the information starts coming up. So, you’ve been forewarned.
Backstory
Let’s start with a backstory and get a little bit of foundational stuff leading up to the events that eventually created the story of Hanukkah. This is going to get into some of the prophetic stuff as well as some of the historical information as well. We’re going to go back and look in the book of Daniel, which is in the Bible. You’ll get that reference here in a minute. But Daniel 7:es 2-3 and verse 6. Daniel spoke and said, “I was looking in my vision by night and saw the four winds of the heavens stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the sea, different from one another. After this, I looked and saw another like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and rule was given to it. Now, what’s some of the imagery that you can see right there in his vision? He’s talking about four different beasts, but the one that we’re in in particular interested in is this one that looks like a leopard. Now, this leopard that he’s describing here in the book of Daniel says it has four different wings and it has four different heads. Now, what is a head normally symbolized within the symbology of scripture? Well, you think about what Paul writes in the book of Corinthians especially for 1 Corinthians and he speaks of head as authority as leader and we even talk about that nowadays talking about the head of the family being the husband or the head of an organization being the president or the CEO or whatever it is. So this head imagery has a lot to do with leadership. So keep that in mind in this prophetic vision because these four particular heads, especially in for this particular beast, the four heads of the leopard, well, let’s back up real quick before we get to the leopard. These four different beasts are four different empires or civilizations or kingdoms or nations that come up after this thing with Daniel. The first one that’s described in this whole vision is a lion with eagles, I’m sorry, lion with eagle’s wings. And this is normally considered to relate to Babylon, which we know Babylon came up, did a lot of destructive things, was actually even used by Yahweh. But this was the first beast in Daniel’s vision. The second one is a like a u imagery of a bear, and this is Persia. And of course, Babylon, uh, we’ll get into that. But anyways, the second one generally relates to Persia, as most scholars, academics would conclude. The third one is the one we’re interested in, and this is the one that looks like a leopard with four wings and four heads. You’re watching the video, you can actually see an image up there depicting four different leopard heads. Now, keep this in mind. four heads. So the number four is important and also the head part, the leader part. And then finally in Daniel’s total vision, he envisions a fourth beast. And this is a beast with 10 horns and has iron teeth. And this is generally understood to be the nation or the empire of Rome. Like I said, let’s back up real quick just to keep this in mind. The one we’re focusing on tonight is going to be that vision of the beast with the leopard looking heads. And there are four of them. And this beast is generally understood to be the Greeks. Keep that in mind. The four, the heads, and the Greeks. This leads us into a discussion of Alexander the Great. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Alexander the Great was a Greek, but he was a Macedonian Greek. And it’s during that time there was the era of citystates. There was no nations like with borders like we think of nowadays. But he was a Greek and he was from Macedonia. So he’s Macedonian Greek. His tutor and when he was a child they didn’t have public schools, stuff like that, but he had a personal tutor and his tutor up until the age of about 16 was the Aristotle. He comes from a very affluent family and they’re able to afford this. In fact, Alexander the Great, his father, was the king of Macedonia. And Alexander himself actually became king at a rather young age, somewhere about 20 when his father died, King Philip died. And there’s lots of story or lots of history that goes into what made up the life of Alexander and what motivated him and stuff like that, especially the Persians and previous attacks on Greece by the Persians. But anyways, by his death at the age of 32, Alexander the Great had conquered much of the known world what they knew of at that time and had created the largest empire to that date, which is fairly amazing, especially given the level of technology and things like that at the time and the level of medicine and medical understanding and warfare. He actually did fairly well. And it wasn’t all just bludgeoning them to death and kill them in order to conquer them. No, there’s a lot of diplomacy that went into it as well. But he did create the largest empire up until his time. Just for reference, here is a quick map of the kingdom or the empire of Alexander the Great, stretching all the way from Macedonia over there on the left and Greece all the way over into India and as far south as Egypt. He actually conquered Jerusalem and Israel and the northern part of Egypt or what we know of as Egypt nowadays. He conquered a lot of territory and there’s a lot that goes into Alexander the Great. And if you ever get a chance to study him or do a class on Alexander the Great, I would highly recommend it because some of the events that happen in his life during his time really play into a lot of things within scripture, especially Hanukkah that we’re going to learn about tonight and other things as well, especially when he gets into the Semitic cultures and how their customs and culture clashed with the Greek customs and culture. The one that sticks out in my mind is the issue of proskinesis. That’s another subject for another time. But like I said, it’s very interesting and there’s a lot of stuff that actually plays into the events and the subjects of scripture. But here is a map of the empire of Alexander the Great. However, Alexander was a human obviously. So he eventually died. And when he died, he had really no one single successor to come up and take the throne after him. He did have a son, but that’s that gets really involved too. However, when Alexander the Great died, his kingdom, his empire was divided up into four different section, four different sections and given to his four top generals. And here is how roughly how that whole division came about or looked like at the time that Alexander died and everything got divided up amongst his generals. You have Tommy the um Seucus and of course two different other ones that took over Greece and Thrace etc etc. But you’ll see here the ones we wanted to focus on real quick is the Seucid Kingdom. If you look at this particular map here on your screen, you’ll see the elucids or the seleucid kingdom is actually north of Israel. It doesn’t even come down to Israel. The Tomic or Tommy kingdom has control of Israel at this particular point. But there were times that these particular kingdoms fought with each other and land was lost, land was gained, etc., etc. And eventually the Seleucid Kingdom came down and took over what we know of as Israel today, including Jerusalem and all that surrounding area. And that brings us back to Daniel’s prophecy that we were discussing earlier. Daniel 11 29 and 31-32. At the appointed time, he meaning the king in the north shall return and go toward the south, but it shall not be like the former or the latter. and strong ones shall arise from him and profane the set apart place, the stronghold, and shall take away that which is continual, and set up the abomination that lays waste. And by flatteries he shall profane those who do wrong against the covenant, but the people who know their Elohim shall be strong and shall act. This is a prophecy of the Seleucid Kingdom coming down taking over uh the area around Israel including Israel and Jerusalem all that and doing these various things. So we saw from the map earlier that the Lucid Kingdom was up in the north and here the prophecy is talking about the king of the north shall return go toward the south and it says that he will do certain things. It says that he will profane the set apart place and take away that which is continual and set up the abomination that lays waste by flatteries. He shall profane those who do wrong against the covenant. All these horrible things that this particular king is going to do. And then it it goes on also in the same prophecy to say that the people who know their Elohim shall be strong and shall act If you already know the story of Hanukkah, you can see exactly where all this is pointing to. But if you don’t, keep all this in mind. All the the king of the north coming down, the solucids coming down and doing all these horrible things like profaning the set apart place. Take away that which is continual. Set up the abomination that lays waste, flatters, and etc etc. Keep those two things in mind as well as the third thing that the people who know their Elohim shall be strong and shall act. You take nothing else in your notes. Write down those three points and remember that as we go through the rest of this particular teaching. At the beginning of the Seleucid Empire, you had pretty much Seucus Nictor. And if you look on the screen here, there’s the lineage that we’re going to be talking about this evening that’s relevant to our discussion this evening. You start out with Seusius Nicore. That’s where the whole title of Seucid Empire comes from. And it goes on down. You then you have Antiochus I s Antakus the second Theos Lucius second Kalanicus etc. etc. until we finally get down to the eighth generation. And this guy is named Anticcus I 4th Epiphies. Keep that name in mind. He’s going to be a key player in the story of Hanukkah. But talking about Antiochus, the fourth Epiphanies, his original name was actually Mithratis, which means given by Mithra. Okay, you’ve probably heard that name before, right? Well, Mithra was the sun god within Mithraism. And he it’s suspected that his birthday was on December 25th, even though it’s not completely proven. We got into that a little bit last time or last week in our discussion on where December 25th for the date of Christmas came from. However, Antakus Ipanes was originally named Mithratis meaning given by Mithra. However, later on in life, he took the name Epiphanies or Antakus IV the fourth Epiphanies and Epiphanies means God manifest. Yep. It gets worse. That’s just the beginning of it. He was the first seleucid king to actually use divine designations on coins. And we’ll get to that in just a minute. We’ll actually show you one of the coins from Antiochus IV and what it has written on it. He was the first of the Seleucid kings to enforce helenization violently. Now, keep this in mind. A lot of times before this, the people or the kings would go in, they would conquer an area, but they wouldn’t be really that violent and militant about enforcing customs and culture. They pretty much just said, you know, pay your taxes, give the men for the army, keep the peace, and we’re good with everything else. So, you got to keep your customs, your culture, your religion, and stuff like that. But Antiochus IVth, when he comes on the scene, he says, “No, you’re going to do like me. You’re going to worship the gods that I worship. You’re going to do the religious things that I do. You’re I’m going to make you do it.” If this happens to be or sound familiar, it really should because this is not the first time it’s happened. It’s not the last time it’s happened. In fact, there’s a little lesser known edict by the edict of Thessalonica that happened in 380 that comes to my mind right now. I wonder if anyone else catches or catches on to that. But he told everyone in his empire that they were going to be Greeks. They were going to be pagans with all the various gods and goddesses and mysticism and stuff like that. and they were going to do these pagan things in pagan ways and reject their own customs that they already had. This didn’t go over well with a lot of people, but we’ll get to that in just a moment. Antakus was also referred to by some of his contemporaries as Epimenes. You get the word play there, Epiphanies. And Epimenes, and Epimenies means the mad one. and he might have been particularly crazy and nuts according to his time. However, he didn’t hold a candle to Caligula who come later on. But not to get off on a tangent. Anyways, his contemporaries, people that lived during the same time as he and had the same station as emperor high ranking and whatnot, they called him the mad one, Epimeny. But here’s a coin of Antiochus IV, Epiphanies. And you can see here on the backside the tails I guess you would call it there is an inscription there in Greek and it reads theos epiphany and what that actually means is god manifest. Now again he is a pagan and he’s got many gods. So which particular god he’s considering to be manifest we don’t really know. It might have been Mithra, whatever. But Antiochus, Epiphanies, Epiphanies meaning God manifest. And he even has that on his coins. So that’s a little bit about the backstory, some of the prophecy from Daniel that lines up with what we’re talking about tonight. And we’re also talking about the main antagonist of the Hanukkah story. So you know who he is. Got the prophecy, the main antagonist.
The Hanukkah Story
Now, let’s get into the actual Hanukkah story itself. And the Hanukkah story, if you look in your Bible, especially a Protestant cannon, you won’t find it because it’s not there. In fact, the Hanukkah story comes from a book called First Maccabees. And first Maccabees is not in the traditional Protestant cannon. It’s a part of what we call the Apocrypha or the uh what is it? The deutero cannon as some people call it. Some people, some groups and demographics have that in their particular cannon, but not most Protestants that I know of. The Roman Catholics have the Apocrypha in their particular cannon, including first and second Maccabees. Other people have all four books of the Maccabees. Others have three books of the Maccabees. So, it just all depends on who you’re talking about. But my background is from a mainstream Protestant background. So I’m used to the Protestant cannon of the Bible which does not include Maccabees. Just so you know, Maccabees is part of the Apocrypha. It’s not in the Bible, which means it is not scripture. Now, we can get into a whole discussion on whether it should or should not be in the Bible, but just let it be known as it stands right now. It is not in the standard Protestant cannon of the Bible. We start reading in 1 Maccabees 1:es 20- 24. And Antiochus after that he had smitten Egypt returned in the 140 and 3rd year and went up against Israel and Jerusalem with a great multitude and entered presumptuously into the sanctuary and took the golden altar and the candlestick of the light and all that pertained thereto. and the table of the shoebre and the cups to pour with all and the bowls and the golden sensors and the veil and the crowns and the adorning of gold which was on the face of the temple. And he scaled it all off. And he took the silver and the gold and the precious vessels. And he took the hidden treasures which he found. And when he had taken all, he went away into his own land. And he made a great slaughter and spake very presumptuously. So Antiochus comes in and he makes just a complete desecration of the temple. He takes the menorah. He takes the table of the shoebread. He takes the golden altar, the decorations that’s on the outside and he just carries it all off presumably to put in his treasury to enrich his own pocket, etc., etc. But it actually gets worse than that. That’s that’s horrible so far. But the desecration doesn’t stop there. It gets even worse. In fact, it was against the law according to this regime to have a Torah or even keep Torah in the various things within it. We look at 1 Maccabees 1 41-43. And King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people and that each should forsake his own laws. And all the nations agreed according to the word of the king. And many of Israel consented to his worship and sacrificed to the idols and profaned the Sabbath. So some of the Judeans actually went along with this order. They went along with worshiping the pagan gods. They went along with not honoring and keeping the Sabbath. They kept other days like the first day or the third day, etc., etc., but they didn’t keep the Sabbath of Yahweh. They did all these horrible things that these Seleucids and Antiochus the fourth were telling them to do, even though they were pagan things completely contradictory to scripture and pretty much saved their own skins. Because during that time, if you did not go along with the regime, if you did not go along with those in power, your life really could be in danger. You could be killed. So, it’s it’s getting worse and it still gets worse even after all this. So, stay tuned. We’re not done yet. We read in 1 Maccabees chapter 1:es 54- 57. And on the 15th day of Kislev, in the 140 and fifth year, they builded an abomination of desolation upon the altar. And in the cities of Judah, on every side they builded idol altars. And at the doors of the houses, and in the streets they burnt incense. And they rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, and set them on fire. And wheresoever was found with any a book of the covenant, and if any consented to the to the law, the king’s sentence delivered him to death. And as you look all throughout scripture, it’s the unrighteous, it’s the pagans, it’s the heathens, it’s the Gentiles that constantly keep coming against the Torah, against scripture, against Shabbat, and all this other stuff. And they’re trying to get rid of it. And they try to get rid of it through force like with Antiochus. They try to get rid of it through mingling these pagan gentile ways, but they just can’t do it. It keeps on going. And this has a lot of relevance and a lot of connections with what’s going on today and has been going on for the past 1700 years or so. But here, you know, the people who had the Torah, if they were found with it, they the Torah would be ripped up. They would be burnt and even some of the people would be killed simply for having a Torah or studying or following the Torah. And then we go on to read in 1 Maccabees 1:es 59-63. Check, pay attention right here. Check this out. And on the 5 and 20th day of the month, they, meaning the Greeks, sacrificed upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of God, and the women that had circumcised their children, they put to death according to the commandment. And they hanged their babes about their necks, and destroyed their houses, and had them and them that had circumcised them. And many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat unclean things. and they chose to die that they might not be defiled with the meats and that they might not profane the holy covenant and they died. So these mothers who bore children and they they bore males, they bore sons, they of course according to scripture they loved Yahweh and they wanted to be obedient. So they circumcised their sons and for doing that these children were killed. these mothers were killed and some of these young children that were killed they the Greeks would take and hang the dead bodies around the necks of the mothers and it’s I mean I told you it gets gruesome and it there’s there’s lots of horrid accounts like that during this whole situation of the Greeks and especially Antiochus taking over and controlling militantly violently their helenization of the people they’ve conquered And it’s absolutely horrid. Now some of the people as you can see here they did not conform. They did not comply with these order from the Salucid from Antiochus. And because they did not comply yes they were obedient to Yahweh and they showed their love for Yahweh by doing what he told them to do but it got them killed by Antiochus. Now, I’m confident they would be will be rewarded in the kingdom to come. But here on earth, by not complying with the king and instead following Yahweh, they became martyrs. And thank God for them. And thank God for the people like that that still exist today. We don’t really know everything that we would do in certain situations like that. And hopefully we never have to find out. But we do know that people back then stood up. They kept the right path and they died because of it. But not everyone did that. In fact, some people they went along with the as we read earlier, they went along with this whole command by the Greeks to do these hellenized things, these pagan ways and sacrifice on pagan altars. And some of the Judeans even uncircumcised themselves. I am no doctor. I am no physician, a nurse or anything like that. I have zero idea how it is that you undo a circumcision, but apparently there was some of those that did during this time. And the Greeks went even so far as to do horrid, despicable things within the temple itself. Here you can see a picture of what is going on because they actually sacrificed a pig upon the altar inside the temple desecrating the holy place. We read in 1 Maccabees 1:es 13-15. And certain of the Judeans were forward herein and went to the king, and he gave them license to do after the ordinances of the Gentiles. And they built a place of exercise in Jerusalem according to the laws of the Gentiles. And they made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the Gentiles, and sold themselves to do evil. So in the in the British in the aka New Testament there is a certain passage that says we are to be in the world but not of the world. Now these particular Judans that they’re talking about here they were making themselves of the world that where you could not tell the difference between them and the Greeks according to what they do, what they eat, what they say, where they worship etc etc. So they forsook Yahweh. They forsook the law and I’m I guarantee it will not work out well for them in the end. So some people during this time and throughout all of history in every point in time did not have the final fortitude to stand up against such things and they just went along with the program. In fact the apostle Paul in the Brites warns us about doing such things as this. He says in 2 Peter 3:17, “You then, beloved ones, being foreworned, watch lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away by the delusion of the lawless, referring to those who do not have the law of Yahweh, referring to those who do not follow the Torah of Yahweh, etc., etc.” Antiochus IVth and these Greeks did not have the Torah of Yahweh. They did not follow the Torah of Yahweh. And we can see some of the repercussions of them coming in and taking over the area of Jerusalem and Israel in general. But going on, we have now the setup and the background and what was going on with Hanukkah. And eventually, even if you know very little about Hanukkah, this is about a revolt and a revolution that came about and freed the Judeans from the grasp of these Greeks. And the revolt, the revolution, if you want to call it, starts in chapter 2 of First Maccabees. Read in 1 Mabes chapter 2 17-2. And the king’s officers answered and spoke to Metathias, saying, Thou art a ruler, and an honorable and great man in this city, and strengthened with sons and brethren. Now therefore, come thou first, and do the commandment of the king, as all the nations have done, and the men of Judah, and they that remain in Jerusalem, and thou and thy house shall be in the number of the king’s friends, and thou and thy sons shall be honored with silver and gold, and many gifts. And Metathias answered and said with a loud voice, “If all the nations that are in the house of the king’s dominion, hearken unto him to fall away each one from the worship of his fathers and have made choice to follow his commandments. Yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers. Heaven forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances. We will not hearken to the king’s words to go aside from our worship on the right hand or on the left. And when he had left speaking these words, there came a Jew in the sight of all to sacrifice on the altar which was at Moden according to the king’s commandment. And Matathias saw it, and his zeal was kindled, and his reigns trembled, and he shued forth his wrath according to judgment, and ran and slew him upon the altar. and the king’s officer who compelled men to sacrifice, he killed at that time and pulled down the altar. So, Madathias is one of the protagonists of the Hanukkah story. And here, one of Antiochus’s soldiers, generals, or officers is really flattering or trying to butter up Matathias. He sees that Matathias is some sort of leader in his own right and he’s trying to butter him up saying he’ll have all this wealth. He’ll be friends with the king. He’ll have, you know, good connections, good networking, and it’ll be good for him. He’ll have all these benefits, but Matathias may have none of it. He says, “Nope. Even if everyone else does it, me and mine will follow and be obedient to Yahweh regardless of what the king says or what the king’s commandment is. And no sooner than he gets done saying that, or at least that’s the way it’s laid out in this particular translation, no sooner than he gets done saying that than one of the his fellow Judeans comes to do a sacrifice on the pagan altar. And this enrages Matathias. And so he goes off in his anger toward his passion for being righteous. And he kills this Judean that was doing this pagan sacrifice. And he doesn’t stop there. He goes on to tear down the pagan altar and to kill Antiochus as his officer. And that begins the revolt and the the Makabian revolt, the story of Hanukkah. And they go on from that time to eventually defeat the Greeks that are occupying Israel during that period. And it’s very miraculous. And this is the the true miracle anyways, the verified miracle of Hanukkah. The people that were revolting against the Greeks were very small in number. They did not have the latest weapons and armor and all that stuff. And they didn’t have the manpower, the numbers that the Greeks did. But they still came out and won. And this is all due to the grace and the power and the might of Yahweh looking down upon his people and helping them out. Regardless of the number of the enemy, it does not matter. When Yahweh is on your side and you are obedient and doing righteous things the way Yahweh wants us to do them, Yahweh will be on your side. And Hanukkah is a wonderful story about just that, about the power and the majesty of Yahweh delivering his faithful and righteous people. It’s absolutely amazing. But Hanukkah isn’t just left back in the book of Maccabees.
Yeshua & Hanukkah
Hanukkah actually has connections to the Brick Hades and Yeshua himself. Let’s look at that real quick. There are, like I said, connections and more than just one, even though we’ve only got just one section in the hot shop. So stay with me during this. We look at John 10:es 22- 23. At that time, the Hanukkah came to be in Jerusalem, and it was winter, and Yeshua was walking in the set apart place in the porch of Shelomo. Now in various different translations this word is spelled and translated in different ways. In the King James version in the English standard version it has at that time the dedication came to be in Jerusalem or Jerusalem. In the scriptures 2009 which I just read to you in the tree of life version and others it has the word Hanukkah. At that time the Hanukkah came to be in Jerusalem. In the Goodspeed translation, 20th century translation etc etc. It has the word rededication. At that time the rededication came to be in Jerusalem. And finally in the Ethridge translation it has renovation. At that time the renovation came to be in Jerusalem. But it’s all hearkening back to this feast day of Hanukkah. And Hanukkah actually means dedication or in this context more accurately rededication. So the word Hanukkah or rededication at least in my opinion and what education I’ve got, Hanukkah or rededication would actually be the more accurate terms to use for this particular feast day. Anyways, we see here this word Hanukkah and is Strong’s number G1456 if that’s something you’re interested in. And amazingly enough, this is the only time in all of the Brithhates that this word, this Greek word is used. We’ll get to that in just a minute. I’ve actually looked that up and put it up here for you and I’ll show that to you from the concordances and dictionaries here in just a moment. But some points and things to think about and consider as far as Hanukkah and Yeshua relate to each other. Number one, you see Yeshua here at the temple at on the porch of Solomon during the time of Hanukkah. Well, why is that important? Does that mean that Yeshua was keeping and observing and celebrating Hanukkah? Well, most likely yes. More than likely it does. Think about it. If Yeshua, when you read through the brhadeshot, Yeshua is most of the time out in the countryside. He’s in the fields with his disciples and they’re picking wheat and irritating the Jews or the Pharisees rather. And he’s on hilltops giving sermons. He’s on mountain sides giving sermons. He’s on boats with fishermen or on the seashore. He’s he’s out and about preaching, healing, and all this other stuff. That’s where he spends most of his time. So when he comes in to Jerusalem, comes into the temple, it’s usually for special occasions. He comes in for Passover like we saw or yeah, we see with his crucifixion during the time of his death as well as other times as well. So he comes in for the high days like the moadeem. And he can see here he comes in for a feast day like Hanukkah. So he made a special effort to break away from the normal and to come up to the temple at this particular time. And I think this in my opinion he did this because he was celebrating Hanukkah. We know that Hanukkah during this time was being celebrated by the Judeans of that era. So it would be something that Yeshua would have known about and that he would have come into contact with. And during his three and a half years of ministry that was described in the Hadesa, we never see Yeshua speaking out against it. And Yeshua had zero qualms about setting the Pharisees straight or the Sadducees even or whoever it was. He had no issues setting them straight and telling them a lot of times it usually hinged around them and their traditions and the traditions of their elders and etc etc. And a lot of people say nowadays that Hanukkah is just a tradition of Judaism, stuff like that. But Yahweh or Yeshua did not set them straight on Hanukkah. And he was there at the temple on a special occasion that was Hanukkah. He didn’t say anything about it setting them straight. So, we can take that into account as well. And there’s there’s a lot of things that go into it. Yes, the scriptures does not specifically say that Yeshua celebrated Hanukkah, but we can get all the information together and it’s all circumstantial. I agree. But all this information put together in at least my mind leads to the conclusion that yes, Yeshua did celebrate and attend Hanukkah celebrations. But for my other nerds out there like myself, here is that word that is used in John that is Strong’s G1456 as Strong’s G1456. And it is pronounced hopefully I get this right eena. Ekyenia. I’m not even gonna try it again because it’s probably butchered. But in the outline of biblical usage, again, it’s only occurs one place in scripture. But in the outline of biblical usage, it has it defined as dedication or consecration, specifically the annual feast celebrated 8 days instituted by Judas Maccabees in memory of the cleansing of the temple. Strong’s strongs definition has it as renewal of religious services after the antiocan interruption dedication’s Greek lexicon has it defined as dedication consecration in particular an annual feast celebrated 8 days instituted by Judas Maccabees in memory of the cleansing of the temple from the pollutions of Antiochus Epiphanies. This one word relating to all that is only used one time in all of the brhades. Went on looking at the Greek English lexicon of the New Testament. It has it defined as festival commemorating the red rededication of the temple in the time of Judas Makabas. The festival of dedication of the temple and the bag which is you know pretty pretty well renowned amongst especially seminary students. Vag has it defined as festival of rededication also known as Hanukkah and the feast of lights to commemorate the purification and rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabees. This one word it doesn’t mean just simply dedication. It doesn’t mean you know simply wintertime something general like that. No, it means something specific and it means specifically the feast or the festival of Hanukkah. Now, there’s a certain prophetic connection between Hanukkah, Yeshua, and the end times as well. We can see that in the end times, for those of you who know anything about eschatology, and I’m no eschatology buff. That’s something that’s never drew my interest, but there’s a little bit I know. And you’re like me, you know these basic things right here. Number one, the Antichrist will come forth and we will see and face great tribulations. It does tell us that. And this relates to Hanukkah because the Judeans during the time of the occupation of the Greeks suffered great tribulations. In the end times, Yeshua from the tribe of Judah will defeat the Antichrist. Not only will is Yeshua from the tribe of Judah, but he’s also from the southern kingdom of Judea. And who is the people group associated with the story of Hanukkah? It’s the southern kingdom of Judea, the Judeans. And Yeshua from the tribe of Judea will defeat the antichrist in the end time just like the Judeans during the story of Hanukkah defeated the the antichrist of their time which was Anticus IV epiphanies. The new temple the new earth and new Jerusalem will be dedicated. And what does Hanukkah mean? It means dedication or rededication. See how that’s all coming together? How those connections are being made? So keep all that in mind, meditate on it, think about it. It’s really at least I find it kind of neat and interesting. So hopefully that’s some information that maybe you hadn’t thought of before, but now you have it in front of you. And if you have any more possible connections between Yeshua and Hanukkah and the end times, by all means, please send that to us. Put it down in the comments. find some way of getting it to us so we can add it to our notes and so that other people will be enlightened and educated even further in their walk and we all grow together. Iron sharpening iron. So send it to us if you have any other information to add.
Some Things To Note
Now some things to note as we can take all this into account and think about it. Number one, the there are some people out there and just just in general, no one specifically, but there are some people out there who say that the story of Hanukkah didn’t actually happen. So, did the story of Hanukkah really happen? Let’s look at 1 Maccabees 4 56 and 59. And they kept the dedication of the altar eight days and offered burnt offerings with gladness and sacrificed a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. And Judas and his brethren and the whole congregation of Israel ordained that the days of the dedication of the altar should be kept in their seasons from year to year by the space of 8 days from the five and 20th day of the month Kislev with gladness and joy. One of the things they point to to say that Hanukkah didn’t actually happen or the story in the book of Makabes didn’t actually happen is that the book of Maccabees never relates the story of the oil lasting for 8 days. And you don’t get that. You look in the book of first Maccabees, you look in the book of second Maccabees even and you do not get the story of the oil lasting for eight days. Now, we’ll talk about that in just a minute. But another aspect is that they say it didn’t happen, but we know historically it actually did happen. We have external sources that come up and back that up, which I should have put in here, but I did not. I do apologize for that. We have external evidence to verify that this actually did happen. Now you can give your varian reasons as to why they eventually ended up winning over against the Greeks and a superior force with superior technology and warfare and all this other stuff. You can give reasons of your own for why that actually happened. But we do know that it did happen. The Judeans overthrew the occupation by the Greeks. So that’s historically speaking, we know it actually did happen. But speaking of the oil, even well like we said in first and second Maccabees, you don’t get the story of the oil. And even with the recounting of Josephus, we don’t get the story of the oil. We look at Josephus and his writings the Jewish war. Quote, “Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon, but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices, and honored God, and delighted them by hymns and psalms. Nate, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs when after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of their worship that they made it a law for their posterity that they should keep a festival on account of the restoration of their temple worship for 8 days. And from that time to this, we celebrate this festival and call it lights. I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us and that thence was the name given to the festival. End quote. So we see from Josephus that Judas Maccabees instituted this feast of Hanukkah, this festival of Hanukkah. And he Judas I’m sorry, Josephus also refers to it as the festival of lights. But he doesn’t say it’s called the festival of lights because of the miracle of oil. No, he says that it was he supposes the reason was because their liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us and then the name was given to that festival. Beyond all their hopes they won and that’s why it’s called the festival of lights according to Josephus. So we’ve got we read in first Maccabees, we read in Josephus, and we know that the festival of Hanukkah lasts for 8 days, but we’ve also saw seen no evidence for this story of the oil that lasted for 8 days. So why if it’s not because of the miracle of oil, why is the festival of Hanukkah 8 days? Then we can actually find a clue to that in the book of second Maccabees. We look in 2 Maccabees 10:es 5-8. Now pay attention to this and see if you catch it. Now on the same day that the sanctuary was profained by aliens, upon that very day did it come to pass that the cleansing of the sanctuary was made, even on the 5 and 20th day of the same month, which is Kislev. And they kept eight days with gladness in the manner of the feast of tabernacles, remembering how that not long before during the feast of tabernacles, they were wandering in the mountains and in the caves after the manner of wild beasts. Wherefore bearing wands wreathed with leaves and fair bows and palms also they offered up hymns of thanksgiving to him that had prosperously brought to pass the cleansing of his own place. They ordained also with a common statute and decree and decree for all the nation of the Judeans that they should keep these days every year. End quote. So according to second Maccabees, the reason that Hanukkah lasts for 8 days is because of the feast of tabernacles soot. And how long does that last? We know it lasts for seven days with a great day, the eighth day being the last day. So the festival or the feast of Sukkot, the sorry the feast of tabernacles or Sukkot lasts for eight days and they modeled Hanukkah after that because they hadn’t got to celebrate it properly during the time that they were in the wilderness hiding and fighting against the Greeks. So instead when they rededicated the temple they did 8 days after the manner of Sakote. And that’s the real reason why Hanukkah lasts for 8 days. The story of the oil doesn’t come in until much much later. In fact, the story, the first evidence we have of the story of the miracle of the oil doesn’t even come into existence until about the second century of the common era. We read in the scroll of Antiochus, and this is not Antiochus IV. This is just the name given to the scroll. And we read in the scroll of Antiochus which was probably written about the second century of the common era. Quote and they sought pure olive oil with which to light the menorah. But they found only one little vessel sealed with the seal of the high priest and they knew it to be pure and it contained but sufficient oil for one day. But the God of heaven who caused his presence to dwell in the sanctuary gave his blessing and it sufficed to light the menorah 8 days. Therefore did the sons of the Hashmoni together with the Israelites ordain that these eight days be ever celebrated as days of joy and feasting along with the festivals ordained in the Torah. That candles be lit to commemorate the victory they achieved through the God of heaven that it be forbidden to mourn or to decree a fast day during this period except such as may have been established previously. And it was further ordained to pray and thank God. end quote. This is the first evidence that we get of the miracle of the oil. But does it really matter? I mean, it’s not something extraordinary like people flying around without the use of wings or chopped up kids coming back to life by some saint. And yeah, that was a past episode, by the way. No, it’s nothing like that. I mean, we read in scripture, you have all these great miracles of Yahweh that happened. You have the plagues of Egypt that happened. You have the parting of the Red Sea. You, etc., etc. You have all these other great and wonderful and miraculous things that happen. How big of a stretch would it be for oil to last for 8 days? It wouldn’t. That’s nothing in comparison to some of the other miracles that have been wrought by Yahweh. So there’s no reason to say that it couldn’t have happened, but there’s no actual evidence to show that it did happen. We don’t have it from the books of Maccabees. We don’t have it from the writings of Josephus. So it’s not a big stretch. We just don’t have evidence that it actually did happen. However, there’s a lot of things that come about because of that. We have the lighting of the candles supposedly in commemoration of the oil that lasted in the menorah for 8 days. We also have fried foods. Yay. Here in southern America, that’s something that we like. We like fried stuff. So, that’s good in our book. And uh that’s where the theme of fried foods comes from during Hanukkah is because of this miracle of the oil. So there’s all of that in a nutshell as far as where the oil story comes from and the actual story of Hanukkah, etc., etc. Some things to consider though real quick as you start thinking about where Hanukkah comes from. Comes not from a book of the Bible, but actually comes from a book in the Apocrypha. And it actually did happen as a true story. It’s a celebration of the power and majesty and protection of Yahweh over those who are obedient and righteous. So when you take all this into account and you start thinking and you one of the questions you come up with is is it wrong to celebrate Hanukkah or should we celebrate Hanukkah? And when thinking about this in pretty much any tradition or holiday in general, we need to ask ourselves, does it come from the Bible? Does it go against the Bible? Does it come from paganism? Those three questions will generally lead you to a good Well, hopefully you make the right decision, but asking those three questions will give you a good place to head toward and come from. But with Hanukkah, does it come from the Bible? Well, not really. It comes from the Apocrypha, right? Does it go against the Bible? No. There’s nothing about Hanukkah that would contradict the teachings of the Bible. There’s nothing in the Bible that says, “Do not celebrate Hanukkah.” And number three, does it come from paganism? No. Hanukkah comes from a battle against paganism, actually, and a celebration of the power and might of Yahweh. So there’s nothing there that would exclude it. It doesn’t come from the Bible, but it doesn’t go against the Bible and it does not come from pagan sources. So take all that into account when you’re thinking, is it wrong to celebrate Hanukkah or should we as a family, your family, celebrate Hanukkah? And also something else to ask, how is celebrating Hanukkah different from celebrating Christmas and Easter? I mean, Christmas and Easter aren’t really in the Bible. A lot of people say they are, but they’re not, except for some aspects of Christmas. So, how is Hanukkah and celebration of Hanukkah any different than celebrating Christmas and Easter? Well, number one, Christmas and Easter, like Hanukkah, don’t come from scripture. Okay, so they got all that in common. Number two, Hanukkah, does it go against scripture? Well, Hanukkah doesn’t go against the Bible. Doesn’t go against the commandments of scripture, but Christmas and Easter do because of their origin and the things they stand for and the meaning behind them and the people who created them and all this other stuff. And third question, does it come from paganism? Hanukkah does not, but Christmas and Easter do. In fact, we’re in the middle of a series right now on God honest truth teaching channel about the Christmas in detail series. But Christmas Easter come from paganism. However, Hanukkah does not. So that is how celebrating Hanukkah is different than celebrating Christmas and Easter. But keep all things even. Got to keep Hanukkah non-pagan. Do not institute or implement a Hanukkah bush. There’s nothing about shrubbery in the story of Hanukkah. There’s and shrubbery has nothing to do with Hanukkah. In fact, this whole use of trees and shrubs in religious worship is dendrolatry and it comes from paganism. In fact, we did an entire episode on dendrolatry way back at the beginning of our Christmas and detail series. So, go check that out if you like more information. So, no Hanukkah bushes. But other than that, long as it a practice that doesn’t come from paganism, yeah, Hanukkah is wonderful and great. We do it every single year. The kids absolutely love it. They love playing dreidel and the story behind it and all this other great stuff. So, yeah, but decide for yourself because like we said, Hanukkah does not come from the Bible, does not come from scripture. So, it’s not commanded. You’re not obliged to keep it or celebrate it. However, it’s not wrong if you do. So, keep all that in mind, too. Something interesting to consider as we are on the subject of Hanukkah. Number one, Hanukkah is called the festival of lights that we went over earlier. We saw that with the writings of Josephus even back in the first century. Hanukkah is on the 25th day of Kisla. So, keep that in mind. The 25th word of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, you look in the Hebrew manuscripts in the book of Genesis and you count out the word 25, the 25th word of the Hebrew Bible is light. Yeshua himself, as we know in the Brhadesha, refers to himself as the light of the world. In John 8:12, therefore Yeshua spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall by no means walk in darkness, but possess the light of life. So Yeshua is the light of the world. Hanukkah is the festival of lights. There’s all kinds of connections going on there. Much more numerous connections, much more strong connections than the connections between Christmas and Yeshua. Had to throw that in there.
Celebration
So now you’ve learned the the backstory, the prophetic connections. You’ve heard the information from the book of Daniel. You went over the story of Hanukkah and some of the history and stuff like that. And you’re thinking, “Okay, this sounds interesting. But if I wanted to celebrate it, brother, how would I celebrate Hanukkah this year with me and mine, my family?” Well, I’m glad you asked. Number one, the regular menorah like goes in the temple or like most people have on their mantle or on their table, stuff like that is a seven branch menorah. You have one in the center and you have six that come out on the side. And if you’re watching the video, the menorah that’s on the very far left, that is a regular typical menorah. For the feast or festival of Hanukkah, they actually have a nine branch menorah. And well, it’s not actually a menorah, but it’s a candalabra. It’s a candle holder that looks very similar to a menorah, but it’s actually called a Hanukkah. And unfortunately, people mistake these for the same thing and they’ll call a Hanukkah a menorah when it’s actually not accurate. Um, anyways, you can see here in the center you have a Hanukkah and then there on the right in the little video is a Hanukkah as well. You have one in the center and that’s called the shamsh that lights the rest of the candles and then you have four on either side. So it’s a total of nine all together. And the way it works is you light the center candle and you take that center candle and you light a set number of candles each and every night. The way we do it is we do it in an increasing number. So you light one candle for a total of two on the first night and then you keep on going and the second night you light two candles for a total of three. Remember you’re including the shamos here and then on the third night you’re including you’re lighting three candles for a total of four. So on and so forth until you get all the candles lit up. if you’re looking from outside the window. And a lot of people, and we do the same thing, a lot of people, they’ll put their Hanakia in a window for the whole world to see. So, as you drive by our house, every single night of Hanukkah, you’ll be able to see a growing brightness with our Haneka. And this is like the growing brightness of Yahweh’s word and his people and the spread of well, you get the idea. But it’s a growing light. Now, other people have other customs. They’ll start with lighting all the candles on the first night and then working their way down. The reasoning behind that, I don’t really know. I haven’t got that far into it, but just know that some people do things differently. We go in increasing light, and I think that’s pretty standard. Anyways, but there’s also a little game that uses a top called dreidel, and my kids absolutely love playing Dreel. However, if you’re watching on video, you can see here on your screen, you have some examples of what various dreidels look like. You can go extremely fancy or you can get very basic. It just all depends. And the way this works is you use traditionally what’s called gel. And this is little chocolate coins wrapped in some kind of gold or silver foil wrapping. and you take your gel. Each player takes their gel and they put some in the middle in the pot and you spin the dreidel. Each player takes a turn spinning the dreidels. If it lands on a noon, then you do nothing. You get nothing, you do nothing. It just goes on the next player. You land on a gimmel, you get everything in the pot. And then everybody puts another piece back in to resupply the pot. If it lands on a hay when on your span, you get half of the pot. But if you land on a shin or a sheen, you put one in the middle. Put one in the pot. You increase the pot. You take away from your stash. So it’s noon, gimmel, hay, and sheen. Noon, you get none. It lands on gimmel, you get all. Lands on hay, you get half. Lands on shin, you put one in. It’s always how I remember it. Just a little bit of a backstory to the dreidel. There’s a a myth that’s going around or has been going around for a while that during the time of the oppression of the Greeks and Antiochus that people were forbidden to have a Torah or live out Torah or teach or study Torah, stuff like that. So they come up with this dreidel and they would spin it around and to the Greeks it would just look like a simple little game but they were actually learning to that way. However, that story is not true at all. The whole game of dreidel doesn’t come about until I want to say the Middle Ages up in Europe in Germany. And it was actually adopted from the secular culture around them. They had a winter game called Trundle. Man, I’ve got to put this actually in the slides if I want to get it right. It was adopted from another custom and eventually they replaced with the four different letters and these four different letters eventually came to stand for a phrase and the phrase is Nescadul Hayasham and that means a great miracle happened there and of course this all came about before the restoration of Israel in the late 40s 1940s and after that it was changed a little And now if you’re in Israel, you don’t say hayasham because that means a great miracle happened there. In fact, you are in Israel. You are there where that great miracle happened. So in that case, you would say nesca do haya po a great miracle happened here. A little bit different but not too bad. Don’t worry about it. You don’t it’s not required to memorize that or know it. That’s just a little bit information on the dreidel. The dreidel game and dreidel itself came about many, many centuries after the events of Hanukkah. So, just keep that in mind. So, now you’ve got the Hanukkah and the difference between a Hanukkah and a menorah. You’ve got the dreidel, how to play that, what it looks like, etc., etc. So, now let’s get into one of the most exciting parts, one something I like really good is the food part of the festival of Hanukkah. And the theme here is fried. Use some kind of oil to fry stuff. Things that are commonly and traditionally eaten eaten at Hanukkah is lockas, which are potato pancakes and those so good. Uh if you’ve never had a lot, you really are to find someone who knows how to make them and have them make them for you because they are outstanding. There’s also something called sufganiyot which is a jellyfilled doughnut. Brisket is commonly had on Hanukkah which is absolutely awesome. Brisk is good anytime in my opinion. There’s matza ball soup which is traditionally eaten. Matza ball soup is good anytime. Lucamades are eaten traditionally at Hanukkah. And of course you’re going to have a feast other than Passover. You’re gonna have hala because hala bread is good any time of the year. And these are just traditional things that are usually eaten during the festival of Hanukkah. But you can come up with your own food, your own menu as it were. But like I said, the general theme of Hanukkah is just fry it. Use oil and fry it. This of course all goes back to the story of the miracle of the oil which we have no evidence actually happened during story of Hanukkah but it’s fun and there’s no reason to really discount it. Just no evidence to actually believe it either. Somewhere in that gray area in the middle I guess. So that is Hanukkah. That is where it came from. The backstory, what it’s all about, how to celebrate it, various food and symbols and customs and all that good stuff.
Summary
So in summary to our teaching tonight about Hanukkah, Hanukkah means dedication or actually more accurately at least in my opinion it means rededication. Hanukkah is not one of the moadeem outlined in the Torah. So it’s not something that you’re obliged to keep or celebrate, but it’s something that you can if you like. It doesn’t go against the Torah. Hanukkah is connected with Daniel’s prophecy like we saw there. We went through that fairly ind depth, but we could always go more in depth if we wanted to. Hanukkah is connected with our Messiah Yeshua. We saw Yeshua celebrating and keeping the feast or festival of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is connected also with some of the end times prophecies that and things that will happen in the end times that we saw there with the antichrist and the abomination of desolation etc etc. Antiochus the fourth Epiphanies. Some of the things we saw with that, we didn’t really point it out specifically, but Antiochus in the story of Hanukkah is actually a foreshadowing or a fortype of the Antichrist that will be coming in the end time. Hanukkah remembers and celebrates the amazing and awesome power of Yahweh. So even though it’s not in the Bible, it’s still a great example and a great celebration of the grace and mercy and power of Yahweh delivering his people. And Hanukkah, at least in my opinion, and many others too, Hanukkah is still for us today. the lessons and the morals that we can learn from that and the prophetic connections even the celebration and the wonderful fried food all of that is still for us today and that is just the God honest truth. So thank you for joining us for this particular teaching. We hope that you did get something out of it. We hope that you learned something new or if we happen to forget anything, make sure to send that to us so that we can get it out to everyone else, include it in our notes and we can all grow in our education, in our walk. So, send that on to us. We hope that you did get something out of this particular teaching. If you did, make sure to hit that thumbs up button. If you didn’t like it, hit the thumbs down button, but leave us a comment down below and let us know why so that we can improve future episodes. Make sure you hit that subscribe button and ring the bell so that you’re notified every time that we go live or upload a new on demand video. Make sure you leave us a comment down below. Let us know what the one thing about the teaching that stuck out in your mind is. And also hit that share button and share this around with someone that you may know because someone in your inner circle is also going to enjoy the same kind of content. Also just want to remind everyone real quick to go down in the description and click on the link that will take you to the article post on our website which will have the on demand video, the slides that we use for the draw, the notes that we took for this particular episode and also the transcript. All that available to you for free on our website. Thank you for joining us for another production from God Honest Truth Ministries. We really do appreciate your time and hope that we have been of service to you. If you have any feedback, then please reach out to us by writing to team at godhonesttruth.com. And make sure to visit our website for more information on our social media links, audio bibles, teaching resources, and so much more.
