 |
| C e n t e r f o r M e s s i a n i c J u d a i s m |
| " say to the daughter of Zion ... behold your Yeshua (Jesus) " Isaiah 62 : 11 |
“Let everyone who has zeal for the Torah
and stands by the covenant follow me !”
- words of the priest and hero of the Hanukkah story - Mattathias
- 2 Maccabees 2:27
God Arranges History -
Now You Have to Answer His Question
by Abraham E. Sandler
God Has Spoken
“Has God said…?” ... these are the very first words uttered by the snake, the Devil, to mankind. This question has
challenged man from the beginning.
God knew there would be a constant war within humankind - would we believe Him, or not? Those courageous
enough to take an honest look at history can not deny that God has spoken. The continued existence of the Jewish
people is proof God has spoken. The warnings of the Jewish prophets concerning Israel and the nations - fulfilled
exactly as spoken - are also proof. The Hand of God shaping the course of human events is one way the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has proven Himself.
Satan’s question is partly based on a true premise, and partly a false one. Of course the Father of Lies would
engage in the greatest deception - mixing truth and falsehood. The truth in the premise is that God has indeed
spoken. But although Satan asks Eve if God has said a particular thing, the first three words “Has God said…”
challenges even the very idea that there is a God who has spoken to us.
God, however, working in the realm of truth, approaches humankind from the starting point that He has indeed
spoken. Thus the question God asks is different.
God asks, “Are you going to listen to Me, or to some other voice?”
Daniel, universally regarded as a true prophet of the One True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, spoke God’s
Word in detail about the kingdoms that would rise and fall on the Earth. He spoke in detail about Hanukkah. I
think one can also see how he spoke of Yeshua and the judgment to come.
Shortly after the time of Yeshua (Jesus), a letter was written to many of the Jewish believers in Yeshua by one of
Yeshua’s first disciples. This letter begins with the same issue from the beginning of Genesis … God has spoken…
will you listen? It says, “God has spoken in various times and various ways to our forefathers by the prophets.
Now He has spoken to us through His Son [Yeshua].”
Listen to the Jewish prophet Daniel, and consider whether he spoke of Hanukkah, Yeshua, and the judgment to
come.
Listening = Goodness and Life, Ignoring God = Evil and Death
In the past few months I’ve been getting back to keeping a Biblical Jewish tradition - the wearing of “fringes” on
your clothes. In Numbers 15:37-41 God commands the “sons of Israel” to put fringes on the corners of the their
clothing to remind themselves that God has spoken and one ought to listen to and obey God, rather than heed our
own hearts (that have a tendency to lead us away from God and His ways.) Seeing the fringes reminds us to make
the right choice… to listen to God. What God speaks - His Word - is Life Itself !
Thus, in Deuteronomy 30, as the fifth and final book of the Torah draws towards a close, God pleads with Israel
saying, “I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life … that you may obey His voice … for He is
your life.(vs. 19-20)” If Israel obeyed “the voice of the Lord(v10)” God promised to short-circuit the evil intentions
of Israel’s enemies (v. 7) and to make Israel prosper in the land He was giving them(v.16), give them abundant
harvest of livestock and produce(v. 9), and they would live in the favor of their God rejoicing over them (v.9).
If Israel refused to listen to God, if they chose to “not hear [God], … and worship other ‘gods’ and serve them(v.
17),” Isarel would not live long and well in the land God gave them (v. 18), and they live under God’s curse(v.19), a
life filled with evil (v.15).
Throughout the rest of Israel’s history … the Bible tells of Israel’s struggle to remember the voice of the Lord that
gives life. Sadly, all too often the people of Israel chose to not listen to God and His Word, and listened instead to
false prophets and evil kings, even sinking so low as to lay their infant children out in the fields as an offering to
idols, letting these precious ones die of thirst, hunger and exposure to the elements.
After the Babylonian captivity - 70 years hard punishment for years of neglecting the Voice of the Lord - Israel
began to do better at heeding the voice of the Lord… for awhile.
God Sets the Stage for the Events of Hanukkah
The return of Israel from captivity in Babylon began around 516 B.C.E. (Before the “Common Era” in Jewish
reckoning, or noted as “B.C. - Before Christ” in Christian reckoning). Greece was only just beginning to come on
the world scene. Socrates taught around 469 B.C.E, Aristotle 384 B.C.E. Alexander the Great lead the Greek
armies in conquering most of the known world from 336 - 323 B.C.E.
Alexander brought not only Greek political rule, but the expectation that conquered nations conform to Greek ways
of thinking about life… called “Hellenism.” (In the Greek language, “Hellene” was the word for a person from
Greece. The word “Greek” comes from a Roman/Latin word for people from that area.)
Daniel prophecies - hundreds of years ahead of coming events - with great detail and complete accuracy the
historical stage God sets for the events of Hanukkah. He foretells the rise and fall of the Medes, the Persians, the
Greeks and the Roman Empire, and how each one would affect the Jewish people. In Daniel 8:5,21,22 and Daniel
11:3,4 he describes the “goat” a fast-moving powerful king from the West, from Greece. This is “Alexander the
Great” who conquered most of the known world in just 13 years, racing “across the surface the whole earth without
touching the ground(Dan. 8:5).”
Daniel then foretells how this Greek kingdom will be split into four pieces, but adds the notable detail that it is not
given to Alexander’s heir (Dan. 8:8, 11:4,5). Indeed, Alexander’s newly conquered land was split among his four
generals. Two of these figured prominently in the story of Hanukkah. Ptolemy ruled in the area around Egypt. He
eventually commissioned the great “Library of Alexandria.” One of the books Ptolemy commissioned for this
library was a translation of the Jewish Torah - The Five Books of Moses - translated from Hebrew into Greek.
This translation is known to us as “The Septuagint.” The name means “Seventy.” Supposedly 70 rabbis were
asked to work on this translation of God’s Word into Greek. Ptolemy and his descendants are the “King of the
South” in Daniel 11.
The other of the four kingdoms that finds its way into the Hanukkah story is that of Seleucus. This general under
Alexander took control of areas north of Israel, including Syria. Seleucus and his decendants are the “King of the
North” in Daniel 11. These two kings and their descendants go through centuries of wars and peace deals with
daughters given in marriage as signs of covenants made. The deals are broken; war continues between these two
kingdoms. The events leading up to Hanukkah, from 323 B.C.E. to 170 B.C.E, are clearly described in Daniel 11:1-
20, written hundreds of years before they happen.
What does all this have to do with Israel and the Jewish people? In order for the Seleucids of “the North” (Syria)
to wage war with the king of “the South” (Egypt)… what land do they have to pass through? Israel! For the
Ptolomies to rise up from “the South” to fight with the king of the North, what area do they have to go through?
Israel! For the 150 years before the events of Hanukkah, Greek armies, either drunk on victory or enraged by
defeat repeatedly crisscrossed the Land of Israel. In Daniel 11, he talks of the North, the South and also “the
Glorious Kingdom”… this is Daniel’s term referring to Israel and her people.
Gettysburg was turned into a place of horror in just one season of war during the War Between the States. Imagine
if the Civil War lasted for 150 years. Imagine the Union and Confederate armies passed back and forth through
Gettysburg for a century and a half. Some years Gettysburg controlled by the South. Other years controlled by
the North. If you lived in Gettysburg, if the armed conflict of the Civil War lasted 150 years … how would you
feel? What would your life be like? Terrified by these great armies? Filled with duplicity trying to get along with
both sides? Would you give up on trying to have your own, local government and society? Would you learn the
ways of these Northern and Southern armies, hoping to be enough like them so they would not think of you as the
enemy?
This was the reality of the Israel and the Jewish people from 323 B.C.E to 170 B.C.E.
The Temptation of Temporary Time - The REAL Story of Hanukkah
Throughout the Book of Daniel, repeated image and prophecy tells the story of kingdoms rising and falling…
except one. In Daniel 7:13,14 he sees the “Ancient of Days” giving “an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass
away” to "The Son of Man." The other kings and kingdoms foretold by Daniel last for a time, and then end. NOT
SO for the Kingdom of "The Son of Man" (a term used in Jewish Scripture for The Messiah).
Humankind is faced with a question … will you serve The King who has an “everlasting dominion” or an earthly
king who will soon fall from power?…a temporary king that could trouble, or even torture and end your physical
life, or The King that will determine your fate for Eternity?
To give us a picture of this choice, God set the stage of Hanukkah.
The Seleucid lineage king in Syria - Antiochus - at first triumphed over Egypt. His military successes and advances
by political intrigue (also prophecied by Daniel (8:23,25 & 11:21,23), would lead him to think of himself as “God
made known to man.” Thus, he took on the name “Epiphanes (God Manifest).”
However, a second battle against Egypt did not go as well (also predicted by Daniel (chapter 11, verses 25,29, 30).
The bitterness of this defeat he took out on the hapless Jewish nation. His “god-ness” in question, Antiochus
Epiphanes sought to reassert himself. He sacked The Temple in Jerusalem, setting up an idol (Zeus), destroying
the Jewish altar of sacrifice and making a new one for sacrifices to Zeus. The juices from the pigs (an “unclean”
animal according to the Jewish Scriptures) sacrificed to Zeus were poured over the Jewish Scriptures scrolls
defiling them.
Jews were forbidden to teach Scripture, and forbidden to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were
forbidden to follow His Way and His Word. They were ordered to take on the Greek religion and customs. As a
test of whether a Jew had decided to turn away from the Jewish God and His Word, they were ordered to eat pig
meat or be run through with the sword.
Just by eating a morsel of meat, a Jewish person could extend their life and even find a place of leadership in the
new Greek society ruling over the Jewish people. In fact, through the many encounters with the Greek armies in
the previous 150 years, many “enlightened” Jews felt they saw a better way to live out their Judaism by flavoring it
and/or replacing it with Greek philosophies of life. These Jews quickly tried to demonstrate their affection for their
Greek overlords. Even some of the Holy Temple Priesthood had adapted “Hellenism” (the Greek way). If the
enemy of our souls, the Devil, had been successful in turning all Jews away from following the Word of God... God
would have been proved a liar... and all would have been lost.
Seven, Humble, Triumphed over Temptation; One, Proud, let Temptation
Turn Him
The story is recorded of a widow with seven sons. From the oldest to youngest, each in turn was approached by the
Greeks and told to eat pig meat. Each, in turn refused and was horribly tortured and murdered in front of the
mother and other brothers. Each chose to die rather than disobey the Word of the Lord. Finally the youngest was
offered not only safety, but riches and favor from the Greek authorities. He, too, not only refused to eat the pig
meat, but told the Greek authorities that they would be answering to The One True God for their evil deeds. After
he was put to death the mother died, it is assumed, of a broken heart.
In another gathering several priests were told to perform a sacrifice of a pig as an offering to the Greek pagan
gods. One of the priests of The Temple stepped forward to yield to the command of the Greek rulers. He quickly
died. Not at the hands of the Greeks, but rather another Jewish priest … Mattathias, ran him through with a
sword… and then also the Greek soldiers trying to get the Jewish people to turn away from their God.
Mattathias then cried out, “Let everyone who has zeal for the Torah and stands by the covenant follow me!”
Hanukkah was not primarily about a political or military battle over a piece of geography… it was a spiritual battle
fought for the souls of the people of God. Would they continue to listen to God and perhaps face physical death, or
listen to the gods of men, prolong their earthly life, and lose their soul?
Who Do You Stand With?
“Let everyone…who stands by the covenant follow me!” Are you like the priest, Mattathias, who risked his life
against overwhelming odds to stand in the Light of what God has spoken? Does your life proclaim, “I have heard,
and follow The Truth, no matter what the cost!” Following Mattathias’s rebellion against earthly authority, a few
other faithful Israelites fled with him to the mountains. They began to oppose their Greek overlords and within a
few years God gave them stunning victory, pushing Antiochus out of “The Glorious Kingdom” (the name Daniel
used in his prophecy for the land and people of Israel). In December of 165 B.C.E. they cleansed and rededicated
the Temple in Jerusalem, also rededicating the “temple” of their lives to listening to and obeying God. (Hanukkah,
in Hebrew, means “Dedication”).
In the Jewish Scriptures, Jeremiah speaks for God and declares that God was going to make a New Covenant with
the Jewish people (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Yeshua claimed that this New Covenant was established by the shedding
of His blood. Yeshua getting up out of the sealed tomb 3 days after having been crucified to death is proof that His
claims - to be from The Father, to be One with the Father, to have the power to forgive sins - are all true.
Yeshua, in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, comes to the Temple to Celebrate Hanukkah. In verse 22 there is the
extra, almost not-needed fact added, “and it was winter.” Of course it was winter, that’s when Hanukkah was
observed every year. Why point to the obvious? I think it the author was reminding us of how little light there is
during winter. I think John wants us to think about this - in Winter, or when times are dark, what will be your
source of light? When others are clouded by disbelief and their hearts and lives are darkened by evil that comes
from turning away from God, are you going to join the darkness of not listening to God, or are you going to believe
what He says.
Yeshua, however He did it, engineered the subject for debate during Hanukkah. John 10:24 says that the Jewish
leaders demanded of Yeshua “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” He used Chanukkah to get people thinking,
"Is Jesus / Yeshua the Messiah?" They asked their question, however, not from a genuine heart. The Jewish
people had noted that Yeshua “taught with authority, not as the scribes [Jewish leaders] (Matthew 7:29).” The
formal Jewish religious leadership did not like the fact this upstart rabbi from Galilee was speaking more with the
voice of God than they were… and wanted to silence Him.
Yeshua said to those leaders (and says to us today), “My sheep hear My voice… and follow Me. And I give them
eternal life…(John 10:27,28).” The youngest of the seven sons tortured and murdered by Antiochus Epiphanes is
reported to have said, “For our brethren, who now have suffered a short pain, are dead under God’s covenant of
everlasting life” and “yet shall He be at one again with his servants.” In other words, even if evil kills our bodies,
if we believe in the Covenant, in the Word, the Promise of God… IF WE BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAYS AND
OBEY HIM… death will not separate us from God, but rather gather us to Him.
Daniel, Accurately Predicts Hanukkah; Has Two More Things to Say
Many who are raised in a Jewish home, in these modern times, no longer believe that God really spoke to Adam,
Noah, Abraham, David, Daniel and the others in Scripture. And, only about 1% of Jewish people around the world
believe the words of Yeshua who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, the One who brings the Kingdom of God on
Earth, the One of Whom Isaiah the prophet wrote saying He “was cut off out of the land of the living for the
transgressions of my people [Isaiah’s people, the Jewish people] to whom the punishment was due (Isaiah 53:8).”
But consider this… Daniel was scary-accurate with the details leading up to and including the events of Hanukkah.
Hundreds of years before these things happened he claimed a messenger from God told him how things would
unfold… and Daniel was “spot - on !”
Daniel had other things to say about the future. Two of the most notable are about The Messiah, and about the
end of each human life that ever lived. About the Messiah, Daniel said He would both appear “and be cut off, not
for Himself (Daniel 9:26)” before The Temple was destroyed (which happened in the year 70 C.E. (Common Era in
Jewish reckoning, “A.D.- The Year of our Lord” in Christian reckoning)). This prophecy about when the Messiah
would appear starts with God saying through Daniel that He was arranging a time “for your people [Daniel’s
people, the Jewish people] to finish the transgressions, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for
iniquity.” Daniel says (without me messing with the text) that “Messiah will but cut off before The Temple is
destroyed” to “make reconciliation for iniquity.” Boy if that doesn’t sound like Yeshua (Jesus), eh? Can you hear
God speaking?
Daniel was absolutely correct in his prophecy about Hanukkah. What if he is also right about the Messiah? And
what about one of the last things Daniel says, “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting punishment (Daniel 12:2). Every human soul will face this
judgment. Are you ready?
Yeshua said He was the One who gives Everlasting Life.
Do you hear the Voice of the Lord? Are you unsure what voice to believe? Why don’t you ask God, “God, if You
are really there, if you really spoke through these men in the Bible and through Jesus, please show me that You are
real.” If you are truly searching, God promises, “You will search for Me and find me when you search for Me with
all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13).”
Oh yeah, that is another prophecy God made, through Moses… that He would scatter the Jewish people
throughout the nations, and then they would seek Him (Deuteronomy 4:27-31)…and ”in the latter days you will
return to the Lord, your God…and listen to His voice.”
and stands by the covenant follow me !”
- words of the priest and hero of the Hanukkah story - Mattathias
- 2 Maccabees 2:27
God Arranges History -
Now You Have to Answer His Question
by Abraham E. Sandler
God Has Spoken
“Has God said…?” ... these are the very first words uttered by the snake, the Devil, to mankind. This question has
challenged man from the beginning.
God knew there would be a constant war within humankind - would we believe Him, or not? Those courageous
enough to take an honest look at history can not deny that God has spoken. The continued existence of the Jewish
people is proof God has spoken. The warnings of the Jewish prophets concerning Israel and the nations - fulfilled
exactly as spoken - are also proof. The Hand of God shaping the course of human events is one way the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has proven Himself.
Satan’s question is partly based on a true premise, and partly a false one. Of course the Father of Lies would
engage in the greatest deception - mixing truth and falsehood. The truth in the premise is that God has indeed
spoken. But although Satan asks Eve if God has said a particular thing, the first three words “Has God said…”
challenges even the very idea that there is a God who has spoken to us.
God, however, working in the realm of truth, approaches humankind from the starting point that He has indeed
spoken. Thus the question God asks is different.
God asks, “Are you going to listen to Me, or to some other voice?”
Daniel, universally regarded as a true prophet of the One True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, spoke God’s
Word in detail about the kingdoms that would rise and fall on the Earth. He spoke in detail about Hanukkah. I
think one can also see how he spoke of Yeshua and the judgment to come.
Shortly after the time of Yeshua (Jesus), a letter was written to many of the Jewish believers in Yeshua by one of
Yeshua’s first disciples. This letter begins with the same issue from the beginning of Genesis … God has spoken…
will you listen? It says, “God has spoken in various times and various ways to our forefathers by the prophets.
Now He has spoken to us through His Son [Yeshua].”
Listen to the Jewish prophet Daniel, and consider whether he spoke of Hanukkah, Yeshua, and the judgment to
come.
Listening = Goodness and Life, Ignoring God = Evil and Death
In the past few months I’ve been getting back to keeping a Biblical Jewish tradition - the wearing of “fringes” on
your clothes. In Numbers 15:37-41 God commands the “sons of Israel” to put fringes on the corners of the their
clothing to remind themselves that God has spoken and one ought to listen to and obey God, rather than heed our
own hearts (that have a tendency to lead us away from God and His ways.) Seeing the fringes reminds us to make
the right choice… to listen to God. What God speaks - His Word - is Life Itself !
Thus, in Deuteronomy 30, as the fifth and final book of the Torah draws towards a close, God pleads with Israel
saying, “I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life … that you may obey His voice … for He is
your life.(vs. 19-20)” If Israel obeyed “the voice of the Lord(v10)” God promised to short-circuit the evil intentions
of Israel’s enemies (v. 7) and to make Israel prosper in the land He was giving them(v.16), give them abundant
harvest of livestock and produce(v. 9), and they would live in the favor of their God rejoicing over them (v.9).
If Israel refused to listen to God, if they chose to “not hear [God], … and worship other ‘gods’ and serve them(v.
17),” Isarel would not live long and well in the land God gave them (v. 18), and they live under God’s curse(v.19), a
life filled with evil (v.15).
Throughout the rest of Israel’s history … the Bible tells of Israel’s struggle to remember the voice of the Lord that
gives life. Sadly, all too often the people of Israel chose to not listen to God and His Word, and listened instead to
false prophets and evil kings, even sinking so low as to lay their infant children out in the fields as an offering to
idols, letting these precious ones die of thirst, hunger and exposure to the elements.
After the Babylonian captivity - 70 years hard punishment for years of neglecting the Voice of the Lord - Israel
began to do better at heeding the voice of the Lord… for awhile.
God Sets the Stage for the Events of Hanukkah
The return of Israel from captivity in Babylon began around 516 B.C.E. (Before the “Common Era” in Jewish
reckoning, or noted as “B.C. - Before Christ” in Christian reckoning). Greece was only just beginning to come on
the world scene. Socrates taught around 469 B.C.E, Aristotle 384 B.C.E. Alexander the Great lead the Greek
armies in conquering most of the known world from 336 - 323 B.C.E.
Alexander brought not only Greek political rule, but the expectation that conquered nations conform to Greek ways
of thinking about life… called “Hellenism.” (In the Greek language, “Hellene” was the word for a person from
Greece. The word “Greek” comes from a Roman/Latin word for people from that area.)
Daniel prophecies - hundreds of years ahead of coming events - with great detail and complete accuracy the
historical stage God sets for the events of Hanukkah. He foretells the rise and fall of the Medes, the Persians, the
Greeks and the Roman Empire, and how each one would affect the Jewish people. In Daniel 8:5,21,22 and Daniel
11:3,4 he describes the “goat” a fast-moving powerful king from the West, from Greece. This is “Alexander the
Great” who conquered most of the known world in just 13 years, racing “across the surface the whole earth without
touching the ground(Dan. 8:5).”
Daniel then foretells how this Greek kingdom will be split into four pieces, but adds the notable detail that it is not
given to Alexander’s heir (Dan. 8:8, 11:4,5). Indeed, Alexander’s newly conquered land was split among his four
generals. Two of these figured prominently in the story of Hanukkah. Ptolemy ruled in the area around Egypt. He
eventually commissioned the great “Library of Alexandria.” One of the books Ptolemy commissioned for this
library was a translation of the Jewish Torah - The Five Books of Moses - translated from Hebrew into Greek.
This translation is known to us as “The Septuagint.” The name means “Seventy.” Supposedly 70 rabbis were
asked to work on this translation of God’s Word into Greek. Ptolemy and his descendants are the “King of the
South” in Daniel 11.
The other of the four kingdoms that finds its way into the Hanukkah story is that of Seleucus. This general under
Alexander took control of areas north of Israel, including Syria. Seleucus and his decendants are the “King of the
North” in Daniel 11. These two kings and their descendants go through centuries of wars and peace deals with
daughters given in marriage as signs of covenants made. The deals are broken; war continues between these two
kingdoms. The events leading up to Hanukkah, from 323 B.C.E. to 170 B.C.E, are clearly described in Daniel 11:1-
20, written hundreds of years before they happen.
What does all this have to do with Israel and the Jewish people? In order for the Seleucids of “the North” (Syria)
to wage war with the king of “the South” (Egypt)… what land do they have to pass through? Israel! For the
Ptolomies to rise up from “the South” to fight with the king of the North, what area do they have to go through?
Israel! For the 150 years before the events of Hanukkah, Greek armies, either drunk on victory or enraged by
defeat repeatedly crisscrossed the Land of Israel. In Daniel 11, he talks of the North, the South and also “the
Glorious Kingdom”… this is Daniel’s term referring to Israel and her people.
Gettysburg was turned into a place of horror in just one season of war during the War Between the States. Imagine
if the Civil War lasted for 150 years. Imagine the Union and Confederate armies passed back and forth through
Gettysburg for a century and a half. Some years Gettysburg controlled by the South. Other years controlled by
the North. If you lived in Gettysburg, if the armed conflict of the Civil War lasted 150 years … how would you
feel? What would your life be like? Terrified by these great armies? Filled with duplicity trying to get along with
both sides? Would you give up on trying to have your own, local government and society? Would you learn the
ways of these Northern and Southern armies, hoping to be enough like them so they would not think of you as the
enemy?
This was the reality of the Israel and the Jewish people from 323 B.C.E to 170 B.C.E.
The Temptation of Temporary Time - The REAL Story of Hanukkah
Throughout the Book of Daniel, repeated image and prophecy tells the story of kingdoms rising and falling…
except one. In Daniel 7:13,14 he sees the “Ancient of Days” giving “an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass
away” to "The Son of Man." The other kings and kingdoms foretold by Daniel last for a time, and then end. NOT
SO for the Kingdom of "The Son of Man" (a term used in Jewish Scripture for The Messiah).
Humankind is faced with a question … will you serve The King who has an “everlasting dominion” or an earthly
king who will soon fall from power?…a temporary king that could trouble, or even torture and end your physical
life, or The King that will determine your fate for Eternity?
To give us a picture of this choice, God set the stage of Hanukkah.
The Seleucid lineage king in Syria - Antiochus - at first triumphed over Egypt. His military successes and advances
by political intrigue (also prophecied by Daniel (8:23,25 & 11:21,23), would lead him to think of himself as “God
made known to man.” Thus, he took on the name “Epiphanes (God Manifest).”
However, a second battle against Egypt did not go as well (also predicted by Daniel (chapter 11, verses 25,29, 30).
The bitterness of this defeat he took out on the hapless Jewish nation. His “god-ness” in question, Antiochus
Epiphanes sought to reassert himself. He sacked The Temple in Jerusalem, setting up an idol (Zeus), destroying
the Jewish altar of sacrifice and making a new one for sacrifices to Zeus. The juices from the pigs (an “unclean”
animal according to the Jewish Scriptures) sacrificed to Zeus were poured over the Jewish Scriptures scrolls
defiling them.
Jews were forbidden to teach Scripture, and forbidden to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were
forbidden to follow His Way and His Word. They were ordered to take on the Greek religion and customs. As a
test of whether a Jew had decided to turn away from the Jewish God and His Word, they were ordered to eat pig
meat or be run through with the sword.
Just by eating a morsel of meat, a Jewish person could extend their life and even find a place of leadership in the
new Greek society ruling over the Jewish people. In fact, through the many encounters with the Greek armies in
the previous 150 years, many “enlightened” Jews felt they saw a better way to live out their Judaism by flavoring it
and/or replacing it with Greek philosophies of life. These Jews quickly tried to demonstrate their affection for their
Greek overlords. Even some of the Holy Temple Priesthood had adapted “Hellenism” (the Greek way). If the
enemy of our souls, the Devil, had been successful in turning all Jews away from following the Word of God... God
would have been proved a liar... and all would have been lost.
Seven, Humble, Triumphed over Temptation; One, Proud, let Temptation
Turn Him
The story is recorded of a widow with seven sons. From the oldest to youngest, each in turn was approached by the
Greeks and told to eat pig meat. Each, in turn refused and was horribly tortured and murdered in front of the
mother and other brothers. Each chose to die rather than disobey the Word of the Lord. Finally the youngest was
offered not only safety, but riches and favor from the Greek authorities. He, too, not only refused to eat the pig
meat, but told the Greek authorities that they would be answering to The One True God for their evil deeds. After
he was put to death the mother died, it is assumed, of a broken heart.
In another gathering several priests were told to perform a sacrifice of a pig as an offering to the Greek pagan
gods. One of the priests of The Temple stepped forward to yield to the command of the Greek rulers. He quickly
died. Not at the hands of the Greeks, but rather another Jewish priest … Mattathias, ran him through with a
sword… and then also the Greek soldiers trying to get the Jewish people to turn away from their God.
Mattathias then cried out, “Let everyone who has zeal for the Torah and stands by the covenant follow me!”
Hanukkah was not primarily about a political or military battle over a piece of geography… it was a spiritual battle
fought for the souls of the people of God. Would they continue to listen to God and perhaps face physical death, or
listen to the gods of men, prolong their earthly life, and lose their soul?
Who Do You Stand With?
“Let everyone…who stands by the covenant follow me!” Are you like the priest, Mattathias, who risked his life
against overwhelming odds to stand in the Light of what God has spoken? Does your life proclaim, “I have heard,
and follow The Truth, no matter what the cost!” Following Mattathias’s rebellion against earthly authority, a few
other faithful Israelites fled with him to the mountains. They began to oppose their Greek overlords and within a
few years God gave them stunning victory, pushing Antiochus out of “The Glorious Kingdom” (the name Daniel
used in his prophecy for the land and people of Israel). In December of 165 B.C.E. they cleansed and rededicated
the Temple in Jerusalem, also rededicating the “temple” of their lives to listening to and obeying God. (Hanukkah,
in Hebrew, means “Dedication”).
In the Jewish Scriptures, Jeremiah speaks for God and declares that God was going to make a New Covenant with
the Jewish people (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Yeshua claimed that this New Covenant was established by the shedding
of His blood. Yeshua getting up out of the sealed tomb 3 days after having been crucified to death is proof that His
claims - to be from The Father, to be One with the Father, to have the power to forgive sins - are all true.
Yeshua, in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, comes to the Temple to Celebrate Hanukkah. In verse 22 there is the
extra, almost not-needed fact added, “and it was winter.” Of course it was winter, that’s when Hanukkah was
observed every year. Why point to the obvious? I think it the author was reminding us of how little light there is
during winter. I think John wants us to think about this - in Winter, or when times are dark, what will be your
source of light? When others are clouded by disbelief and their hearts and lives are darkened by evil that comes
from turning away from God, are you going to join the darkness of not listening to God, or are you going to believe
what He says.
Yeshua, however He did it, engineered the subject for debate during Hanukkah. John 10:24 says that the Jewish
leaders demanded of Yeshua “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” He used Chanukkah to get people thinking,
"Is Jesus / Yeshua the Messiah?" They asked their question, however, not from a genuine heart. The Jewish
people had noted that Yeshua “taught with authority, not as the scribes [Jewish leaders] (Matthew 7:29).” The
formal Jewish religious leadership did not like the fact this upstart rabbi from Galilee was speaking more with the
voice of God than they were… and wanted to silence Him.
Yeshua said to those leaders (and says to us today), “My sheep hear My voice… and follow Me. And I give them
eternal life…(John 10:27,28).” The youngest of the seven sons tortured and murdered by Antiochus Epiphanes is
reported to have said, “For our brethren, who now have suffered a short pain, are dead under God’s covenant of
everlasting life” and “yet shall He be at one again with his servants.” In other words, even if evil kills our bodies,
if we believe in the Covenant, in the Word, the Promise of God… IF WE BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAYS AND
OBEY HIM… death will not separate us from God, but rather gather us to Him.
Daniel, Accurately Predicts Hanukkah; Has Two More Things to Say
Many who are raised in a Jewish home, in these modern times, no longer believe that God really spoke to Adam,
Noah, Abraham, David, Daniel and the others in Scripture. And, only about 1% of Jewish people around the world
believe the words of Yeshua who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, the One who brings the Kingdom of God on
Earth, the One of Whom Isaiah the prophet wrote saying He “was cut off out of the land of the living for the
transgressions of my people [Isaiah’s people, the Jewish people] to whom the punishment was due (Isaiah 53:8).”
But consider this… Daniel was scary-accurate with the details leading up to and including the events of Hanukkah.
Hundreds of years before these things happened he claimed a messenger from God told him how things would
unfold… and Daniel was “spot - on !”
Daniel had other things to say about the future. Two of the most notable are about The Messiah, and about the
end of each human life that ever lived. About the Messiah, Daniel said He would both appear “and be cut off, not
for Himself (Daniel 9:26)” before The Temple was destroyed (which happened in the year 70 C.E. (Common Era in
Jewish reckoning, “A.D.- The Year of our Lord” in Christian reckoning)). This prophecy about when the Messiah
would appear starts with God saying through Daniel that He was arranging a time “for your people [Daniel’s
people, the Jewish people] to finish the transgressions, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for
iniquity.” Daniel says (without me messing with the text) that “Messiah will but cut off before The Temple is
destroyed” to “make reconciliation for iniquity.” Boy if that doesn’t sound like Yeshua (Jesus), eh? Can you hear
God speaking?
Daniel was absolutely correct in his prophecy about Hanukkah. What if he is also right about the Messiah? And
what about one of the last things Daniel says, “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting punishment (Daniel 12:2). Every human soul will face this
judgment. Are you ready?
Yeshua said He was the One who gives Everlasting Life.
Do you hear the Voice of the Lord? Are you unsure what voice to believe? Why don’t you ask God, “God, if You
are really there, if you really spoke through these men in the Bible and through Jesus, please show me that You are
real.” If you are truly searching, God promises, “You will search for Me and find me when you search for Me with
all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13).”
Oh yeah, that is another prophecy God made, through Moses… that He would scatter the Jewish people
throughout the nations, and then they would seek Him (Deuteronomy 4:27-31)…and ”in the latter days you will
return to the Lord, your God…and listen to His voice.”
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