|
The Hanukkah story begins with the rise to power of
Alexander the Great several centuries before Yeshua was born. At
that time, the world was unified into one common government and
culture called “Hellenism”. After Alexander died at an early age,
his kingdom was divided into four different provinces. The
Israelites lived in the province of Syria under the leadership of a
“mad tyrant” named Antiochus Epiphanies.
In his quest for power and to secure “Hellenism” as
the only way of life, Antiochus did the following:
~He marched his troops into Jerusalem on the 25th day
of Kislev in the year 168 B.C.E and desecrated the Temple .
~He defiled all the sacred objects in the Temple ,
erected a statue of the Greek god Zeus and then sacrificed a pig to
it on God's holy altar.
~In addition, Antiochus decreed that all practices of
Judaism were forbidden including the observance of Shabbat (the
Sabbath Day), circumcision, the biblical dietary laws and the
reading of the laws of Moses (God's Torah).
~ The Jewish people were now also forced to partake
in pagan rituals or die. This included the eating of pigs flesh
publicly to prove their loyalty to “Hellenism.”
Finally, one brave family from a little town called
Modi'in, led a rebellion against Antiochus and his Syrian army. The
rebellion was originally led by an old Jewish priest named
Mattithias, who killed a fellow Jew, whom he caught sacrificing a
pig. After also killing several Greek soldiers, Mattithias and his
five sons fled to the hills and began a “guerilla warfare” campaign
against the Syrian army. Before he died, Mattithias passed the
leadership to one of his sons, Judah the Maccabee, whose name means
“the hammer”.
Click to continue...
|
