What is hanukkah?

is the hanukkah mention in the Bible? yes it is!

Chanukkah or hanukkah is not mention in the Torah in the Old Testament, however In the Brit Chadasha (The New Covenant), in the Gospel of John, we learn that Jesus the Jewish Messiah was at the Holy Temple during the “feast of dedication” or Chanukkah: “At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon”

Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah

We read in the Gospel of John: And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of the Dedication, and it was winter.  And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.   What is this winter “Feast of Dedication”? It’s not mentioned in Leviticus 23, where all the biblical feasts are described and their observance is commanded. So what did Jesus celebrate in the Temple?

Of course, John is referring to Hanukkah (Hebrew for dedication.) The story of Hanukkah is preserved in the books of the Maccabees. However, these books are not part of the Tanach (Hebrew Bible), and therefore, surprisingly, we find the clearest mention of Hanukkah in the Bible, in the New Testament!  Not only did Yeshua celebrate Hanukkah, according to the Gospel of John,  but he observed it in the same Temple that had been miraculously rededicated by the Maccabees just a few generations earlier. In order to understand it, let’s turn to the history.

John 10:22-23 Tree of Life Version (TLV)

22 Then came Hanukkah;[a] it was winter in Jerusalem. 23 Yeshua was walking in the Temple around Solomon’s Colonnade.

History of Hanukkah

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire.  It happened in the 2nd century BCE – the intertestamental period – which is why Hanukkah is not mentioned in the Tanach. The Jewish people were then living under the oppression of King Antiochus IV and Hellenistic pagan practices. The ruling Syrian dynasty of the Seleucids required full assimilation in all aspects of life: language, arts, lifestyle – everything was to conform to the Greek way of life.  Antiochus enacted a series of harsh decrees against the Jews. Jewish worship was forbidden; the scrolls of the Law were confiscated and burned; Sabbath rest, circumcision and the dietary laws were prohibited under penalty of death. In 164 BCE, Antiochus even desecrated the Temple: the altars, the utensils, the golden Menorah were all defiled.

Antiochus’s men went from town to town and from village to village to force the inhabitants to worship pagan gods. One day they arrived in the village of Modiin where an old priest, Mattityahu, lived. There they built an altar and demanded that Mattityahu offer sacrifices to the Greek gods. Mattityahu replied, “I, my sons and my brothers will remain loyal to the covenant which our G?d made with our fathers!” After that, Mattityahu left the village of Modiin and fled, together with his sons, to the hills of Judea and all loyal and courageous Jews joined them. Thus, the uprising began. After Mattityahu’s death, his son Judah became leader. Judah was called “Maccabee” – a word composed of the initial letters of the four Hebrew words Mi Kamocha Ba’eilim Hashem, “Who is like You, O Yahwh?” – and therefore it is called the Maccabean Revolt. Realistically, the Maccabees had absolutely no chance of winning. The Syrian army consisted of more than 40,000 men – it was another David vs. Goliath scenario – but, as in the story of David, God performed a miracle, and after a series of battles, the war was won.

When the Maccabees, miraculously, recaptured the Temple, they had to cleanse and restore it. They entered the Temple and cleared it of the idols placed there by the Syrians. They wanted to light Menorah, as it is commanded in the Torah: Bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually. However, according to the Talmud, they found only a single jar of undefiled oil, and that was only enough to last a single day. Taking a leap of faith, they relit the Menorah , and by a miracle of God, it continued to burn for eight days, till new oil was made available. In memory of this, Hanukkah, an eight-day celebration, was established.  On each day, an additional branch of the nine branched Hanukkiah is lit with the shamash (“helper” candle), which sits on the middle branch.

The Light Shines in the darkness

This is the traditional story – but there is something more to be aware of. Not many people realize that the Maccabees had not won their independence when they proclaimed the Festival of Hanukkah.  Antiochus was still their ruler, and Syrian troops still occupied Eretz Yisrael and even most of Jerusalem. The light of the first Hanukkah truly shone in the midst of the darkness! In this sense, the light of Hanukkah, shining in the darkness, prophetically foreshadowed this Light of the Messiah!

This reminds us of the words of John about Yeshua: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  According to the Gospels, the Light of Yeshua also came at a time of the darkness and foreign oppression; the hand of Rome was heavy upon Israel, the nation could hardly bear this oppressive yoke. No wonder everybody waited for a deliverer – hoping and believing the footsteps of this deliverer had already been heard! Thus, we may say that both celebrations, Hanukkah and Christmas, look to the Messiah, but from two different perspectives – like two olives on each side of the Menorah in the beautiful vision of Zechariah that is read in synagogues on the Sabbath of Hanukkah:

“I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. 3 Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.” 4 So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?”

5 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me:

‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.' Zech. 2:4-6 Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12). The Lord Jesus gives all of us, Jew and Gentile, the “light of life.” And He commanded us to “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).