In Yerushalayim for Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication)
In our last post, we completed our topic in His Ministry from Galilee to Judea. In this post, Yeshua has gone to Yerushalayim for Hanukkah.
Hanukkah is an annual festival celebrated on eight successive days, during which no eulogies are delivered, nor is fasting permitted. It begins on the 25th day of Kislev, the third month of the Jewish calendar, corresponding approximately to December in the Gregorian calendar. This year (2022), Hanukkah starts at sundown on December 19th. Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights, Feast of Dedication, and Feast of the Maccabees. The eight-day Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication) celebrates the rededication of the Jewish temple in December 164 BCE, after its desecration by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes IV in 167 BCE (1 Maccabees 1:59). If you have never read the Apocrypha, I would highly encourage you to read the background of this critical event Jewish history.
22 Then came Hanukkah in Yerushalayim. It was winter 23 ,and Yeshua was walking around inside the Temple area in Shlomo’s Colonnade (The eastern part of the walkway surrounding the outer court of Herod’s Temple).24 So the Judeans surrounded him and said to him, “How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us publicly!” 25 Yeshua answered them, “I have already told you, and you don’t trust me. The works I do in my Father’s name testify on my behalf, 26 but the reason you don’t trust is that you are not included among my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice, I recognize them, they follow me, 28 and I give them eternal life. They will absolutely never be destroyed, and no one will snatch them from my hands. 29 My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them from the Father’s hands. 30 I and the Father are one.”
I and the Father are one, the same One as in the Shema: “Adonai, our God, Adonai is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yeshua’s self-assertion of His divinity is occasioned by His regard for His followers: “no one will snatch them from” Yeshua’s (v. 28) or the Father’s (v. 29) hands. “Ani veha’av, echad anachnu” (I and the Father are one); therefore, we who are in Yeshua’s care have complete assurance that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord” (Romans 8:31–39).
31 Once again, the Judeans picked up rocks in order to stone him. 32 Yeshua answered them, “You have seen me do many good deeds that reflect the Father’s power; for which one of these deeds are you stoning me?” 33 The Judeans replied, “We are not stoning you for any good deed, but for blasphemy – because you, who are only a man, are making yourself out to be God [Hebrew: Elohim].”
The Judeans once again picked up stones to stone Him, as at Yochanan 8:59, and self-identified as God, which they understood as blasphemy.
34 Yeshua answered them, “Isn’t it written in your Torah, ‘I have said, “You people are Elohim’”? 35 If he called ‘Elohim’ the people to whom the word of Elohim was addressed (and the Tanakh cannot be broken), 36 then are you telling the one whom the Father set apart as holy and sent into the world, ‘You are committing blasphemy,’ just because I said, ‘I am a son of Elohim’?
The reference to Yeshua being consecrated for His mission echoes the Tanakh language regarding those appointed to an office, such as Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5) or the Aaronic priests (Ex. 28:41; 40:13; Lev. 8:30).
37 “If I am not doing deeds that reflect my Father’s power, don’t trust me. 38 But if I am, then, even if you don’t trust me, trust the deeds; so that you may understand once and for all that the Father is united with me, and I am united with the Father.” 39 One more time, they tried to arrest him, but he slipped out of their hands. [1]
In our next post, Yeshua Goes to the Perean Province.
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[1] Yochanan 10:22–39.
My Heart is for Israel 