The Feast of Dedication
Today, this festival is called Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights.
The Feast of Dedication, which was once also called the Feast of the Maccabees, was an eight-day winter festival celebrated by the Jews in the month of December or sometimes late November, depending on when it fell in the lunisolar Jewish calendar. Today, this festival is called Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights.
What does the word Hanukkah mean? This word means "dedication." The root of the word is "education" (Strong's Concordance Number 1456). This is a festival that educates or teaches about dedicating your "temple" or "life" to God. We all want to learn about the preparation of our "temples" where Yeshua ha Mashiach ( Jesus the Messiah) lives. Our living "temples" are just as important to God today, as His Holy Temple that once stood in Jerusalem.
The history of the Feast of Dedication goes back to the intertestamental period and the Maccabean Revolt. After the Seleucid king Antiochus Ephiphanes profaned the Jewish temple and forced the Jews to abandon their sacrifices and adopt pagan rituals, a group of Jewish freedom fighters rose up, defied the oppressive pagan regime, and overthrew the Seleucids. The temple in Jerusalem was re-dedicated to God; ever since then, the Feast of Dedication has been celebrated to commemorate this meaningful event in Jewish history.