Festival of Lights

Joseph F. Dumond

Isa 6:9-12 And He said, Go, and tell this people, You hear indeed, but do not understand; and seeing you see, but do not know. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back, and be healed. Then I said, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities are wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land laid waste, a desolation, and until Jehovah has moved men far away, and the desolation in the midst of the land is great.
Published: Dec 23, 2022

News Letter 5858-042
The 6th Year of the 4th Sabbatical Cycle
The 27th year of the 120th Jubilee Cycle
The 29th day of the 10th month 5858 years after the creation of Adam
The 4th Sabbatical Cycle after the 119th Jubilee Cycle
The Sabbatical Cycle of Sword, Famines, and Pestilence
The 3rd year Tithe

December 24, 2022

Shabbat Shalom to the Royal Family of Yehovah,

We arrived home from our speaking tour of the USA late Monday evening of this week. I spoke with the group that meets with ELLIS Wiley in Catlettsburg, Ky, on Sunday, and this was again another knowledgeable group that only needed some of the dots connected, which we did. After I presented this teaching to them, they were very engaged and could see many of the things I am warning them about that have both come and are yet to come. So it was exciting to see the light bulbs going off amongst the group.

Ella wrote the following note to me after I was finished speaking in this area of Kentucky.

December 17, 2022

Bro Joe,

Just a quick note to say thank you, once again, for being obedient to deliver the truth and warning to those wanting to hear in London, KY.  I am sorry that there was not a bigger turn out to be blessed, but I can assure you those who came were the remnant of quality, shocked at your message, but eager to learn as you explained everything so simply.  It was a joy for me to watch their expressions as new truth began to sink in and amazement replaced doubt. Each one I have talked to expressed thankfulness at the invitation and want to continue to learn.  I do pray that the seed you have sown will take root in each of their lives and they will begin to share and teach others as you have desired.

It was my pleasure and joy to be able to host you and to be able to see a close up glimpse of your heart and love.  I truly pray Father will bring restoration in your own home and the unity that will strengthen you as you continue the path of servanthood that you have accepted.

May Yehovah bless you and keep you, may He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.  May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Ella Morgan

Monday, December 19, 2022, I head off to see the famous Ark Encounter also in Kentucky because it was on my way home. It was a gorgeous day for driving and visiting the ark. I was kind of expecting to be overwhelmed with a lot of Christian doctrines but I left there very impressed at what they had accomplished. It was a dramatization of the ark, and they admitted that from the get-go. They had examples of life on the ark along with how the animals were stored and fed and cleaned and attempted to answer every question from a creationist point of view. I was very pleased with many of their answers.

Here is a short video clip of the Ark Encounter.

I again spoke to about 11 people in Sarnia, Ontario, on Thursday evening just before a large winter storm arrives. We had a number of brand new people to Torah and some long-in-the-tooth ones. One of the hardest things I have with almost all those I am speaking to is to get them to identify Yehovah as the one who is sending these curses and not some stupid group of men in government trying to exterminate us all. I cannot tell you how corrupted people become once they allow conspiracies to dominate their lives. It is so sad to see people who once were very biblically knowledgeable become totally ignorant of what Yehovah is doing because all they can now see is the boogeyman in the secret room in the back.

At this final meeting for 2022, one lady said she was not going to come because I was the guy that caused the huge split in this area by introducing the crescent moon and barley calendar, which caused this group to split with those who only keep the Hillel calendar. I was clearly shocked to be credited with having caused such an event. Having now been blamed for this split, I am indeed honoured to have been the one to introduce the truth here and for some to actually hear it and act on it. I am also disappointed more did not act upon that truth when they did hear it.


Sabbath Meetings

There are many people in need of fellowship and who are sitting at home on the Sabbath with no one to talk to or debate with. I want to encourage all of you to join us on Shabbat, and to invite others to come and join us as well. If the time is not convenient then you can listen to the teaching and the midrash after on our YouTube channel.

What are we doing and why do we teach this way?

We are going to discuss both sides of an issue and then let you choose. It is the work of the Ruach (Spirit) to direct and to teach you.

The medieval commentator Rashi wrote that the Hebrew word for wrestle (avek) implies that Jacob was “tied”, for the same word is used to describe knotted fringes in a Jewish prayer shawl, the tzitzityot. Rashi says, “thus is the manner of two people who struggle to overthrow each other, that one embraces the other and knots him with his arms”.

Our intellectual wrestling has been replaced by a different kind of struggle. We are Wrestling with Yehovah as we grapple with His Word. It is an intimate act, symbolizing a relationship in which Yehovah and I and you are bound together. My wrestling is a struggle to discover what Yehovah expects of us, and we are “tied” to the One who assists us in that struggle.

Today, many say Israel means “Champion of God”, or better — the “Wrestler of God”.

Our Torah sessions each Shabbat teaches you and encourages you to constantly challenge, question, argue against, as well as view alternative views and explanations of the Word. In other words, we are to “wrestle with the Word” to get to the truth. Jews worldwide believe that you need to wrestle with the Word and constantly challenge Dogma, Theology, and views or else you will never get to the Truth.

We are not like most churches where “The preacher talks and everyone listens.” We encourage everyone to participate, to question and to contribute what they know on the subject being discussed. We want you to be a champion wrestler of the Word of Yehovah. We want you to wear the title of Israel, knowing that you not only know but are capable of explaining why you know the Torah to be true with logic and facts.

We have a few rules though. Let others talk and listen. There is no discussion about UFO’s Nephilim, Vaccines or conspiracy-type subjects. We have people from around the world with different world views. Not everyone cares who is the President of any particular country. Treat each other with respect as Fellow wrestlers of the word. Some of our subjects are hard to understand and require you to be mature and if you do not know, then listen to gain knowledge and understanding and hopefully wisdom. The very things you are commanded to ask Yehovah for and He gives to those who ask.

Jas 1:5  But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and with no reproach, and it shall be given to him.

We hope you can invite those who want to keep Torah to come and join us by hitting the link below. It is almost like a Torah teaching fellowship talk show with people from around the world taking part and sharing their insights and understandings.

We start off with some music and then some prayers and it’s as though you were sitting around the kitchen back in Newfoundland having a cup of coffee and all of us enjoying each other’s company. I hope you will grace us with your company someday.

Sabbath services begin at 12:30 PM EDT where we will be doing prayers songs and teaching from this hour.

Shabbat Services will begin at about 1:15 pm Eastern.

We look forward to you joining our family and getting to know us as we get to know you.

Joseph Dumond is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Joseph Dumond’s Personal Meeting Room

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Torah Portions

We read through the entire Torah, along with the Prophets and the New Testament, once over the course of 3 1/2 years. Or, according to the Sabbatical Cycle, which means we read it all twice over a 7-year period. This allows us to cover more in-depth rather than being rushed to cover as much as is covered on an annual basis. We allow all to comment and take part in the discussions.

Septennial Torah Portion

If you go to Torah Portion at our archived section, you can then go to the 6th year which is the 6th year of the Sabbatical Cycle, the one we are in now, as we state at the top of every News Letter. There you can scroll down to the current date, 2022, and see that this Shabbat we could very well be midrashing about:

This was week’s portion

Numbers 5

Job 7-10

Hebrews 3-4

If you missed last week’s exciting discoveries as we studied that section you can go and watch past Shabbats on our media section.


 

The Festival of Lights

It is once again that time of year when the world shows just how deceived it is by the celebrations of the Festival of lights. Diwali in 2012 started on Tuesday, the 13th of November and was for 5 days until Saturday, the 17th of November. Known as the “festival of lights,” it is primarily a five day Hindu festival.

Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights, and is an eight-day Jewish holiday which in 2012 will go from Saturday December 8- to Sunday December 16, 2012 is about to begin.

And the Christian Festival of Lights also known as Christmas climaxes all of this and as most of you know will be on December 25 and it too is for 8 days and goes until January 1, 2013.

Is it just me or do you also see the similarities here?

Take note of what Tertullian had to say about the celebration of the festival of lights.

“On your day of gladness, we [Christians] neither cover our doorposts with wreaths, nor intrude upon the day with lamps. At the call of public festivity, you consider it a proper thing to decorate your house like some new brothel. We are accused of a lower sacrilege because we do not celebrate along with you the holidays …” – (Tertullian, (A.D. 155-220), 2001, p. 1176). (quoted by David Bercot, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, 1998, p. 342).

“The pagan Romans clad their doorposts with green and branching laurels…In the Saturnalia…Presents come and go…There are…gifts…
and Banquets…yet Christians should have no acquaintance with the festivals of the pagans.”
– Tertullian, (A.D. 155-220), quoted by David Bercot, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, 1998, p. 342).

Here are some other quotes. Last week we had our first part of the 7th Commandment. And we showed you how adultery was Idolatry. Stop and think for a moment about what is about to come and whether or not you’re going to take part in it. Are you committing adultery by celebrating these festivals of light, which Yehovah never sanctioned? This is called Idolatry.

“Christianity has jumped in bed with paganism!” -The Surprising Origin of CHRISTMAS!   William F. Dankenbring and John D. Keyser
“The wicked apostate Church fornicated spiritually with the heathen, pagan religions of the world,  and “ADOPTED” the date of December 25th  as the “birth-day” of Jesus the Messiah, who was born nowhere NEAR that time of year!” -The Surprising Origin of CHRISTMAS!   William F. Dankenbring and John D. Keyser

“Christmas…was not instituted by Christ or the apostles, nor by Bible authority. It was picked up afterward from paganism.”
-Encyclopedia Britannica, 1946 edition

“…the whoredoms of all perverted Christian religionists are still in essence the same old harlotry which first found place and embodiment on the banks of the Euphrates. It is the same old Babylon, and her harlot daughters, bearing rule or kingdom upon the dominions of the earth, and intoxicating the inhabitants thereof out of the wine of her fornication. True religion and an uncorrupted Church have never suited the representatives of power, or pleased them long.”
– THE WINE OF OLD BABYLON
Excerpt from ‘The Apocalypse’ by J. A. Seiss

“The wine of old Babylon’s fornication was a debauching system of idol worship and carnal self-exaltation, over and against the revelations and institutes of Jehovah.
It was already bottled and labelled before the first dispersion (Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Babel). It went with that dispersion into every country and nation under heaven. As a matter of fact, we find it to this day among all the nations of the earth, affecting and controlling their thinking, their policies, their faith, and their worship.
Not less than two-thirds of the population of the earth at this hour are Pagan idolaters, drivelling under the same old intoxication which came forth from Nimrod and Babylon.”
– THE WINE OF OLD BABYLON
Excerpt from ‘The Apocalypse’ by J. A. Seiss

Moses never spoke of the Festival of lights. Anything added to Torah he said was idolatry and not to be done. Yet men are much smarter that Moses and Yehovah and have added some unholidays to the sacred calendar there by making this new calendar unholy.

If you are keeping any of the above unholidays then please consider the following, as you go down the road to perdition kicking stones.

 


Hanukkah Reconsidered

Why do people celebrate Hanukkah? And should we?

Around 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the Land of Israel. A relatively gentle ruler, Alexander allowed the Jews to continue to practice traditional Judaism, so long as they paid him tribute (i.e. taxes).

Daniel 8:21-24?21 And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first (or chief) king (Alexander). ?22 As for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power.

In 323 BCE, some nine years after he first conquered the Land of Israel, Alexander died. His empire then broke up into four kingdoms, fulfilling the prophecy in verse 22, above. One of these four successor kingdoms was the Seleucid Empire, which is located mainly in modern-day Syria. Next, verse 23 tells us that in the latter time of this (Seleucid) kingdom, a fierce, sinister king would arise, who would commit transgressions against the Hebrew people.23 “And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise, having fierce features, who understands sinister schemes. ?24 His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. He shall destroy fearfully, and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty, and also the set-apart people.

Approximately a century and a half later, in 175 BCE, this prophecy was fulfilled. Antiochus Epiphanies (also called Antiochus IV) rose to power in the Seleucid Empire. Not religiously tolerant at all, Antiochus Epiphanies began to commit great atrocities against the Jewish people.

In approximately 168 BCE, Antiochus heard reports that there was a great deal of treasure stored up in the Temple. Returning from Egypt, he looted the Temple, and also slaughtered a great many of the Jews.

1st Maccabees 1:20-24?20 And after that Antiochus had smitten Egypt, he returned again in the hundred forty and third year, and went up against Israel and Jerusalem with a great multitude.?21 And entered proudly into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof.?22 And the table of showbread, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold, and the veil, and the crowns, and the golden ornaments that were before the Temple, all of which he pulled off.?23 He took also the silver and the gold, and the precious vessels: also he took the hidden treasures which he found.?24 And when he had taken all away, he went into his own land, having made a great massacre, and spoken very proudly.

Two years later, Antiochus sent tax collectors to speak peaceable words to the people, so as to plunder the city through deception. Then after collecting their taxes they massacred the Jewish people, and used the money to set up a fortress within sight of the Temple Mount, to kill anyone who brought an offering.

1 Maccabees 1:29-40?29 And after two years fully expired the king sent his chief collector of tribute unto the cities of Judah, who came unto Jerusalem with a great multitude,?30 and spake peaceable words unto them, but all was deceit: for when they had given him credence, he fell suddenly upon the city, and smote it very sore, and destroyed much people of Israel.?31 And when he had taken the spoils of the city, he set it on fire, and pulled down the houses and walls thereof on every side.?32 but the women and children they took captive, and possessed the cattle.?33 Then builded they the city of David with a great and strong wall, and mighty towers, and made it a strong hold for them.?34 And they put therein a sinful nation, wicked men, and fortified themselves therein.?35 They stored it also with armour and victuals, and when they had gathered together the spoils of Jerusalem, they laid them up there, and so they became a sore snare:?36 For it was a place to lie in wait against the sanctuary, and an evil adversary to Israel.?37 Thus they shed innocent blood on every side of the sanctuary, and defiled it:?38 insomuch that the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled because of them: whereupon the city was made an habitation of strangers, and became strange to those born in her; and her own children left her.?39 Her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness, her feasts turned into mourning, her Sabbaths into reproach, her honour into contempt.?40 As had been her glory, so was her dishonour increased, and her excellency was turned into mourning.

Antiochus encouraged everyone in his empire to convert to the Greek religious system, and issued orders for the destruction of all dissenters.

1 Maccabees 1:41-50?41 Moreover King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people,?42 And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king.?43 Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the Sabbath.?44 For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda [Judea], that they should follow the strange laws of the land.?45 And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the Sabbaths and festival days:?46 And pollute the sanctuary and the holy people:?47 Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine’s flesh, and unclean beasts:?48 That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation:?49 To the end they might forget the Torah, and change all the ordinances.?50 And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he should die.
Between his incentives for Greek worship and penalties for YHWH worship, Antiochus was largely successful in getting many of the people to abandon the Torah.

1 Maccabees 1:51-53?51 In the selfsame manner wrote he to his whole kingdom, and appointed overseers over all the people, commanding the cities of Juda [Judea] to sacrifice, city by city.?52 Then many of the people were gathered unto them, to wit, every one that forsook the Torah; and so they committed evils in the land;?53 And drove the Israelites into secret places, even wheresoever they could flee for succor [relief].

Having courted those who had no zeal for the Torah, and persecuting YHWH’s followers, Antiochus ordered a statue of Zeus to be erected in the Temple, and he commanded pigs to be sacrificed on the altar.

1 Maccabees 1:54-59?54 Now the fifteenth day of Kislev (the ninth month), in the hundred and forty fifth year, they set up the Abomination of Desolation upon the altar, and builded idol altars throughout the cities of Judea on every side.?55 And burnt incense at the doors of their homes, and in the streets.?56 And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire.?57 And wheresoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any consented to the law, the king’s commandment was, that they should be put to death.?58 Thus they did by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as many as were found in the cities.?59 Now on the five and twentieth day of the month they did sacrifice upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of [Elohim].

The situation soon became very desperate. Mothers who circumcised their children were put to death, along with their children.

1 Maccabees 1:60-63?60 At which time according to the commandment they put to death certain women, that had caused their children to be circumcised.?61 They hanged the infants about their necks, and rifled their houses, and slew them that had circumcised them.?62 Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing.?63 Wherefore they chose rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, and that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died.

Mattithyahu ben Yochanan HaCohen and his five sons rebelled against Antiochus. Although Mattithyahu died a year later (from natural causes), his son Yehudah (Judah) continued to lead the Jewish rebellion with amazing bravery. Vastly outnumbered, the Jews placed their trust in YHWH, and YHWH gave them a miraculous victory against otherwise impossible odds. As a result, Yehudah and family became known as the ‘Maccabees’ (??????? ?). This might be related to the Aramaic word for ‘hammer’, or it may be an acronym for the Jewish battle cry, “Mi Kamocha B’elim, YHWH” (who is like You among the elohim, YHWH?) (??????? ?). Either way, after the Maccabeean victory they needed to build a new altar to replace the one that had become defiled; and they also needed to re-light the Menorah, which YHWH commands to burn continually.????????

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 24:1-2?24:1 Then YHWH spoke to Moshe, saying: ?2 “Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually.

Traditionally, it takes eight days to press and refine oil for the Menorah. While the Talmud tells us there was plenty of oil inside the Temple, it claims Antiochus’ forces had defiled most of it, such that there was only enough set-apart oil to light the Menorah for one day: yet YHWH miraculously made it burn for eight.

What is [the reason of] Hanukkah? For our Rabbis taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislew 22 [commence] the days of Hanukkah, which are eight on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden. 23 For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean [Maccabean] dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest, 24 but which contained sufficient for one day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein and they lit [the lamp] therewith for eight days. The following year these [days] were appointed a Festival with [the recital of] Hallel 25 and thanksgiving.26?[Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 21]
YHWH certainly has the power to make miracles, but the Talmud (written 400-700 years after the war) claims that this alleged miracle is the reason for Hanukkah; yet this alleged miracle is not recorded in the Book of Maccabees (which was written soon after the war). Rather, First Maccabees says only that the Jews cleaned up the Temple, built a new altar, and re-lit the menorah. No eight-day miracle of burning is recorded.

1 Maccabees 4:47-51?47 Then they took whole stones according to the Torah, and built a new altar according to the former,?48 And made up the sanctuary, and the things that were within the Temple, and set the courts apart.?49 They made also new set-apart vessels, and into the temple they brought the candlestick (Menorah), and the altar of burnt offerings, and of incense, and the table.?50 And upon the altar they burned incense, and the lamps that were upon the candlestick they lighted, that they might give light in the Temple.?51 Furthermore they set the loaves upon the table, and spread out the veils, and finished all the works which they had begun to make.

Had one day’s worth of oil really burned for eight days, it seems likely First Maccabees would have recorded it. Instead, First Maccabees tells us only that the re-dedication ceremony (??????????? ??, Hanukkah) lasted for eight days; and that Yehudah Maccabee commanded the people to keep this festival each year.????

1 Maccabees 4:56-59 ?56 And so they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness, and sacrificed the sacrifice of deliverance and praise.?57 They decked also the forefront of the Temple with crowns of gold, and with shields, and the gates and the chambers they renewed, and hanged doors upon them.?58 Thus was there very great gladness among the people, for that the reproach of the heathen was put away.?59 Moreover Yehudah and his brethren and the whole congregation of Israel ordained that the days of dedication of the altar should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days, from the twenty-fifth day of Kislev, with mirth and gladness.

Because the record in Talmud is not always reliable, and because the alleged miracle of the oil is not recorded in First Maccabees, some scholars believe the reason Hanukkah was established as an eight day festival was simply because the Jews had been unable to keep the Feast of Sukkot in its proper time (because of the war). Thus it may have been that when the war ended, the Jews simply celebrated a belated eight day festival to YHWH; and then they commanded that it be observed as a festival unto YHWH forever, much like the Fourth of July is celebrated in America.

What shall we say about man-made observances, such as Hanukkah and Purim? As with Christmas and Easter, the first thing we should admit is that these festival days are not commanded by YHWH: they are commanded by men. Yet YHWH warns us very clearly not to add anything to His Instructions, so that we might live, and be preserved in safety.

Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:1-4?1 “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which YHWH Elohim of your fathers is giving you. ?2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of YHWH your Elohim which I command you. ?3 Your eyes have seen what YHWH did at Baal Peor; for YHWH your Elohim has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. ?4 But you who held fast to YHWH your Elohim are alive today, every one of you.”

The second thing we should recognize is that, as we saw earlier in this study, whoever’s calendar we keep, that is essentially whom we worship (worth-ship). The reason we keep anyone’s calendar is because we consider that person worthy to instruct us, as to what we should do. Yet YHWH is clear that we are not to follow man’s instructions, but that we must only follow His Instructions. He tells us cery plainly not to add to His Instructions: yet Hanukkah does this very thing.

It is clear that YHWH did not instruct us to keep either Hanukkah or Purim: men did. Yet since YHWH tells us to be careful not to add anything to His Instructions, then at least in one sense, if we keep Hanukkah or Purim, are we not being disobedient to His will? And might we not even be unwittingly guilty of esteeming these men as ‘greater’ than YHWH, since we are following their instructions, rather than YHWH’s?

For a variety of reasons, Scripture indicates that men want to make up make their own festival days; but that this is never pleasing to YHWH, even when these festival days are purposed and intended to honor Him.

Shemote (Exodus) 32:5-6?5 So when Aharon saw it (the golden calf), he built an altar before it. And Aharon made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to YHWH!” ?6 Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

Winter light festivals are common among the pagan nations; and many of these festivals have been brought inside the Church (complete with candles). These include Advent (four weeks before Christmas), Saint Nicholas’ Day (December 6th), Saint Lucia day (December 13th), the Winter Solstice and the Yule Log lighting. Pagan light festivals also include Samhain, Imbolc, and many others. Yet while it seems natural for men to want to celebrate light in the darkness of winter, YHWH tells us not to add any of these pagan light festivals to His calendar.

Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:29-32?29 “When YHWH your Elohim cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, ?30 take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their elohim (g-ds)? I also will do likewise.’ ?31 You shall not worship YHWH your Elohim in that way; for every abomination to YHWH which He hates they have done to their elohim (g-ds); for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their elohim.?32 “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”

YHWH indeed gave a miraculous victory to the Jews in their war against Antiochus Epiphanies and the Seleucids, and nothing can ever take away from that. Yet there have been many other miraculous victories in Israel’s history, such as when YHWH felled the wall at Jericho (Joshua 6), Gideon’s miraculous victory over the Midianites (Judges 7), Shimshon’s (Samson’s) slaying of the Philistines (Judges 16), and many other miraculous victories. However, we do not add festival days to YHWH’s calendar because of these other miracles; so why should we add to YHWH’s calendar because He gave a victory against Antiochus Epiphanies or because of an alleged miracle with oil?

There is a counter-argument for Hanukkah. Those who advocate celebrating Hanukkah note that Yeshua was in Jerusalem at Hanukkah time, here called the Feast of Dedication.

Yochanan (John) 10:22-23?22 Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. ?23 And Yeshua walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.
However, we should be careful to note that it does not say Yeshua was celebrating the Feast of Dedication: it simply states that He was in Jerusalem at that time, probably because He had stayed on in Jerusalem after Sukkot. This is not the same thing as celebrating it, or going up to Jerusalem for Hanukkah. He might well have been there for other reasons.

Those who advocate Hanukkah tell us that Hanukkah is traditionally celebrated by lighting candles, oil lamps, or other lights; and that it was during this same general time frame (during the Feast of Hanukkah) that Yeshua told us that He was the light of the world.

Yochanan (John) 8:12?12 Then Yeshua spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Yeshua also says the same thing in John Chapter 9.

Yochanan (John) 9:5?5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Yet neither of these passages prove that Yeshua either celebrated, or approved of Hanukkah. We might easily imagine Yeshua telling those who went up for the festival to look to Him, rather than to the Hanukkiah.

Interpretation:?Then Yeshua spoke to them again, saying, “The Hanukkiah is not the light of the world, so why do you look to it? I am the light of the world (not the Hanukkiah)! He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life!”

We might compare this with His words to the Woman at the Well, where Yeshua told her that He could give her Living Waters: yet the purpose was not to celebrate the waters or the well, but Him.

Yochanan (John) 4:13-14?13 Yeshua answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ?14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

We might also imagine Yeshua’s words this way:
Interpretation:?“You are celebrating a Winter Light Festival: but why do you do that? For as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world! So why do you focus on the light from a Hanukkiah?”

There is an argument which suggests that Yeshua may have been conceived during Hanukkah; and yet we should note that this argument does not prove that Yeshua was conceived during Hanukkah. Further, even if it did prove it, this still does not provide us with justification for adding to YHWH’s calendar. The basic rule is that we human beings are not worthy to add or subtract from the Almighty’s Instructions. We are not wise enough, and we are not authorized: yet we human beings seem to want to do this, time and again.

While we will not list the whole citation here, First Chronicles 24:7-19 tells us that the Levitical priesthood was separated into twenty-four divisions, and that their schedule of service was then chosen by lot.

Divre HaYamim Aleph (1st Chronicles) 24:1a, 3, 5-19?1 Now these are the divisions of the sons of Aaron….?3 Then David with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, divided them according to the schedule of their service….?5 Thus they were divided by lot, one group as another, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of the house of Elohim, from the sons of Eleazar and from the sons of Ithamar.

In Antiquities 7, Josephus tells us that each division served for a period of one week.

365 He divided them also into courses: and when he had separated the priests from them, he found of these priests twenty-four courses, sixteen of the house of Eleazar, and eight of that of Ithamar; and he ordained that one course should minister to [Elohim] eight days, from Sabbath to Sabbath.?366 And thus were the courses distributed by lot, in the presence of David, and Zadok and Abiathar the high priests, and of all the rulers: and that course which came up first was written down as the first, and accordingly the second, and so on to the twenty-fourth; and this partition has remained to this day.?[Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 7:365-366 (Alt: VII 14:7)]

Those wishing to verify Josephus’ summation from Scripture alone should reference 1st Chronicles 9:1-26, 1st Chronicles 28:11-14 and 2nd Chronicles 23:1-8. However, since Josephus’ summation is so much shorter and more compact, we will not reproduce all of these passages here.
Luke tells us that Yochanan HaMatbil’s (John the Baptist’s) father Zechariah was of the priestly division of Aviyah (Abijah).

Luqa (Luke) 1:5?5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Aviyah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisheva.

We know from 1st Chronicles 24:10 that the division of Aviyah served in the eighth week.

Divre HaYamim (1 Chronicles) 24:7-10?7 Now the first lot fell to Yehoiariv, the second to Yedaiah, ?8 the third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim, ?9 the fifth to Malchiyah, the sixth to Miyamin, ?10 the seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Aviyah….

Since the priestly courses began at the Head of the Year, and since the priests served from Sabbath to Sabbath, and since Zechariah belonged to the eighth priestly division, Zechariah would have served in the Temple from the eighth week of the year, to the ninth. However, since all the priests served in the Temple during the three annual pilgrimage festivals, and since Shavuot (Pentecost) was in the ninth week, Zechariah would not have gone home right away, but would have stayed at the Temple, returning home after Shavuot was over. Luke 1:23-24 confirms this, and it tells us that Zechariah’s wife Elisheva (Elisabeth) conceived after Zechariah had returned home.

Luqa (Luke) 1:8-25?8 So it was, that while he was serving as priest before Elohim in the order of his division, ?9 according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the Temple of YHWH. ?10 And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. ?11 Then a messenger of YHWH appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. ?12 And when Zechariah saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. ?13 But the messenger said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elisheva will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Yochanan. ?14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. ?15 For he will be great in the sight of YHWH, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Set apart Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to YHWH their Elohim. ?17 He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Eliyahu, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for YHWH.” ?18 And Zechariah said to the messenger, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.” ?19 And the messenger answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of Elohim, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. ?20 But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.” ?21 And the people waited for Zechariah, and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple. ?22 But when he came out, he could not speak to them; and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them and remained speechless. ?23 So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house. ?24 Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying, ?25 “Thus YHWH has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

It would have taken Zechariah some time to get home, so if we add nine months to the date of Yochanan’s conception (perhaps in the middle of the third month), we can see that Yochanan would likely have been born in the spring, right around the Passover time frame (in the middle of the first month). [Those who obey the rabbinical rituals may find this more than a coincidence, since one of the rabbinical rituals is to set a special place setting for Eliyahu (Elijah), who Yochanan came in the power and the spirit of.]

Continuing onward, verse 36 tells us that Gabriel spoke with Miriam during the sixth month of Elisheva’s term.

Luqa (Luke) 1:26-38?26 Now in the sixth month the messenger Gabriel was sent by Elohim to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ?27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Yosef, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Miriam. ?28 And having come in, the messenger said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, YHWH is with you; blessed are you among women!” ?29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. ?30 Then the messenger said to her, “Do not be afraid, Miriam, for you have found favor with Elohim. ?31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Yeshua. ?32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and YHWH Elohim will give Him the throne of His father David. ?33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” ?34 Then Miriam said to the messenger, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” ?35 And the messenger answered and said to her, “The Set apart Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Set apart One who is to be born will be called the Son of Elohim. ?36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.?37 For with Elohim nothing will be impossible.” ?38 Then Miriam said, “Behold the maidservant of YHWH! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the messenger departed from her.

Continuing onward, verse 39 tells us that Miriam left Nazareth ‘with haste’ to go visit Elisheva. We can surmise that Miriam was already pregnant at that time because Elisheva, filled with the Set-apart Spirit, blessed the fruit of Miriam’s womb (i.e., Yeshua).

Luqa (Luke) 1:39-45?39 Now Miriam arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, ?40 and entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elisheva. ?41 And it happened, when Elisheva heard the greeting of Miriam, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisheva was filled with the Set-apart Spirit. ?42 Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! ?43 But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Master should come to me? ?44 For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. ?45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from YHWH.”

Even though Miriam left ‘with haste’, back in the days of transportation on foot and by camel, it would still have taken her some time to travel from Nazareth in the north, to Judea in the south. Thus, even though Yochanan HaMatbil was probably conceived about the middle of the third month, Yeshua was likely conceived around the end of the ninth month. Some argue that this may have been about the same time as Hanukkah begins, more-or-less the 25th day of the 9th month. Thus it can be argued that YHWH used Hanukkah to give us yet one more prophetic shadow picture of the One who would become the Light of the world; yet we should be clear that this is by no means proven: and even if it were, it still does not give us justification to add to the Almighty’s Instructions.

Why do we keep Hanukkah? The rabbis teach that it is because there was an eight-day miracle of oil that the Book of First Maccabees does not witness to.
What is [the reason of] Hanukkah? For our Rabbis taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislew 22 [commence] the days of Hanukkah, which are eight on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden. 23 For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean [Maccabean] dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest, 24 but which contained sufficient for one day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein and they lit [the lamp] therewith for eight days. The following year these [days] were appointed a Festival with [the recital of] Hallel 25 and thanksgiving.26?[Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, Chapter 21]

In contrast, the Book of First Maccabees tells us that it is because Judah Maccabee and his brethren told us to do so.

1 Maccabees 4:59?59 Moreover Yehudah and his brethren and the whole congregation of Israel ordained that the days of dedication of the altar should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days, from the twenty-fifth day of Kislev, with mirth and gladness.

Yet as much as we might want to respect the person of Judah Maccabee and the other war heroes to whom YHWH gave such a great victory, it would be a mistake to value and esteem their word over the Instructions of the One who gave the victory.

Norman B. Willis Lead apostle, Nazarene Israel
Re-establishing the original faith of the apostles
http://www.nazareneisrael.org


Yeah, But Yehshua Kept Chanukah

Once again, this week, I am going to offend and make some of you mad.

Each year I try not to get involved in the Chanukah lies that are taught and used to justify each person’s own desires to keep this false festival of lights. Others, using the exact same excuses, do so to justify the keeping of Christmas and if they are from the East Indian background the keeping of Daliwa.

Let’s be clear here. The story of the birth of Yehshua in a manger is never the issue for not keeping Christmas. It is all the pagan trappings and the fact that Yehshua was born on the Feast of Trumpets and not Dec. 25th that are the main reason most of us no longer keep it.

Concerning the Chanukah season. It is Not the story of the Heroic deeds of the Maccabees that is in question here. The lie about the oil being lit for 8 days and the twisting of scriptures to justify keeping this event is what we are against. Lets talk about the Maccabees in July or at Passover then. It is also the adding to the Torah another holiday not found in Lev 23.

This false festival of lights season is an attempt to impersonate the true light of Yehovah even using the same Scriptures He uses speaking of Himself- the True Light.

2Co 11:13 For such ones are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 Did not even Satan marvelously transform himself into an angel of light? 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.

It is time we admit it; so are some of you working on Satan’s behalf. You would rather follow the traditions of men than the word of Yehovah. You “yeah but…” yourselves into justifying everything and fight against those who expose the truth.
Those of you who used to be of the Christian faith and are now keeping Torah, sort of, justify the keeping of Chanukah based on John 10. So now lets take a look at it.

Joh 10:22 And the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s Porch.

Did Yehshua keep the Feast of Chanukah on the 25th day of the 9th month? It is time you learned the truth. But once you do will you “yeah but…” yourselves to deny the facts just so you can feel good and keep the company of others who are also deceived. Have you become so steeped in your vain traditions that you can no longer serve your first love- the keeping of Torah and obeying Yehovah by not adding ANYTHING to His Word?  You may be mad at me now but you will know the answer to my question by the end of this article.

The word winter here is;

G5494    ??????     cheim?n     khi-mone’
From a derivation of ??? che? (to pour; akin to the base of G5490 through the idea of a channel), meaning a storm (as pouring rain); by implication the rainy season, that is, winter: – tempest, foul weather, winter.

It was the rainy season when Yehshua walked in the Temple of Solomon’s court.

In Israel, the yearly cycle with its four seasons are not as clearly marked as the lands to the north of it. But to the Jew every season was a special time and a reminder of the promises of God, as He said to Noah “seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter” (Genesis 8: 22).

Gen 8:21 And Jehovah smelled a sweet odor. And Jehovah said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. And I will not again smite every living thing as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Though the Bible specifically mentions summer, winter, spring and autumn, it may come as a surprise to know that the Bible never mentions four seasons, but only two. The Hebrew word “stav”, translated today as “autumn,” is mentioned only once in the Bible in the Song of Solomon “for lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone…” (Song 2:11), “stav” really speaks of the time of the winter rains. The Hebrew word “aviv”, translated today as spring is mentioned twice in the Bible, both referring to a stage in the ripening of barley rather than a season. The month of Aviv (hodesh ha’aviv) is the time when this ripening of barley takes place. This is, of course, the Hebrew month of Nissan. There is no mention of a season called spring anywhere in the Bible. Therefore we must conclude that the Bible only recognizes two seasons, summer and winter, or as the writers of the Talmud put it, “the days of sun” and “the days of rain.”

With just 2 seasons we can then understand that the season of summer begins when the Barley is Aviv and the first month has begun. In this first month are the Spring Holy Days of Passover and Unleavened Bread.

Six months later begins the 7th month. And because the year has 12 months, 6 for the summer and 6 for the winter, the 7th month begins in winter. That 7th month contains the Fall Feasts; The Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles as well as the Eighth Day Feast of “Simchat Torah.” These all take place in the season of “winter”.

We are commanded to keep the Feasts of Yehovah three times a year.

Exo 23:14 You shall keep a feast to Me three times in the year. 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. And no one shall appear before Me empty. 16 Also the Feast of Harvest, the first-fruits of your labors, which you have sown in the field. Also the Feast of Ingathering, in the end of the year, when you have gathered in your labors out of the field. 17 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.
Yehshua was Jewish and would have kept this commandment. If He did not keep it then He would have sinned and disqualified Himself as being the Messiah.

Now let us get the proper perspective of what is going on leading up to the statement in John 10 that so many use to justify giving up Christmas in order for them to begin the keeping of another false holiday today called Chanukah.

Joh 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for He did not desire to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. 2 And the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near.

As we continue to read John we see that Yehshua was then teaching in the Temple.

Joh 7:14 Now about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught.
Joh 7:28 Then Jesus cried in the temple as He taught, saying, You both know Me, and you know from where I come. And I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.
Joh 7:37 And in the last day of the great feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” 39  (But He spoke this about the Spirit, which they who believed on Him should receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.) 40 Then when they heard the Word, many of the people said, Truly this is the Prophet.
The last day of the Feast is the Seventh Day. There is yet one more Holy Day called The Eighth Day.  This is what we are reading about as John 7 ends and John ch. 8 begins.
Joh 7:53 And they each went to his own house.
Joh 8:1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him. And He sat down and taught them.

It is at this time on the Eighth Day Feast that we read about Yehshua being the “Light of the world” and it is these words that many will try to steal and apply to the Feast of Chanukah on the 25th of the 9th month which is totally out of context.

Joh 8:12 Then Jesus spoke again to them, saying, I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

So far everything we have been reading in John 7 and 8 has taken place during Sukkot and the eighth day. Now as we finish chapter 8 it is still the 8th Day, The last Holy Day. Chapter 9 continues from chapter 8 when Yehshua passed by those who wanted to stone Him. And as He passed by them He sees the blind man. It is still the 8th Day, it is still a Holy Day and He is still in Jerusalem because the blind man went to the Pool of Siloam to wash his eyes.

Joh 8:58 Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I AM! 59 Then they took up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus hid Himself and went forth out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and passed on by.
Joh 9:1 And passing by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

We read something very important in verse 14.

Joh 9:14 And it was a sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

The word translated Sabbath here is Sabbaton.

G4521    ????????    sabbaton     sab’-bat-on

Of Hebrew origin [H7676]; the Sabbath (that is, Shabbath), or day of weekly repose from secular avocations (also the observance or institution itself); by extension a se’nnight, that is, the interval between two Sabbaths; likewise the plural in all the above applications: – sabbath (day), week.

Strong’s has it wrong here. Sabbaton is number  H7677. Yes, it originates from 7676. But there is a huge difference. 7677 is the word Sabbaton!

And Sabbaton is a high Holy Day.

H7677     ???????     shabbâthôn     shab-baw-thone’
From H7676; a sabbatism or special holiday: – rest, sabbath.

Yehshua healed the blind man on the High Holy Day of the Eighth Day. We read of the events with this blind man for the rest of Chapter 9 and ongoing into chapter 10. And this conversation goes on between Yehshua and the Pharisees right up until verse 18.

Then John tells us the results of these conversations because of the healing of the blind man right up until the verse when John then states Yehshua was walking in the porch of Solomons Temple. This is a continuation of the things that had just happened during the Feast of Tabernacles also called the Feast of Dedication.

Joh 10:22 And the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s Porch. 24 Then the Jews encircled Him and said to Him, How long do you make us doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you and you did not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me.

The Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Dedication as it was also called, was now over and it was the day after when people begin to go back to their homes. It was at this time after the Feast of Dedication was over that the Jews surrounded Yehshua and they continue the same conversation they had been having during the Feast.

This false notion that this is referring to Chanukah on the 25th of the 9th month is so not true it is sickening. To know so many have taken John 10:22 and twisted it and misapplied it as they now do- all in order to justify themselves to keep something that was invented by the Pharisees in the Talmud. Those things in the Talmud, were not written down until after 200 C.E. long after the Temple had been destroyed in 70 C.E.

The keeping of what today is known as Chanukah (Chanukah in Hebrew is “Dedication”) and justifying it because of John 10:22 is false as you have just read. Yehshua was not keeping Chanukah on the 25th of the 9th month! He had just finished keeping the Feast of Dedication, The Feast of Tabernacles which is one of the Hags we are commanded to go up to Jerusalem and observe.
Let me give you something else to consider.

Exo 16:4  Then Jehovah said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from the heavens for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain amount every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My Law or not. 5  And on the sixth day it shall happen, they shall prepare what they bring in. And it shall be twice as much as they gather day by day.

The giving of the manna was a way for Yehovah to test the people of Israel and see if they would OBEY Him.

Exo 16:22  And it happened, on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23  And he said to them, This is that which Jehovah has said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath to Jehovah. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil. And that which remains over, lay up for you to be kept until the morning. 24  And they laid it up until the morning, as Moses said. And it did not stink, neither was there any worm in it. 25  And Moses said, Eat that today. For today is a sabbath to Jehovah. Today you shall not find it in the field. 26  Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, in it there shall be none. 27  And it happened some of the people went out on the seventh day in order to gather. And they did not find any. 28  And Jehovah said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My Laws? 29  See, because Jehovah has given you the sabbath, therefore He gives you the bread of two days on the sixth day. Each one stay in his place. Let not any one go out of his place on the seventh day. 30  So the people rested on the seventh day.

Through providing manna on six days of the week but not the seventh, Yehovah was testing His people. But how was He testing them? As noted in verse 4, Yehovah was learning “whether they will walk in My law or not.” Would they choose Yehovah’s way, or their own way? Some immediately failed the test (verses 27-29).

The people were not working on the Sabbath, because there was no manna to be picked up. What they did was not obey Yehovah and believe Him. Yehovah asked them:

How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My Laws?

Week after week for 40 years Yehovah tested the people to see if they would obey Him or not.

Deu 8:2  And you shall remember all the way which Jehovah your God led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you, to prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
Deu 8:15  He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground, where there was no water, who brought you forth water out of the rock of flint, 16  who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, so that He might humble you and so that He might prove you, to do you good in your latter end, 17  and so that you might not say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth. 18  But you shall remember Jehovah your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, so that He may confirm His covenant which He has sworn to your fathers, as it is today.

Here we are now in the Last Days and Yehovah has poured out His Holy Spirit on each one of you. He again sets His Sabbaths before you as a sign between you and Him, to see if you will obey Him or not. If we are to keep His Torah we will LIVE in it.

Eze 20:10  And I caused them to go out from the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. 11  And I gave them My statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. 12  And also I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah who sets them apart. 13  But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they did not walk in My statutes, and they despised My judgments, which if a man does, he shall even live in them. And they greatly profaned My Sabbaths. And I said, I will pour out My fury on them in the wilderness to destroy them.

But many of you presume to be smarter than Yehovah. You have developed whole theologies about Chanukah and Yehshua. Yehovah has given you His Sabbaths and all of them are found in Leviticus 23. The weekly Sabbath and the Holy Days. Yes, you say “we keep these,” but then some of you refuse to keep the Sabbatical Year and you justify it, and then you also justify adding other holidays to  the ones in Lev 23.
We are in the very last days and Yehovah is TESTING you now to see if you will obey Him or not.

Deu 4:2  You shall not add to the Word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, so that you may keep the commands of Jehovah your God which I command you.
Deu 12:32  All the things I command you, be careful to do it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.

Rev 22:18  For I testify together to everyone who hears the Words of the prophecy of this Book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add on him the plagues that have been written in this Book.

When you add other holidays to those in Lev 23 you are endangering you and your family to the curses of Lev 26. Look again at what Ezekiel says;  And they greatly profaned My Sabbaths. And I said, I will pour out My fury on them in the wilderness to destroy them.

It is my strong opinion that Yehovah allowed John to state that it was the “Dedication” and “winter” in order that Yehovah could test you in these last days as to whether or not you would profane His Sabbath by adding to it other holidays. He is proving those who are to be Kings and Priests in the Kingdom.  King David will rule over them during the Millennium and King David has never heard of the “Chanukah” festival.

Psa 26:2  Examine me, O Jehovah, and prove me; purify my heart and my mind.

Prove you love to Yehovah and keep only what He has said to keep in Lev 23 and Lev 25. Do not add to it.

Now read of the real Dedication which Solomon did and the one Yehshua was keeping a memorial to.  The REAL LIGHT came and filled the Temple. Not some imposter light on a candle.

1Ki 8:1 And Solomon gathered the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the sons of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, so that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of Jehovah out of the city of David, which is Zion. 2 And all the men of Israel were gathered to King Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month. 3 And all the elders of Israel came in, and the priests took up the ark. 4 And they brought up the ark of Jehovah, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and all the holy vessels which werein the tabernacle; even those the priests and the Levites brought up. 5 And King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who had assembled to him, were with him before the ark sacrificing sheep and oxen which could not be counted nor numbered for multitude. 6 And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of Jehovah into its place, into the holy place of the house, into the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubs. 7 For the cherubs spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark. And the cherubs covered the ark and the staves of it above. 8 And they drew out the staves, so that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place, in front of the Holy of Holies. And they were not seen outside. And there they are until today. 9 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when Jehovah made a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. 10 And it happened when the priests had come out of the Holy of Holies, the cloud filled the house of Jehovah. 11 And the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of Jehovah. 12 And Solomon said, Jehovah said that He would dwell in the thick darkness.13 I have surely built a house of loftiness for You, a settled place for You to abide in forever. 14 And the king turned his face around and blessed all the congregation of Israel. And all the congregation of Israel stood. 15 And he said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, who spoke with His mouth to David my father, and has fulfilled it by His hand, saying, 16 From the day that I brought forth My people Israel out of Egypt, I did not choose any city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house, so that My name might be in it. But I chose David to be over My people Israel. 17 And it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel. 18 And Jehovah said to my father David, Because it was in your heart to build a house to My name, you did well that it was in your heart. 19 Only, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall come out of your loins, he shall build the house to My name. 20 And Jehovah has performed His Word which He spoke, and I have risen up instead of my father David. And I sit on the throne of Israel, as Jehovah promised. And I have built a house for the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel. 21 And I have set there a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of Jehovah which He made with our fathers when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. 22 And Solomon stood before the altar of Jehovah in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward the heavens. 23 And he said, Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like You, in Heaven above or on earth beneath, who keeps covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their heart, 24 who have kept with Your servant David my father what You promised him. You also spoke with Your mouth, and have fulfilled with Your hand, as it is today. 25 And now, Jehovah, the God of Israel, keep with Your servant David, my father, what You promised him, saying, There shall not be cut off from you a man in My sight to sit on the throne of Israel– if your sons take heed to their way so that they walk before Me as you have walked before Me. 26 And now, O God of Israel, I pray You, let Your Word be proved to be true, the Word which You spoke to Your servant David my father. 27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this house which I have built? 28 Yet, O, Jehovah my God, You have turned toward the prayer of Your servant and to his request, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which Your servant prays before You today; 29 for Your eyes to be open toward this house night and day, toward the place of which You have said, My name shall be there; to listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this place. 30 And You shall listen to the cry of Your servant, and of Your people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place, and hear in Heaven Your dwelling-place, and when You hear, forgive! 31 If any man sins against his neighbor, and if an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and if the oath comes before Your altar in this house, 32 then hear in Heaven, and do, and judge Your servants, to declare the wicked to be wicked, to bring his way on his head, and to declare the righteous to be righteous, to give him according to his righteousness. 33 When Your people Israel are crushed before the enemy because they have sinned against You, and shall turn again to You and confess Your name, and pray, and cry to You in this house, 34 then hear in Heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them again into the land which You gave to their fathers. 35 When the heavens are restrained, and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, if they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin when You afflict them, 36 then hear in Heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants, and of Your people Israel, for You shall teach them the good way in which they should walk, and give rain on Your land which You have given to Your people for an inheritance. 37 If there is famine in the land, if there is plague, blasting, mildew, locusts; if there are stripping locusts; if their enemy encircles them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness, 38 any prayer, any supplication from any man of all Your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and shall spread forth his hands toward this house, 39 then hear in Heaven Your dwelling-place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to all his ways, whose heart You know. For You, You only, know the hearts of all the sons of Adam. 40 Do this so that they may fear You all the days that they live in the land which You have given to our fathers. 41 And concerning a stranger who is not of Your people Israel, but who comes out of a far country for Your name’s sake; 42 for they shall hear of Your great name and of Your strong hand and of Your stretched-out arm; and if he shall come and pray toward this house, 43 hear in Heaven Your dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calls to You for, so that all the peoples of the earth may know Your name, to fear You, as Your people Israel do, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by Your name. 44 If Your people go out to battle against their enemy, wherever You shall send them, and shall pray to Jehovah toward the city which You have chosen, and the house that I have built for Your name, 45 then hear in Heaven their prayer and their cry, and maintain their cause. 46 If they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin), and if You are angry with them, and have delivered them up before the enemy, and they have been led away captive to the land of the enemy, far or near, 47 yet if they shall think within themselves in the land where they are carried captives, and repent, and pray to You in the land of their captors saying, We have sinned and have done perversely, we have done wickedly, 48 and so return to You with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies who led them away captive, and if they pray to You toward their land which You gave to their fathers, to the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name, 49 then hear their prayer and their cry in Heaven Your dwelling-place, and maintain their cause, 50 and forgive Your people who have sinned against You, even all their sins which they have done against You, and give them pity before their captors, so that they may have pity on them. 51 For they are Your people, and Your inheritance, which You brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the furnace of iron, 52 for Your eyes shall be open to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your people Israel, to listen to them in all that they call for to You. 53 For You have separated them from among all the people of the earth to be Your inheritance, as You spoke by the hand of Moses Your servant, when You brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord Jehovah. 54 And it happened as Solomon finished praying all this prayer and petition to Jehovah, he rose from before the altar of Jehovah, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven. 55 And he stood and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying, 56 Blessed be Jehovah, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise which He promised by the hand of Moses His servant. 57 May Jehovah our God be with us as He was with our fathers. Let Him not leave us nor forsake us, 58 to incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments which He commanded our fathers. 59 And let these my words, with which I have prayed before Jehovah, be near Jehovah our God day and night, so that He may maintain the cause of His servant, and the cause of His people Israel of each day in its day, 60 for all the people of the earth know that Jehovah is God; there is no other. 61 And let your heart be perfect with Jehovah our God, to walk in His statutes, and to keep His commandments, as at this day. 62 And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before Jehovah. 63 And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to Jehovah, twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the sons of Israel dedicated the house of Jehovah. 64 On that day the king sanctified the middle of the court before the house of Jehovah. For there he had offered the burnt offering, and the food offering, and the fat of the peace offerings; because the bronze altar before Jehovah was too small to contain the burnt offering, and the food offering, and the fat of the peace offerings. 65 And at that time Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath to the river of Egypt, before Jehovah our God, seven days and seven days, fourteen days. 66 On the eighth day he sent the people away. And they blessed the king and went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the good that Jehovah had done for David His servant, and for Israel His people.

 

The Talmud (/?t??lm?d, -m?d, ?tæl-/; Hebrew: ?????????? talm?d “instruction, learning”, from a root lmd “teach, study”) is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It is also traditionally referred to as Shas (????), a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim, the “six orders”. The Talmud has two components. The first part is the Mishnah (Hebrew: ????, c. 200 CE), the written compendium of Judaism’s Oral Torah (Torah meaning “Instruction”, “Teaching” in Hebrew). The second part is the Gemara (c. 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Jewish Bible. The terms Talmud and Gemara are often used interchangeably, though strictly speaking that is not accurate.

The whole Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. It is written in Tannaitic Hebrew and Aramaic. The Talmud contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including Halakha (law), Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law and is much quoted in rabbinic literature.
Originally, Jewish scholarship was oral. Rabbis expounded and debated the Torah (the written Torah expressed in the Jewish Bible) and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works (other than the Biblical books themselves), though some may have made private notes (megillot setarim), for example of court decisions. However, this situation changed drastically, mainly as the result of the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth and the Second Temple in the year 70 CE and the consequent upheaval of Jewish social and legal norms. As the Rabbis were required to face a new reality—mainly Judaism without a Temple (to serve as the center of teaching and study) and Judea without at least partial autonomy—there was a flurry of legal discourse and the old system of oral scholarship could not be maintained. It is during this period that Rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing.[1][2] The earliest recorded oral Torah may have been of the midrashic form, in which halakhicdiscussion is structured as exegetical commentary on the Pentateuch. But an alternative form, organized by subject matter instead of by biblical verse, became dominant about the year 200 CE, when Rabbi Judah haNasi redacted the Mishnah.

The Oral Torah was far from monolithic; rather, it varied among various schools. The most famous two were the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel. In general, all valid opinions, even the non-normative ones, were recorded in the Talmud.

As you can see the Talmud was not written down until after 200 C.E. That is over 170 years after Yehshua was killed. Now lets read what the Talmud does say about the keeping of Chanukah.

Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, page 21b  
Our Rabbis taught: The commandment of Chanukah requires one light per household; the zealous kindle a light for each member of the household; and the extremely zealous — Beit Shammai maintain: On the first day eight lights are lit and thereafter they are gradually reduced [by one each day]; but Beit Hillel say: On the first day one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased. Ulla said: In the West [Eretz Yisrael] two amoraim, R. Jose b. Abin and R. Jose b. Zebida, differ concerning this: one maintains, the reasoning of Beit Shammai is that it should correspond to the days still to come, and that of Beit Hillel is that it shall correspond to the days that are gone. But another maintains: Beit Shammai’s reason is that it shall correspond to the bullocks of the Festival [of Tabernacles; i.e. Sukkot], while Beit Hillel’s reason is that we increase in matters of sanctity but do not reduce.

Rabbah b. Bar Hana said: There are two old men in Sidon: one did as Beth Shammai and the other as Beth Hillel: the former gave the reason of his action that it should correspond to the bullocks of the Festival, while the latter stated his reason because we promote in [matters of] sanctity but do not reduce.

Our Rabbis taught: It is incumbent to place the Chanukah lamp by the door of one’s house on the outside; if one dwells in an upper chamber, place it at the window nearest the street. But in times of danger it is sufficient to place it on the table. Raba said: Another lamp is required for its light to be used, yet if there is a blazing fire it is unnecessary. But in the case of an important person, even if there is a blazing fire another lamp is required.

What is the reason for Chanukah? For our Rabbis taught: On the 25th of Kislev begin the days of Chanukah, which are eight, during which lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils in it, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they [the Hasmoneans] searched and found only one cruse of oil which possessed the seal of the High Priest, but which contained sufficient oil for only one day’s lighting; yet a miracle occurred there and they lit [the lamp] for eight days. The following year these days were appointed a Festival with the recitation of Hallel and thanksgiving.

Right there in plain site is the lie that this light stayed lit for 8 days. Now compare this to what it actually says in Maccabees. The miracle of Chanukah never took place. It is made up starting in the Talmud.

[The Second Book of Maccabees 1:1-9 and 10:1-8]
The Jewish brethren in Jerusalem and those in the land of Judea, to their Jewish brethren in Egypt: Greeting and good peace.
May God do good to you, and may God remember his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, his faithful servants. May he give you all a heart to worship him and to do his will with a strong heart and a willing spirit. May he open your heart to his law and his commandments, and may he bring peace. May he hear your prayers and be reconciled to you, and may he not forsake you in time of evil. We are now praying for you here.
In the reign of Demetrius, in the 169th year, we Jews wrote to you in the critical distress which came upon us in those years after Jason and his company revolted from the holy land and the kingdom and burned the gate and shed innocent blood. We besought the Lord and we were heard, we offered sacrifice and cereal offering and we lit the lamps and we set out the loaves. Now see that you keep the Feast of Booths in the month of Kislev, in the 188th year…

Now Maccabeus and his followers, the Lord leading them on, recovered the Temple and the city and they tore down the altars which had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts. They purified the sanctuary and made another altar of sacrifice. Then striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years, and they burned incense and lit lamps and set out the bread of the Presence. When they had done this, they fell prostrate and besought the Lord that they might never again fall into such misfortunes, but that if they should ever sin, they might be disciplined by him with forbearance and not be handed over to blasphemous and barbarous nations. It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the 25th day of Kislev. They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the Feast of Booths, remembering how not long before, during the Feast of Booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals. Therefore bearing ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place. They decreed by public ordinance and vote that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.

For those who want to read more about this I have the following articles for you.
The Festival of Lights; Do we have to deal with this again?
Hochen a Hanukah Hair Ball
Chanukah Is Mithraism and Why You Need to be Rebaptised
Chanukah and Its Pagan Traditions
The Truth that Chanukah Hides

 


Are you Worshipping Moelch or Just keeping Christmas?

I have written this for the benefit of all those men and women willing to listen and change. This stuff I learned when I was just coming into the truth. It had a very significant impact in my life, which you can read about in Living With An Unconverted Mate and I am very grateful for having learned this back in 1983.

I had just finished 6 months of intense bible study then. I would have to start obeying Yahweh’s word if I couldn’t show the Bible to be in error, due to my conscience. I never really had a chance. I was wrong from the get go. The more I learn as I continue to study, the more clearly I can see how far from the truth our society has gone.

Indeed Satan has truely decieved the whole world. If you believe this statement to be true, then you must consider how you too, may have been decieved as well. I pray Yahweh will open your minds to see those truths written here on this web site.

Duet. 12:1-4, 29-32 (NAB) ” (1)These are the statutes and decrees which you must be careful to observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to occupy, as long as you live on its soil. (2)Destroy without fail every place on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every leafy tree where the nations you are to dispossess worship their gods. (3)Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, destroy by fire their sacred poles, and stamp out the remembrance of them in any such place. (4)That is not how you are to worship the Lord your God.”
(29)When the Lord, your God, removes the nations from your way as you advance to dispossess them, be on your guard! Otherwise, once they have been wiped out before you and you have replaced them and are settled in their land, (30)you will be lured into following them. Do not inquire regarding their gods, ‘How did these nations worship their gods? I, too, would do the same .’ (31)You shall not thus worship the Lord your God, because they offered to their gods every abomination that the Lord detests, even burning their sons and daughters to their gods.”
Lev. 18:21,(NAB) “You shall not offer any of your offspring to be immolated to Molech, thus profaning the name of the Lord you God.” In the King James it says to pass through the fire to Molech.

Lev. 18:1-5,(NAB) ” The Lord said to Moses, (2)’Speak to the Israelites and tell them: I, the Lord am your God. (3) You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you once lived, nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you; do not conform to their customs. (4)My decrees you shall carry out and my statutes you shall take care to follow. I, the Lord, am your God. (5)Keep, then, my statutes and decrees, for the man who carries them out will find life through them. I am the Lord you God.

Lev.18:24-30 (NAB) ” Do not defile yourselves by any of these things by which the nations whom I am driving out of your way have defiled themselves. (25) Because their land has become defiled, I am punishing it for its wickedness, by making it vomit out its inhabitants. (26) You, however, whether natives or resident aliens, must keep my statutes and decrees forbidding all such abominations (27) by which the previous inhabitants defiled the land; (28) otherwise the land will vomit you out also for having defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations before you. (29) Everyone who does these abominations shall be cut off from among his people. (30) Heed my charge, then, not to defile yourselves by observing the abominable customs that have been observed before you. I, the Lord , am your God.”

From the Zondervan Bible Dict. Moloch, Molech, Muluk, Malik, Chemosh, Milcom (1 Kings 11:5), Malcam (Zeph 1:5) are all variants of Hebrew words meaning “the reigning one”. A heathen god worshiped especially by the Ammorites with gruesome orgies in which little ones were sacrificed. At least in some places an image of the god was heated and the bodies of the children who had just been slain were placed in the arms.

Note ” the statue was made from bronze or iron with a hollowed out human body and the head of a calf. Fire was heated in the statute till a red glow came from the statute then the child was placed on the outstretched arms as a sacrificial offering.

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molech?- Ba’al?Moloch the God Ba’al, the Sacred Bull, was widely worshipped in the ancient Near East and wherever Punic culture extended. Baal Moloch was conceived under the form of a calf or an ox or depicted as a man with the head of a bull. [citation needed]

Hadad, Baal or simply the King identified the god within his cult. The name Moloch is not the name he was known by among his worshippers, but a Hebrew translation. The written form Moloch (in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament), or Molech (Hebrew), is no different than the word Melech or king, transformed by interposing the vowels of bosheth or ’shameful thing’.[citation needed]

He is sometimes also called Milcom in the Old Testament (1 Kings 11:5, 1 Kings 11:33, 2 Kings 23:13 and Zephaniah 1:5)

Forms and grammar?The Hebrew letters ??? (mlk) usually stands for melek ‘king’ (Proto-Northwest Semitic malku) but when vocalized as m?lek in Masoretic Hebrew text, they have been traditionally understood as a proper name ????? (molokh) (Proto-Northwest Semitic Mulku) in the corresponding Greek renderings in the Septuagint translation, in Aquila, and in the Greek Targum. The form usually appears in the compound lmlk. The Hebrew preposition l- means ‘to’, but it can often mean ‘for’ or ‘as a(n)’. Accordingly one can translate lmlk as “to Moloch” or “for Moloch” or “as a Moloch”, or “to the Moloch” or “for the Moloch” or “as the Moloch”, whatever a “Moloch” or “the Moloch” might be. We also once find hmlk ‘the Moloch’ standing by itself.

Because there is no difference between mlk ‘king’ and mlk ‘moloch’ in unpointed text, interpreters sometimes suggest molek should be understood in certain places where the Masoretic text is vocalized as melek, and vice versa.

Moloch has been traditionally interpreted as the name of a god, possibly a god titled the king, but purposely misvocalized as Molek instead of Melek using the vowels of Hebrew bosheth ’shame’.

Moloch appears in the Hebrew of 1 Kings 11.7 (on Solomon’s religious failings):
Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and lmlk, the abomination of the Sons of Ammon.

But in other passages the god of the Ammonites is named Milcom, not Moloch (see 1 Kings 11.33; Zephaniah 1.5). The Septuagint reads Milcom in 1 Kings 11.7 instead of Moloch which suggests a scribal error in the Hebrew. Many English translations accordingly follow the non-Hebrew versions at this point and render Milcom.

(The form mlkm can also mean ‘their king’ as well as Milcom and therefore one cannot always be sure in some other passages whether the King of Ammon is intended or the god Milcom.) It has also been suggested that the Ba‘al of Tyre, Melqart ‘king of the city’ (who was probably the Ba‘al whose worship was furthered by Ahab and his house) was this supposed god Moloch and that Melqart/Moloch was also Milcom the god of the Ammonites and identical with other gods whose names contain mlk. But nothing particularly suggests these identifications other than mlk in the various names.

Amos 5.27 reads in close translation:
But you shall carry Sikkut your king,?and Kiyyun, your images, the star-symbol of your god?which you made for yourself.?The Septuagint renders ‘your king’ as Moloch, perhaps from a scribal error, whence the verse appears in Acts 7.43:

You have lifted up the shrine of Molech?and the star of your god Rephan,?the idols you made to worship.?Accordingly this association of Moloch with these other gods is probably spurious.

All other references to Moloch use mlk only in the context of “passing children through fire lmlk”, whatever is meant by lmlk, whether it means “to Moloch” or means something else. It has traditionally been understood to mean burning children alive to the god Moloch. But some have suggested a rite of purification by fire instead, though perhaps a dangerous one. References to passing through fire without mentioning mlk appear in Deuteronomy 12.31, 18.10–13; 2 Kings 21.6; Ezekiel 20.26,31; 23.37. So the existence of this practice is well documented. For a comparable practice of rendering infants immortal by passing them through the fire, indirectly attested in early Greek myth, see the entries for Thetis and also the myth of Demeter as the nurse of Demophon.

Biblical texts?The pertinent Biblical texts follow in very literal translation. The word here translated literally as ’seed’ very often means offspring. The forms containing mlk have been left untranslated. The reader may substitute either “to Moloch” or “as a molk”.
Leviticus 18.21

And you shall not let any of your seed pass through Mo’lech, neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 20.2–5:
Again, you shall say to the Sons of Israel: Whoever he be of the Sons of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that gives any of his seed Mo’lech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people; because he has given of his seed Mo’lech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he gives of his seed Mo’lech, and do not kill him, then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go astray after him, whoring after Mo’lech from among the people.

2 Kings 23.10 (on King Josiah’s reform):
And he defiled the Tophet, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire Mo’lech.

Jeremiah 32.35:
And they built the high places of the Ba‘al, which are in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire Mo’lech; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
Moloch has also been referred to simply as a rebel angel.

Traditional accounts and theories?The 12th century rabbi Rashi, commenting on Jeremiah 7.31 stated:
Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved.

A different rabbinical tradition says that the idol was hollow and was divided into seven compartments, in one of which they put flour, in the second turtle-doves, in the third a ewe, in the fourth a ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the seventh a child, which were all burnt together by heating the statue inside.

Later commentators have compared these accounts with similar ones from Greek and Latin sources speaking of the offering of children by fire as sacrifices in the Punic city of Carthage, which was a Phoenician colony. Cleitarchus, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch all mention burning of children as an offering to Cronus or Saturn, that is to Ba‘al Hammon, the chief god of Carthage. Issues and practices relating to Moloch and child sacrifice may also have been overemphasized for effect. After the Romans finally defeated Carthage and totally destroyed the city, they engaged in post-war propaganda to make their arch enemies seem cruel and less civilised.

Paul G. Mosca in his thesis (described below) translates Cleitarchus’ paraphrase of a scholia to Plato’s Republic as:

There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ’sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing.

Diodorus Siculus (20.14) wrote:
There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.

Diodorus also relates relatives were forbidden to weep and that when Agathocles defeated Carthage, the Carthaginian nobles believed they had displeased the gods by substituting low-born children for their own children. They attempted to make amends by sacrificing 200 children at once, children of the best families, and in their enthusiasm actually sacrificed 300 children.

Plutarch wrote in De Superstitiones 171:
… the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.

Lev.20:1-5 (NAB) The Lord said to Moses, (2) “Tell the Israelites : Anyone, whether an Israelite or an alien residing in Israel, who gives any of his offspring too Molech shall be put to death. Let his fellow citizens stone him. (3) I myself will turn against such a man and cut him off from the body of his people; for in giving his offspring to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. (4) Even if his fellow citizens connive at such a man’s crime of giving his offspring to Molech, and fail to put him to death, (5) I myself will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who join him in this wanton worship of Molech.”

Yahweh didn’t want Israel to begin to look on Him like Molech.

As incredible as it may sound in Psalm 106:34-28 it tells us that Israel did get involved in this worship. (34)They did not exterminate the peoples, as the Lord had commanded them, (35)But mingled with the nations and learned their works. (36)They served their idols, which became a snare for them. (37)They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, (38)And they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, desecrating the land with bloodshed;

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the primitive title of this god was very probably Melech, ‘King”, the consonants came to be combined through derision with the vowels of the word BOSETH, “shame”. Or king of shame

Speaking of the Phoenicians the catholic encyclopedia says “They deified the sun and the moon which they considered the great forces that create and destroy, and called them Baal, and Astaroth. Each city had its divine pair: at Sidon it was Baal Sidon (the sun) and Astarte (the moon); at Gebel , Baal Tummuz and Baaleth; at Carthage, Baal Hamon and Tanith. But the same god changed his name accordingly as he was conceived creator or destroyer; thus Baal as destroyer was worshipped at Cartage under the name of Moloch….As creators they were honored with orgies and tumultuous feast; as destroyers by human victims. Baal Moloch was figured at Carthage as a bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. To appease him children were laid in his arms , and fell at once into a pit of fire. ”

In Ezek 23:39 (NAB) Yahweh says ” On the very day they slew their children for their idols they entered my sanctuary to desecrate it.” The Israelite’s had mixed Yahweh’s worship with the worship of Moloch just as he had said not to.

In Jeremiah 19:1-15 (NIV) Thus said the Lord, “Go, buy a potter’s earthen flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priest, (2) and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate , and proclaim there the words that I tell you. (3) You shall say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon this place that the ears of every one who hears of it will tingle. (4) Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, (5) and have built the high places of Ba’al to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Ba’al, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind; (6) therefore , behold, days are coming, says the Lord , when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnon, but the valley Slaughter. (7) And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. (8) And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at ; every one who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. (9) And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’?(10) Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you, (11) and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potters vessel, so that it can never be mended. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. (12) Thus will I do to this place, says the Lord, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. (13) The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah – all the house upon whose roofs incense has been burned to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been pored out to other gods – shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.”?(14)Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy , and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house, and said to all the people: (15) “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.”

Topheth in Strongs concordance is #8612 taken from #8611 to mean a smiting or contempt. Tophteh #8613 is from #8612 meaning a place of cremation. And #8611 is taken from #8608 taphaph meaning to play on the drum the tambourine ; play with timbrels.

Note it says that the drums were played to drown out the screams of the children.

From the Catholic encyclopedia Topheth was the place where Judas Iscariot hung himself and his body fell and burst open on the rocks below. The field of blood (Haceldama).

From the Chamber Encyclopedia under Molech ‘ … it is clear that in Palestine and Syria from at least the 18th century BC infants about 8 days old were sacrificed and buried in womb shape jars, possibly in connection with fertility rites. In the king cult the king was regarded as the son embodiment of god & the Hebrew phrase “to the molech” may have meant for the sake of the life of the king. ‘ Remember we said earlier Melek = king of nether world.

Jeremiah (NIV)7: 30-31 For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight , says the Lord; they have set their abomination in the house which is called by my name, to defile it (31) And they have built the high place of Topheth which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command nor did it come into my mind.

Jeremiah (NIV) 8:1-2 At that time, say the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priest, the bones of the prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; (2) and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshipped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground.

Note: They are worshiping the sun god Ba’al Moloch and the moon god Astarte. That’s why Yahweh spreads them out before their god as dung.

Jeremiah (NIV)32:28,30-35…Behold I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar King of Babylon and he shall take it. (30) For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth; the sons of Israel have done nothing but provoke me to anger by the works of their hands, says the Lord. (31) This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from the day it was built to this day, so that I will remove it from my sight (32) because of all the evil the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah which they did to provoke me to anger – their kings and their princes, their priest and their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (33) They have turned to me their back and not their face; and though I have taught them persistently they have not listened to receive instruction. (34) They have set up their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. (35) They built the high places of Ba’al in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them , nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

So in the early 600’s BC in Jeremiah’s time this was the official religion and it included child sacrifices.!!

But even in King Solomon’s day it was going on. 1 Kings 11:1-13 (NKJV) But King Solomon loved many foreign woman, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites- (2) from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not intermarry with them , nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. (3) And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.?(4)For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. (5) For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. (6) Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David.

[Notes He partially followed Yahweh and partially followed other gods . Mixing Yahweh’s religion with foriegn gods.]

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, (Mount of Olives and Mount of Corruption, 2 Kings 23:13) and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. (8) And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, (10) and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded. (11) therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. (12) Nevertheless I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. (13) However I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.

Note. Solomon’s weakness greatly encouraged this worship, and for this reason Yahweh stripped the dynasty from him. Because the wives were sacrificing children.

2 Kings 16:1-4 (NKJV) In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz, the son of Jothan, king of Judah began to reign. (2) Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done. (3) But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel. (4) And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree.

2 Chronicles 28:3 (NKJV) He burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

2 Chronicles 33:1-9 (NKJV) Manassah was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem. (2) But he did evil in the sight of the Lord , according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. (3) For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; [My notes Hezekiah was Ahaz’s son.] he raised up altars for the Ba’als, and made wooden images; and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. [Chambers Encyclopedia melech was often used as divine name for heavenly king.] (4) He also built altars in the house of the Lord of which the Lord had said “In Jerusalem shall My name be forever”. (5) And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. (6) Also he caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the son of Hinnom; he practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft and sorcery. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. (7) he even set a carved image , the idol which he had made , in the house of God, ……..(9) So Manassah seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. [Read on to see how Manassah repented.]

In 2 Kings 23: 1-28 we read how Josiah destroyed all the altars and poles and shrines. It is a good read but I want to point out the following scriptures. (5)Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem and those who burned incense to Ba’al , to the sun, to the moon , to the constellations, and to the host of heaven. (10) And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech. (11) then he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord,….and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

And again in the book of Acts, Stephen just before he is martyred says in Acts 7:42-43 Then God turned and gave them over to worship the whole host of heaven, as it is written in the prophets; …..(43) You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, images which you made to worship;.. Stephen is quoting Amos 5:25-27 where he says in verse (26) You also carried Sikkuth (Moloch) your king and Chiun your idols, the star of your idols which you made for yourselves.

It says in Amos 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
Why does God hate our feast days? We know how much he hates Molech and Astarte , but we don’t worship them. Or Do we??? DO YOU?

In Ezekiel 20: 18-21 “But I said to the children in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor observe their judgements, nor defile yourselves with their idols. (19) ‘I am the Lord your God: Walk in My statutes, keep My judgements, and do them; (20) HALLOW My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. (26) ‘and I pronounced them unclean because of their ritual gifts, in that they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate and that they might know that I am the Lord. (31) “For when you offer your gifts and make your sons pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols, even to this day….

That day was in Ezekiel’s day, but as Revelation 2:14 points out it was still going on in the 90’s AD. (14) But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balaak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. (15) Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolatiams which thing I hate,

The Catholic Encyclopedia on Nicolatians reveal very little other than to say, ” based on the identical meaning of the names to the Bileamites or Balaamites (Rev 2:14) who are mentioned just before them as professing the same doctrines.

The Catholic Encyclopedia under Moloch it says,” The offerings by fire , the probable identity of Moloch with Baal, and the fact that in Assyria and Babylonia Malik, and at Palmyra Malach-bel, were sun-gods, have suggested to many that Moloch was a fire or sun-god.

The following article traces Moloch back to Nimrod and also shows how he was connected to the roman Mithra and Saturnalia.

Bible Prophecy ResearchTitle: Moloch Submitted by: owner-bpr@philogos.org (Ronni)Date: August, 1999URL: http://philogos.org/bpr/files/m009.htm Moloch

(Amos 5:25-26) “Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? {26} But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.” (Acts 7:43) “Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.”

Moloch (or Molech) Moloch was the Old Testament deity of the Ammonites. The Israelites later fell into idolatrous worship of this pagan god: (Judg 10:6) “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.”

(1 Ki 11:5-6) “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom [Moloch] the abomination of the Ammonites. {6} And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.” Moloch was “honored by the sacrifice of children, in which they were caused to pass through or into the fire.

Palestinian excavations have uncovered evidences of infant skeletons in burial places around heathen shrines. Ammonites revered Molech as a protecting father…No form of ancient Semitic idolatry was more abhorrent than Molech worship.”[1] From Milton’s Paradise Lost: “First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fireTo his grim idol.” Exactly how human sacrifices were made is uncertain, but some rabbinic writers suggest that Moloch was worshipped in the form of a hollow brass statue in the shape of a human but with a head of an ox. The children were placed inside the statue which was then heated from below. The cries of the victims were drowned out by the beating of drums. One ancient description of Moloch reads: “Unlike the houses of the other idols, that of Moloch was set outside the city. It was gigantic in form and had the head of what appeared to be an ox, the hands stretched out as if to receive something, the body was hollow inside. Before the idol, there were seven temples, the first six of which were employed for the sacrifice of various fowl and animals, the seventh reserved for a human sacrifice.” [2] Diodorus has a slightly different description of the ritualistic sacrifices offered to Moloch: “First, the devotee would kiss the image of Moloch. He would then make a fire under the idol, which would quickly cause the hands of the statue to become red-hot. A victim would then be placed in the hands to suffer an agonizing death. His cries would be muffed by the drums. While this was taking place, the prophets would dance around an altar, with violent gesticulations, and, having excited themselves to a pitch of frenzy by it, as well as by their fearful vociferations they began to cut their bodies with knives and lancets. In this unnatural state they began to prophesy, or rather rave, as if possessed by some invisible power.”

[3] “The etymology of the term ‘Molech’ is interesting. Scholars suggest that it is a deliberate misvocalization of the Hebrew word for king or for the related participle (molek), ‘ruler.’ They propose that the consonants for the Hebrew word for king (mlk) were combined with the vowels from the word for shame (boshet) [king of shame]. Thus, this title was a divine epithet expressing contempt for the pagan god.”

[4] This has lead many to believe that the word “Moloch” is not a proper name at all. An article by Moshe Weinfeld in the Encyclopedia Judaica has an opposing viewpoint on the ritualistic worship and identity of Moloch: “The testimonies of the Pentateuch, which seem to be the most ancient and therefore the most reliable ones, should be divided, according to the formulation of the law, into two groups: the laws of the Holiness Code which speak about giving or passing children (lit. seed) to Moloch (Lev. 18:21; 20:2, 3, 4) and the law in Deuteronomy which speaks of ‘passing [one’s] son or daughter through fire’ (18:10). The author of the Book of Kings, who was influenced ideologically and stylistically by Deuteronomy, speaks about ‘passing [one’s] son and daughter through fire’ (II Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6). II Kings 23:10 speaks about ‘passing [one’s] son or daughter through fire to Moloch,’ which actually constitutes a conflation of the formula in Leviticus with that of Deuteronomy. In all these sources there is no mention of ‘burning’ or ’sacrificing’ (slaughtering) children to Moloch. These latter terms are found, on the other hand, in the prophetic sources: Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; Ezekiel 16:21; 20:31; 23:37, 39; and one may add here Isaiah 57:5; and Psalms 106:37-38. The difference in the presentation of the Moloch worship in the legal-historical and in the prophetic sources is significant. A legislator has to be precise in his formulation and therefore his description is more trustworthy than that of the prophet or preacher who tends to exaggerate. At any rate, the fact that the legal-historical, in contrast to the prophetic poetic, sources do not mention real burning should serve as a warning against a hasty identification of Moloch with human sacrifice.

[5] Weinfeld elsewhere suggests that the cult of Moloch was directed towards a pagan deity, Baal-Hadad (under the title of “king”) which never directly involved sacrificial burning of children. The Anchor Bible Dictionary mentions Weinfeld’s theory in its discourse on Moloch by concluding: “Although many scholars are sympathetic with Weinfeld’s qualms about the historical value of the prophetic and hagiographic references, most concur that he has overstated his case regarding the legal material, especially.”

[6] Weinfeld argues that the verbs (”to give” or “to cause to pass over or through”) in the legal texts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy do not indicate “sacrifice” or “burning,” whereas the editors of the Anchor Bible Dictionary point out that the usage of those same verbs in Num 31:23 certainly do indicate “burning in the fire.” Continuing the argument on whether the children were actually burnt in sacrifice to Moloch, Alfred Edersheim, who believes that Moloch was really just another form of Baal and must be differentiated as well from Molech, Milcom, etc.

[7], writes: “When in 2 Kings we read that he ‘made his son pass through the fire,’ this may be either a technical expression, or it may refer to one of the original ideas or purposes of these sacrifices: that of lustration by fire. And possibly the practice may not always have been the same, and hence the original expression retained. But from the parallel passage in Chronicles there cannot be a doubt that, in this instance, as in those afterwards recorded, the unhappy victim was literally burnt. That those ‘passed through the fire’ were really burnt, appears from a comparison of Jeremiah 32:35 with 7:31, and of Ezekiel 16:21 with 23:37. On the question whether the children were only passed through the fire or burnt in it the Rabbis have expressed different opinions. In Yalkut on Jeremiah 7:31, (ii. p. 61. col. d.) we have a realistic description of the brass figure of Moloch, hollow and filled with fire, with an ox’s head and human arms into which the children were laid. This seems to agree with the account of the Carthagenian rite (Diodor. Sic. 20. 14, see above and below). Into the large literature on the subject this is not the place to enter. To the present writer it has often seemed more learned than clear. For our purpose it is more important to notice that, according to Psalm 106:37, Ezekiel 16:20, the victims seem to have been first slain and then burnt. It would thus be a terrible counterpart of the Old Test. Josephus (Ant. ix. 12, 1) also states that Ahaz had actually burnt his son.”

[8] Moloch identified with the Roman Saturn (the Greek Kronos) (Exo 32:4-5) “And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. {5} And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” “The worship of the golden calf was star worship; it was the solar bull, the constellation Taurus, in which the sun was at the time of the spring equinox, that was thus represented. The golden calf was therefore analogous to the familiar symbol of the Mithraic cult, the bull slain by Mithra … if indeed the latter did not take its origin from this apostasy of Israel.” (”Mithra was originally a Persian deity considered to be the mediator between mankind and Ahura Mazda, god of light. This god overcame evil and brought life, both animal and vegetable, to humankind. Statues of Mithra characteristically show him holding a bull by the nostrils while plunging a knife into its neck. The Romans identified Mithra with the sun god. December 25 was celebrated as his birthday…Since Mithraism belongs to the general category known as Mystery Religions, our knowledge of its specific doctrines and rituals is very limited. Only devotees of the religion were allowed to witness its rituals or have access to its sacred doctrines. Most of our knowledge, therefore, consists of inferences drawn from artifacts and places of worship discovered by archaeologists.”

[9]) “And Moloch the king, the idol of the Ammonites and Phoenicians, was intimately connected both with the solar bull and the planet Saturn. According to the rabbins, his statue was of brass, with a human body but the head of an ox. On the Carthaginian worship of Moloch or Saturn, Diodorus (book xx, chapter i) writes: ‘Among the Carthaginians there was a brazen statue of Saturn putting forth the palms of his hands bending in such a manner toward the earth, as that the boy who was laid upon them, in order to be sacrificed, should slip off, and so fall down headlong into a deep fiery furnace. Hence it is probable that Euripides took what he fabulously relates concerning the sacrifice in Taurus, where he introduces Iphigenia asking Orestes this question: ‘But what sepulchre will me dead receive, shall the gulf of sacred fire me have?’ The ancient fable likewise that is common among all the Grecians, that Saturn devoured his own children, seems to be confirmed by this law among the Carthaginians.’ “The parallelism of the text therefore is very complete. The Israelites professed to be carrying the tabernacle of Yahweh upon which rested the Shekinah glory; but in spirit they were carrying the tabernacle of the cruelest and most malignant of all the deities of the heathen, and the light in which they were rejoicing was the star of the planet assigned to that deity. “Moloch then was the sun as king, and especially the sun as he entered upon what might be considered his peculiar kingdom, the zodiac from Taurus to Serpens and Scorpio, the period of the six summer months. The connection of the sun with Saturn may seem to us somewhat forced, but we have the most direct testimony that such a connection was believed in by the Babylonians. In Thompson’s Reports, obverse of No. 176 reads: ‘When the sun stands in the place of the moon, the king of the land will be secure on his throne. When the sun stands above or below the moon, the foundation of the throne will be secure.’ “The ’sun’ in this inscription clearly cannot be the actual sun, and it is explained on the reverse as being ‘the star of the sun,’ the planet Saturn. No. 176 rev. reads: ‘Last night Saturn drew near to the moon. Saturn is the star of the sun. This is the interpretation: it is lucky for the king. The sun is the king’s star.’ “The connection between the sun and Saturn probably arose from both being taken as symbols of Time. The return of the sun to the beginning of the zodiac marked the completion of the year. Saturn, the slowest moving of all the heavenly bodies, accomplished its revolution through the signs of the zodiac in about 30 years, a complete generation of men. Saturn therefore was in a peculiar sense the symbol of Time [Kronos], and because of Time, of Destiny.”

[10] “The name Kronos, as the classical reader is well aware, is applied to Saturn as the ‘Father of the gods.’”

[11] Tertullian (c. A.D. 160-225)THE APOLOGY Chapter IX. “That I may refute more thoroughly these charges, I will show that in part openly, in part secretly, practices prevail among you which have led you perhaps to credit similar things about us. Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as lately as the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed to public gaze the priests suspended on the sacred trees overshadowing their temple–so many crosses on which the punishment which justice craved overtook their crimes, as the soldiers of our country still can testify who did that very work for that proconsul. And even now that sacred crime still continues to be done in secret. It is not only Christians, you see, who despise you; for all that you do there is neither any crime thoroughly and abidingly eradicated, nor does any of your gods reform his ways. When Saturn did not spare his own children, he was not likely to spare the children of others; whom indeed the very parents themselves were in the habit of offering, gladly responding to the call which was made on them, and keeping the little ones pleased on the occasion, that they might not die in tears.” Moloch identified with Nimrod, Kronos and the Great Red Dragon From The Two Babylons: “It will be observed, however, that the Great Red Dragon, or Great Fiery Serpent, is represented as standing before the Woman with the crown of twelve stars, that is, the true Church of God, ‘To devour her child as soon as it should be born.’ Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod, as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child- devourer. Though, at his first deification, he was set up himself as Ninus, or the child, yet, as the first of mankind that was deified, he was, of course, the actual father of all the Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards universally regarded. “As the Father of the gods, he was, as we have seen, called Kronos; and every one knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, he devoured his sons as soon as they were born.’ Such is the analogy between type and antitype. This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or ‘The Horned One,’ it just refers to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. ‘The Phenicians,’ says Eusebius, ‘every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn, and the Rhodians also often did the same.’ Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians, on one occasion, when besieged by the Sicilians, and sore pressed, in order to rectify, as they supposed, their error in having somewhat departed from the ancient custom of Carthage, in this respect, hastily ‘chose out two hundred of the noblest of their children, and publicly sacrificed them’ to this god. There is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our own land in the times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made ‘their children pass through the fire to Moloch,’ and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah 32:35, compared with Jeremiah 19:5, we find that these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited passage proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When ‘the fruit of the body’ was thus offered, it was ‘for the sin of the soul.’ And it was a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering (Num 18:9,10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that ‘Cahna-Bal,’ the ‘Priest of Baal,’ is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer of human flesh.”

[12] Traces of Moloch… in Festivals “‘On that great festival of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,’ says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a particular festival which she had witnessed, ‘it is the custom, at sunset on that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ ‘Here,’ adds the authoress, ‘was the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.’”

[13] Traces of Moloch… in the Holocaust “…the word ‘holocaust,’ comes from a third century Greek word ‘Holokaustos,’ referring to ‘the burnt sacrificial offering of the Jews dedicated exclusively to God.’ The Holocaust was Hitler’s fiery offering of human sacrifice to Satan, just as in the days of the heathen Amorite god, Moloch. The bloodlust of the coming Anti-christ will continue in the tradition set by Hitler making Hitler’s incredible hate seem moderate in comparison.”

[14] Traces of Moloch… in modern society “In the ancient rite, the child was sacrificed in the hopes that Molech would bless the family with a good harvest, victory in battle, or financial gain. In the modern ‘rite’ of abortion, women sacrifice their children for their careers, social acceptability, or selfish personal needs.”

[16] As was previously noted, Moloch is identified with the Roman Saturn and his Greek equivalent Kronos: “Levine calls Saturn ‘the star of final authority,’ a title which has in it the element of time and the end of an age.”
References 1. The New Unger’s Talking Bible Dictionary, Parson’s Technology, (c)1998 2. “Moloch,” 3. Ibid. 4. Holman Bible Dictionary, Holman Bible Publishers, (c)1991. 5. “Cult of Moloch,” The Encyclopedia Judaica, CD-Rom Version, Judaica Multimedia, (c)1997. 6. “Moloch,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4, p 896. 7. “Milcom, Malcom, or Molech, was the principal deity of the Ammonites, but must be distinguished from Moloch, whose terrible rites were only introduced at a later period (2 Kings 16:3).” Edersheim, Alfred, Bible History, Old Testament, Chapter 9, 8. Edersheim, Alfred. Bible History, Old Testament, Vol. VII, Chapter 7; 9. Holman Bible Dictionary, Holman Bible Publishers, (c)1991. 10. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Parson’s Technology, electronic edition, (c)1998 11. The Two Babylons, “The Child in Assyria,” . 12. Hislop, Alexander, The Two Babylons, 13. The Two Babylons, “The Nativity of St. John,” . 14. Watch Unto Prayer Website, .; quoting Bob Rosio, Hitler & The New Age, Huntington House, 1993, p. 50. 15. “Abortion and the Bible,” Jack R. Voltz, http://www.ovnet.com/~voltz/prolife/bible.htm 16. “Cosmic Christmas,” Watch Unto Prayer website,., quoting Rick Levine, The Gift Of The Magi: Christmas For A New Millennium, Spellbound books, 1997, pp. 3-5, 7, 11-13. 17. Ibid.

In the preceding article is small piece about the Mithra religion as practiced by the Romans. Read the following article please.

Mithra
First appears as an Aryan sun-god in Sanskrit and Persian literature circa 1400 BCE. The cult was introduced into the Roman empire in the 1st century BCE.?Mithra was:?· born of a virgin in a stable on the winter solstice–frequently December 25 in the Julian calendar (the emperor Aurelian declared December 25 to be the official birthday of Mithra, circa 270 CE)–attended by shepherds who brought gifts;?· worshiped on Sundays;?· shown with a nimbus, or halo, around his head;?· said to take a last supper with his followers when he returned to his father;?· believed not to have died, but to have ascended to heaven, whence it was believed he would return at the end of time to raise the dead in a physical resurrection for a final judgement, sending the good to heaven and the wicked to hell, after the world had been destroyed by fire;?· to grant his followers immortal life following baptism.?Followers of Mithra:?· followed a leader called a ‘papa’ (pope), who ruled from the Vatican hill in Rome;?· celebrated the atoning death of a savior who has resurrected on a Sunday;?· celebrated sacramenta (a consecrated meal of bread and wine), termed a Myazda (corresponding exactly to the Catholic Missa (mass), using chanting, bells, candles, incense, and holy water, in remembrance of the last supper of Mithra).

The emperor Constantine was a follower of Mithra until he declared December 25 the official birthday of Jesus in 313 CE and adopted the cult of Christianity as the state religion.?Basic sources for the study of Mithraism:?Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (1903)?M. J. Vermaseren, Mithras, the Secret God (1963)?David Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries (1989)
Copyright © Atheist Community of Austin 1997-1998. All rights reserved?http://atheist-community.org/mithra.htm

And from Cosmic Christmas Birth of the Sun-god we read the following
In the various pagan religions of remote antiquity, December was the celebration of the Winter Solstice. Alexander Hislop disclosed the true meaning of the festival of the Winter Solstice in his classic work, The Two Babylons:

“This festival has been commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is indubitable evidence that the festival in question had a much higher influence than this–that it commemorated not merely the figurative birthday of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day of the grand Deliverer…the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity.”

1.?The Sun-god Osiris and his consort, Isis, together with Re-Atum, the “Father of the Gods,” were regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the supreme rulers of a Golden Age of plenty called Zep Tepi or the “First Time.” Their kingdom ended abruptly when Osiris was murdered by his evil brother, Seth or Typhon. The childless Isis searched for the dismembered body of Osiris, which she then reassembled and resuscitated long enough to conceive a son named Horus. Horus was believed to be the reincarnation of Osiris, and the new husband of Isis, whose destiny it was to repossess the Kingdom of Osiris from the control of Seth.?The myth of Horus is, of course, a perversion of the Genesis account of God’s judgment of Nimrod and the Babylonian religious system from which Egyptian mystery religions derived. This fable, which forms the basis of Freemasonry and other occult belief systems, is currently experiencing a revival through entertainment, literature, education, and religious traditions. Today, the theme of Horus may be found as the basis of the popular Hollywood production, Lion King. Through many points of entry, the pagan alternative to Jesus Christ is subtly being introduced to the world, and also to the Church, as mankind is subconsciously undergoing preparation for a universal return to the ancient practice of Sun worship.?In The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop noted the purity of the early church as regards the adoption of pagan traditions prior to the Roman Catholic apostasy:?“…within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and…not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it the name of Christ.”

2.?In pagan Rome, the celebration of the Winter Solstice began on December 17 with the feast of Saturn — also called the Saturnalia. Through December 23rd, the Roman world engaged in merrymaking and the exchanging of gifts in honor of Saturn, the god of sowing and husbandry and, according to a Rosicrucian source, to commemorate a future Golden Age of Saturn:?“Here is the general reformation of the world announced in the Rosicrucian manifestos described as a world reformation… Whilst involving definite reforms in education, church, and law, this general reformation has millenarian overtones; it will bring the world back to the state in which Adam found it, which was also Saturn’s golden age. So, in the Confessio, the second Rosicrucian manifesto, the general reformation is said to presage ‘a great influx of truth and light’ such as surrounded Adam in Paradise, and which God will allow before the end of the world…this millennium, this return to the golden age of Adam and Saturn, is said to be assisted by ‘the high society of the Rosicrucians.’”

3.?Following the Roman commemoration of the Golden Age of Saturn began the celebration of the birthday of the Grand Deliverer, who was known as Mithra in Rome, Horus in Egypt, Tammuz in Babylon and various appellations in other ancient mythologies:?“In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ‘about the time of the winter solstice.’ The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves – Yule day – proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. ‘Yule’ is the Chaldee name for an ‘infant’ or ‘little child’ and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, ‘Yule-day,’ or the ‘Child’s day,’ and the night which preceded it, ‘Mother-night,’ long before they came into contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. Far and wide in the realms of paganism was this birth-day observed.”

4.?Not only were the Sun-God and his mother universally worshipped at this time, but common customs symbolizing his reincarnation were derived from the very prophecies that applied to Jesus Christ:?“The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt it was the palm tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognized as ‘Man the Branch.’ And this entirely accounts for putting the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas Eve and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, ‘The seed of the woman,’ …he has to enter the fire on ‘Mother night,’ that he may be born the next day out of it, as the ‘Branch of God,’ or the Tree that brings divine gifts to men.”

5.?The tradition of the Christmas tree symbolically portrayed the death and reincarnation of Osiris in his son, Horus:?“…the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god (after that god had been cut in pieces…on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers.) Now the great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a huge tree, stripped of all his branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great Serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself around the dead stock…and lo, at its side sprouts a young tree – a tree of an entirely different kind, that is never to be cut down by a hostile power -…and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, how that after having fallen before his enemies, he has risen triumphant over them all. Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed in Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth was held at the Natalis invicti solis, ‘The birthday of the unconquered Sun.”

6.?The feast of Christmas is, in allegorical form, the pagan celebration of the Serpent’s eventual triumph over the very God who cut down the tower of Babel (symbolized by a tree). By reviving and restoring the mystery religions as they were practiced in ancient cultures, Horus became the Egyptian savior and virtual counterpart of Jesus Christ. In her Theosophical Glossary, H.P. Blavatsky thus describes Horus:?“Horus (Eg.). The last in the line of divine Sovereigns in Egypt, said to be the son of Osiris and Isis. He is the great god ‘loved of Heaven,’ the ‘’beloved of the Sun, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator of the world.’ At the time of the Winter Solstice (our Christmas), his image in the form of a small newly-born infant, was brought out from the sanctuary for the adoration of the worshipping crowds…”
7.?In the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine assigned December 25, the birthday of the Roman Sun-God Mithra, to Jesus Christ, thereby placing the true Savior among the pantheon of Roman gods. Drawing Christians into the pagan celebrations of Rome procured the religious unity needed for the success of the Holy Roman Empire, which dominated the world for 1200 years. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformers discontinued the celebration of Christmas by reason of its pagan character. The Puritans who controlled the English Parliament in 1644 declared that no observation of Christmas was permitted, calling it “The Profane Man’s Ranting Day.” C. H. Spurgeon proclaimed as late as 1871: “We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly, we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas.” In 1983, USA Today recalled the Protestant scorn for Christmas:?“A broad element of English Christianity still considered Christmas celebration a pagan blasphemy. The Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Calvinists and other denominations brought this opposition to early New England and strong opposition to the holiday lasted in America until the middle of the 18th century.”

8.?It was inevitable, however, that the nineteenth century social and spiritual revolutions in England and America would eventuate in a mass departure from Puritanism. The author of Man, Myth And Magic jubilantly records the modern return to pagan tradition:?“In Britain…social conditions were laying the foundations for a glorious revival of the Christmas spirit, as a reaction to the wretchedness and drab poverty that was a byproduct of the Victorian age…As early as 1841, Punch [a British periodical] suggested that the Christmas season should be a time for helping the poor and hungry, a sentiment that was given tremendous impetus by Charles Dickens in his Christmas Carol two years later.”

9.?In America, founding members of the New York Historical Society revived the Christmas tradition in the early 1800s and in 1836 the state of Alabama declared it a legal holiday. No doubt many of a Puritan mindset who strove to stem the tide of apostasy recalled the words of Tertullian, who lamented the identical compromise of Christians as early as 230 B.C.?“By us…who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”

10.?In his book, Too Long In The Sun, Richard Rives draws an appropriate parallel to the circumstances in Exodus 32, a Biblical precedent which provoked God nearly to the point of destroying the nation of Israel for their sin of blending pagan worship with His own:?“…the golden calf was built and the celebration declared a ‘feast to the Lord.’…The people had declared a celebration to honor God that he did not recognize as being in his honor.”

11.?Rives’ assertion is validated by evidence that the golden calf was an Egyptian idol of sun-worship, Hat-hor being the womb of Isis, the mother/wife of Horus:?“Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of Egypt, were representatives of sun worship. Their worship was just one stage in the long Egyptian history of solar veneration. The golden calf at Mount Sinai is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the feast proclaimed was related to sun worship. The event at Mount Sinai was just one episode in the Satanic apostasy which began at the tower of Babel. The celebration of December 25th, originally proclaimed in honor of the birth of the sun god Mithra, can only be one of the final events in the long continuing saga of Satanic sun worship.”
12.?This identical form of worship is found among God’s people again in I Kings 12, which records the Israel’s apostasy under the reign of Jeroboam, who devised a feast “like unto” the true feast in Judah:?26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: If this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.?27 Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.?28 And he set one in Bethel, and the other in Dan.?29 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan…?32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.?33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.”?The Matthew Henry Commentary notes the good intentions which attended Jeroboam’s compromise:?“Thus Jeroboam made Israel to sin, and introduced idolatry, which continued in the kingdom of Israel till the Assyrian captivity. Though it is probable he meant this worship for Jehovah the God of Israel, it was directly contrary to the Divine law, and dishonorable to the Divine majesty, to be thus represented. the people might be less shocked at worshipping the God of Israel under a similitude, than if they had once been invited to worship Baal, but it made way for that idolatry.”

13.?History demonstrates that the point of departure for every major apostasy in Israel and Christendom was subtly commingling worship of the true God with worship of the Sun-god. The return of the Israelites to sun-worship in the wilderness was indicative of an inward return to Egypt which led to their eventual judgment. The establishment of sun-worship by King Jeroboam marked the division of the kingdom and the beginning of Israel’s apostasy, which culminated in the Assyrian captivity.?Likewise, the 4th century compromise of Christianity with the pagan religions of Rome coincides with the institution of the feast of Christmas. Finally, the 19th century departure from the Puritan faith leading to the present apostasy occurred around the time of the re-establishment of Christmas as a Christian holiday. The clear testimony of history makes it difficult to resist the suspicion that the kick-off for Bimillennial celebrations in 1999 is, for reasons occult and conspiratorial, scheduled for the season of Christmas — the birth of the Sun-god.?From Cosmic Christmas Birth of the Sun-god?Http://watch.pair.com//cosmic.html
And from the Origins of Christmas and Easter by the Christian Churches of God at WWW.LOGON.ORG article # 235 I quote the following

The Sun god?25 December was also associated with Mithras, as he was Sun god.?The Catholic liturgist Mario Righetti (in addition to Duchesne and also Cullman) held that:?After the peace of the Church of Rome, to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the temporal birth of Christ, to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honour of the “Invincible Sun” Mithras, the conqueror of darkness (fn 74, II, p. 67 quote also in Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday, Pontifical Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1977, p. 260).?Thus, Mithras was the god of the festival of the solstice on 25 December which followed immediately on from the Saturnalia. With this deity, we see Sunday worship emerge in Rome.?The dedications to Mithra was as Soli invicto Mithrae or the Invincible Sun – the Unconquered Sun as Frazer terms it (p. 304). It was also related to him as Sol Invictus Elagabal in the public form of the religion.?The term Father was a rank held by the priests of Mithra. The term is forbidden to Christians (Mat. 23:9). It entered Christianity with the Mystery cults.
The gospels say nothing as to the day of Christ’s birth and the early Church did not celebrate it.?The custom of celebrating Christ’s birth began in Egypt, being derived from the Mother goddess cult there, and the Christians there celebrated it on 6 January. By the fourth century it had become generally established in the East (Frazer, v, p. 304). The western church had never recognised 6 January as the true date and, in time, its decision was accepted by the eastern church. At Antioch this change was not introduced until about 375 CE (Frazer, ibid.).?The origin of the practice is plainly recorded by the Syrian Christians as we see from Frazer quoting also Credner and Momsen and also Usener (v, pp. 304-305).?The reason why the fathers transferred the celebration of the sixth of January to the twenty fifth of December was this. It was a custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on the sixth of January. Accordingly, along with this custom, the practice has prevailed of kindling fires till the sixth.?Thus, the Saturnalia led up to the solstice when presents were given to children from 23 December or now Christmas eve on 24 December in the Gregorian calendar. The rites of the solstice then took over from the original Saturnalia but the period then became lengthened from three to seven days to which was added the twelve days.?When we count five days from 25 December we come to 31 December from which some of the Celts and Germans begin the count. The addition of St Stephen’s Day (or Boxing Day) brings the five day period from 27 December in line to 1 January.?The pagan origin of Christmas is also evident in Augustine when he exhorts his brethren not to celebrate this solemn day like the heathen on account of the Sun but on account of him who made the Sun (Augustine Serm., cxc, 1; in Migne Patriologia Latina, xxxviii, 1007). Leo called the Great likewise rebuked the pestilent belief that Christmas was solemnised because of the birth of the new Sun, and not because of the nativity of Christ (Frazer, ibid.; cf. Leo the Great Serm., xxii (al xxi) 6 and Migne, liv, 198).?However, by then, it was a hopeless cause. The entire system was endemic to Christianity and the Mother goddess cult was entrenched.?Frazer says:?Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the twenty-fifth of December in order to transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called the Sun of Righteousness (p. 305).

Epilogue?In this way, the faith of Messiah was subverted by worldly secular priests who accommodated the faith to the religions of ancient Rome and the Sun-worshipping Mystery cults. This perversion of the faith started with the basic festivals which replaced the festivals of the Bible with those of the Sun-worshippers. They introduced Christmas and Easter and then Sunday worship which replaced the fourth commandment regarding the Sabbath. They invented the myth of the perpetual virginity of a woman they called Mary, rather than Mariam, to disguise the fact that they had murdered her sons and their descendants, the brothers and nephews of the Messiah of the World, the Son of God who came to teach them the truth and save them from themselves (see the paper The Virgin Mariam and the Family of Jesus Christ (No. 232) The Christmas symbolism involves this Virgin bringing forth an infant from a cave year after year as the eternal Sun comes forth in its infancy at the solstice.?The symbolism conveyed by the true feasts of God contained in the Bible is deliberately obscured so that no growth in the faith and in the knowledge of the one true God is possible.?The ignorant teach their children lies in the misguided belief that somehow that will make them happy. The society reduces its people to idolaters on the basis of commercialism and greed following practices steeped in paganism and false religious practice. Keeping Christmas and Easter is a direct involvement in the Sun-worshipping and Mystery cults and is a direct breach of the first and fourth commandments among others.?Christ called them hypocrites and quoted God speaking through the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 29:13):?This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men (Mat. 15:8-9; Mk. 7:6-7).?God has given His laws through His servants the prophets. Soon, the Messiah will return to enforce those laws and that system.

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That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.

This religion which started with Nimrod is still here today. And so that the reader understands. Nimrod was killed by Shem for going against Yahweh. And his body torn apart and sent to the rest of Nimrods followers as a warning. Semaramis, Nimrods wife fled for her life and then some how became pregnant and gave birth to Horus Who was born Dec. 25. Horus was the reincarnated Nimrod and grew up to marry his own mother. And because Semaramis was a virgin [remember she was married to Nimrod a sex maniac] the reader can see many similarities with today’s christmas story .

It is no wonder that many today say they know about christmas, and it’s traditions, but “It’s for the children” and little wonder why that is, after all they were the objects of Molochs sacrifices.
And strange how Stephen was martyred for speaking up against this worship of Moloch that Judah was keeping at that time, and now he is the patron Saint for boxing day.

(Also take note- cannibals -preist of baal, Meat offered to sacrifices, was the children)
Duet 12:29-32 ……do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘ How did these nations serve their gods?- that I also may do likewise.’ (31) You shall not do so to the Lord you God; for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. (32) Everything that I command you , you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it or take from it.

BAAL WORSHIP-AMONG THE ISRAELITES?Nothing could be more fatal to a spiritual faith than this sensual religion. In fact, no sooner than the Israelites, coming forth from the wilderness, been brought into contact with the Baal-worshippers, than they were, through the guile of the Madianites, and the attractions of the licentious worship offered to the Moabitish deity (probably Chamos), easily seduced from their allegiance to Yahweh (Num., xxv, 1-9). Henceforth the name of Beelphegor remained like a dark spot on the early history of Israel {Os., ix, 10; Ps. ev (In the Hebr. cvi), 28}. The terrible punishment inflicted upon the guilty sobered for awhile the minds of the Hebrews. How long the impression lasted we are hardly able to tell; but this we know, that when they had settled in the Promised Land, the Israelites, again forsaking the law, paid their homage to the deities of their Chanaanite neighours (Judges, ii, 11, 13 etc.). Even the best families could not, or did not dare, resist the seduction, Gedon’s father, for instant, albeit his faith in his Baal seems to have been somewhat lukewarm (Judges, vi, 31), had erected an idolatrous altar in Ephra (Judges, vi, 25). “And the Lord, being angry against Israel, delivered them into the hands of their enemies that dwelt round about.” Mesopotamians, Madianites, Amalecites, Ammonites, and, above all, Philistines.

In Noah’s and Abraham’s and Moses day , Solomon’s, Elijah’s, Jeremiah’s, Christ’s and Stephen’s Day until this very day in 2002 the worship of Nimrod has taken place in various forms under various deceptive names.

The worship of Molech, which our society does by keeping Christmas and the worship of Ashteroth, which our society does by keeping Easter are no where found in the scriptures to be Holy Convocations. They are found to be abhorid by Yahweh. He has given us Holy Days to keep as found in Leveticus 23. Now that you know the truth about the origens of the pagan practices being kept all around you, what will you do? Will you worship Yahweh and obey Him, or continue to blindly follow the decieved of the world?

7 Comments

  1. Bel

    AMEN! and again, AMEN Ella.
    Perfectly said.
    From our mouths to Yehovah’s ears. We are praying for and patiently waiting for a breakthrough and a Divine miracle.
    Thank you Joseph.

    Reply
  2. Jesus Santos

    Greetings Prophet Joe and the Royal and loyal 144 chosen in Revelation!

    The planet will soon realize how much Yahweh hates man’s pagan customs!! The punishment will be severe and soon the whole world will recognize you Prophet Joe as the end time Elijah and one of the Two Witnesses prophecized in Revelation!! Your greatest hour will soon be here Prophet Joe! Keep Torah in your heart and march forward as Yahweh’s great Trumpet blower in the last horrifying days of mankind!!!

    Blessings to all,

    Jesus Santos

    Reply
  3. Ella H Morgan

    I ate a big garden salad one when I was a teenager and the more I ate the bigger it got! That’s what I feel like as I have read this week’s newsletter(which should be part of MANY week’s letters).
    Concerning the celebration of Chanukah: when I first learned of the truth of Torah and desiring to do all things “Jewish”, I rec- onized the truth of Christmas and picked up Chanukah. Into the 2nd or 3rd year(I wasn’t looking to change) the Spirit quickened in me that I had just exchanged Christmas for Chanukah. Then, I began to remember the scripture that says we are not to add to or take away from what Yehovah gave us to do and celebrate. I believe I can be thankful for the great miracle that our Father used a small band of faithful “Jews”(Israelites) to defeat a large army. In doing so I can be assured he will deliver me as I remain faithful to walk in truth with Him. Thank you Bro Joe for once again speaking the hard and timely truth. Much Blessings.

    Reply
  4. Shane Diltz

    Thanks Joe for driving it home! Ella said it pefectly as thats exactly what we did, Exchanged Christmas for Chanukah. We need to give thanks to Yehovah for the blessings and miricles he performed and not to add to scripture. This triggers a question. Why do we celebrate birthdays of our own, past and present dignataries, former presidents, and many more around the world? This is a celebration/festival to a man/woman. Is this not adding to scripture to honor ourselves or someone other than Yehovah Hiimself on a particular day? Maybe im missing something and could be totally wrong in my thinking, but it seems that this would be the samething as adding a Festival of Lights that has not been instructed by Yehovah.

    Reply
    • Anon

      We celebrate Yeshua’s birthday every year on the Day of Trumpets. This is where the party horns come from. Honouring a loved one on his or her birthday is not against the Torah. In fact, go BIGGER and BETTER this year, knowing there is little time.

      Reply
  5. Chris Erlank

    Jer 10:1  Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: 
    Jer 10:2  Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 
    Jer 10:3  For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 
    Jer 10:4  They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 
    Jer 10:5  They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. 
    Jer 10:6  Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might. 
    Jer 10:7  Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee. 
    Jer 10:8  But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities. 

    Reply
  6. Ryan

    Amen! As Yehshua stated that He was not here for Himself but to do the Father’s will, as so must we and DO AS THE FATHER WANTS FROM HIS WORD, RATHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT. THERE IS A KINGDOM AT HAND AND HE IS TESTING US TO SEE WHERE OR WHO WILL BE IN THIS KINGDOM!

    PRAISE YEHOVAH, AND LOVE HIM WITH ALL OUR MIND, BODY AND STRENGTH!

    Reply

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