Breaking The Jewish Code Perry Stone

the Fast of Esther . On Purim, Jews read the Megillah (Scroll of Esther) in the synagogue, distribute charity to the poor, including gifts of food, and enjoy a festive meal. Jewish children dress up in costumes reminding them of the great deliverance God performed through the Jewish queen of Persia.1 Christians are taught that there were four centuries of silence between the Testaments. Malachi, the last book of the Christian Old Testament, is identified as the last Hebrew prophet before John the Baptist appeared four hundred years later. The alleged silent years were actually broken by an event occurring about 167 years before Christ at the temple in Jerusalem. The Oil and the Light In the year of 167 b.c., the Jews were facing extreme persecution from a notorious leader named Antiochus Epiphanes. Nicknamed “the mad man,” Antiochus replaced Jewish priests with Greek priests, offered forbidden sacrifices to idol gods on the temple altar, and stopped Jewish Sabbath worship. He forbade Jewish circumcision and prevented Jews from celebrating the feasts. On the twenty-fifth of Kislev (December) 167 b.c., the temple altar was defiled when Antiochus offered a swine to his god Zeus. An observant priest, Matthias, and his five sons (the Maccabees) initiated a revolt against the Greek occupiers that continued for three years, ending on Kislev 25. The Jews purified the temple, prepared new sacred vessels,