Today is the beginning the biblical
month of Tammuz.
Eze 8:11
And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel,
and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in
his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12 Then He said to me,
"Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel
do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, 'The LORD
does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.'" 13 And He said to me,
"Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are
doing." 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD'S
house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. (NKJV)
This is the only place in the Bible
where the word ‘Tammuz’ is used. Here in
Ezekiel, Tammuz refers to a pagan god of the Babylonians. As with the names of the other months, Tammuz
is borrowed from ancient Babylon. In almost all cases in the Bible, the months
are normally referred to by number. Tammuz
is the fourth month.
But why name a month after a pagan
idol? This seems rather odd until you
realize that like the tragedy of falling away from the one true God which leads
to greater tragedy and destruction, the Biblical month of Tammuz is a month of
remembrance of tragedies which leads to the month of Av, a month of greater
tragedies still.
The appropriateness of the name of
the month of Tammuz becomes clear when we look at the broader context of
Ezekiel chapter 8. The Prophet Ezekiel
was being shown by God the reasons for His anger against the Jewish People. They had taken various forms of idol-worship
and adopted them by incorporating them into the Temple
service. The result of which would be, if the Jewish People would not repent,
the destruction of the once-holy, but now desecrated Temple. This destruction happened
twice on the same day, the 9th day of the month of Av. The first Temple
was destroyed on the 9th of Av in 586 BCE
and the second Temple was destroyed
on the 9th of Av in 70 CE.
Ezekiel was giving a warning of this destruction in chapter 8.
Here are a few interesting things
that happened in history during this important month.
1 Tammuz: Birth and death of Joseph
3 Tammuz: The sun stands still for
Joshua, Joshua 10:11-14
9 Tammuz: The priests in the First
Temple stopped offering the daily
sacrifice on this day due to the shortage of sheep during the siege and the
next year the walls of Jerusalem
were breached on this day after many months of siege by Nebuchadnezzar and his
Babylonian forces.
16 Tammuz: Golden calf is made,
Exodus 32:1-5
17 Tammuz: Moses breaks the stone
tablets. Exodus 32:6-19: Temple
service disrupted, Jeremiah 52:6-7: Jerusalem
wall breached in 69CE. In 2nd Kings 21:7 King Menashe, one of the worst of the Jewish
kings, had an idol placed in the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple. The Talmud, in Masechet Taanit 28b,
says that in the time of the Roman persecution, Apostomos, captain of the
occupation forces, did the same, and publicly burned the Torah. Both of these
acts were considered open blasphemy and desecration. These were followed by Titus and Rome
breaching the walls of Jerusalem in
69 CE
In later years Pope Gregory IX
ordered the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud in 1239. In 1391,
more than 4,000 Jews were killed in Toledo
and Jaen, Spain. In 1559 the Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted. The Kovno ghetto was liquidated on this day in
1944 and in 1970 Libya
ordered the confiscation of Jewish property.
The day of the Fast of the Fourth
Month is observed from the break of dawn until night. It is one of four Jewish fasts to be observed
in this manner. The others are on 3 Tishrei, 10 Tevet and 13 Adar. This "Fast of the Fourth Month"
mentioned by the prophet Zechariah will be transformed in the millennial reign
of Messiah as a day that "shall be joy to the House of Judah" full of
"gladness and cheerful feasts".
Zechariah 8:19 NKJV 19 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'The fast
of the fourth month, The fast of the fifth, The fast of the seventh, And the
fast of the tenth, Shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts For the house
of Judah.
Therefore love truth and peace.'
18 Tammuz: The golden calf
destroyed, Exodus 32:20-35
As you can see the Biblical month
of Tammuz is a month marked by great tragedies in history, and as such the name
seems appropriate.
שלום ברוך
Shalom and be blessed
Dan and Brenda Cathcart
Visit our web site at
www.moedministries.com
