Number 7:10-11 “And the princes (leader of each tribe) brought the dedication offering of the altar in the day it was anointed, even the princes offered their offering before the altar. And YHWH said to Mosheh, “Let them bring their offering, one leader each day, for the dedication of the altar.””

The Hebrew word for Dedication is HANUKKAH H2598 – ḥănukâ, or the root word is HANAK H2596 – ḥānaḵ,
which means to train up, dedicate, inaugurate. Train up is very interesting and beautiful, see this word used in
Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he turns not away from it.“

Here in Numbers 7 the Altar is being Dedicated to YHWH, it is an inauguration. It is a one time event, and it took 12 days – 1 day for each of the tribes to bring a gift and do a sacrifice.

In 1 Kings 8:63 and 2 Chronicles 7:5-9 we see King Solomon just finished building the Temple, and they are sacrificing and celebrating this big event. This happened right with and after Sukkot (the last feast of the year, in the 7th month of the Scriptures – which is around the 9th month of our calendars today). “King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep: so the king and all the people ḥānaḵ (DEDICATED) the house of YHWH. They celebrated this dedication for 7 days.” This was a one time event, a inauguration.

Other places where we see a dedication happening is in Psalms, where Davids’ house is being dedicated to YHWH. Psalm 30:1 “[[A Psalm and Song at the dedication H2598 of the house of David.]] I will extol thee, O YHWH; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.” In Deuteronomy 20:5 we will see some Laws are laid out for warfare. “And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not ḥānaḵ H2596 it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man ḥānaḵ H2596 it. (verb – DEDICATION OF NEW HOUSE).” In this case it seemed like it was a tradition that when you have built a new house, that you would dedicate your house to YHWH, just like King David did. Obviously this was also a one time event.

In Nehemiah 12:27, Israel has been captive for over 150 years in Persia, and Ezra en Nehemiah has gone through a lot of trouble to teach Israel Torah and the Moedim. Nehemiah finally got written permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuilt the walls and bring Israel back to their land. In the Scripture it says, “And at the ḥănukâ H2598 (DEDICATION) of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the ḥănukâ H2598 with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps.” Here they dedicated the walls of Jerusalem.

TODAY’s FALSE HANUKKAH: 
Today you might know of a yearly festival that is kept by the Jews right around christmas, called Hanukkah – like an 8-day festival of lights. This tradition started of in the year 143 before Christ, where King Antiochus took control of Jerusalem, and desecrated the Temple and replaced it with offering pigs and their god statues, issuing a decree that all must abandon their customs and become one people with them. Sabbath and circumcision, and having the Torah was forbidden and penalty was death. In the book of Maccabees, it tells this story of when the Maccabees brothers started a revolt against this empire, and recaptured Jerusalem in 164 before Christ, and they then instituted a yearly “Hanukkah”. A Hanukkah is actually a one time event, and not a yearly festival. They changed or created their own lampstand with 9 lamps. You can read the story online, the book is available at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Maccabees%201&version=GNT and is quite easy to read. It is not the same as when reading Scripture though, as you don’t see YHWH speaking to the people and giving them instructions, even though they do pray and ask for guidance, it doesn’t say that YHWH instructed any festivals or changes to the Menorah. YHWHs festivals starts at Spring and ends in the Fall (Jerusalem time). This festival is kept in the middle of Jerusalems’ winter.  It is also worth noting, right after the Maccabees instituted this festival, the war continued and they lost Jerusalem again, and the main Maccabee brothers were all killed.  The rest of the Maccabees family made a deal with the Romans finally, and so they were given the right to be the Priests of the Temple.

There is one last place in Scripture that mentions the “Feast of dedication”, in John 10:22-42 “At that time the Ḥanukkah came to be in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And YESHUA was walking in the Set-apart Place, in the porch of Solomon.” The story continues where Jews surrounds Yeshua and confronts Him on whether He is the Messiah. Keep in mind, the Jews and especially the Priest family at that time, was family of the Maccabbees (do some research on the this specific Maccabbee family, it is not pretty). Yeshua immediately told them that His Sheep hears His voice, and THEY are not His Sheep. At that point they wanted to seize Him and kill Him. The fact that Yeshua was at the Temple during the festival, does not necessarily mean He kept the festival. Instead we have a story here where a fight broke out with the family members who instituted this festival, and Yeshua had to leave because they wanted to kill the Messiah – which is so ironic, and they didn’t even know it!