In these verses, God is commanding that specially prepared oil be continuously brought for the priest to keep the menorah – the lamp – continuously lit. Hanukkah commemorates the miraculous provision of this specially prepared oil after the Maccabean Revolt.

About a hundred years after Alexander the Great conquered the Holy Land, his successors had long departed from his relatively benevolent rule. Antiochus Epiphanies prohibited the practice of the Jewish religion and tortuously murdered . . .