The Month of Tammuz
"Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing." So He brought me to the door of the north gate of Yahweh's House; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. (Ezekiel 8:13, 14)”
The verse in Ezekiel cited above speaks of the worship of a Babylonian idol, known as "Tammuz." And it seems most odd, at first glance that this name would be chosen as the name of a Hebrew month.
In the context of the month that we are dealing with, a month of tragedies which would lead to still greater tragedies, the appropriateness of the name becomes clear. The Prophet Ezekiel was being shown by Yahweh the reasons for His great anger against Israel, namely, the various forms of idol-worship which had been incorporated into the Divine Temple Service. This caused the Glory to depart.
“Then the Glory of Yahweh went up from the Karuv, and paused over the threshold of the Temple; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of Yahweh's Glory. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even in the outer court, like the voice of El Shaddai when He speaks. (Ezekiel 10:4, 5)”
By the time of Ezekiel, the women of Israel held annual lamentations over the death of the beautiful youthful Tammuz Adonis. The feast held in his honour at the season of the summer solstice, and began with the new moon nearest the summer solstice, in the month of Tammuz, took place chiefly at Byblos in Phoenicia; but it was also celebrated as late as the fourth century around Bethlehem. In the Mysteries of Tammuz or Adonis a whole week was spent in lamentations and mourning. The funereal processions were succeeded by a 40 day Lent, and later by rejoicings, and wild orgies of joy; at the end of Lent Ba’al -Adoni-Tammuz was regarded as resurrected, in kind of an Easter week celebration, uninterruptedly for several days.
It ultimately caused the Shekinah Glory to depart and the Temple to be destroyed.
As lovers of Yahweh we rejoice for according to Ancient Near Eastern myths this month is connected to the season the false god Tammuz, died and condemned to Hell.
In reality Tammuz was the Sumerian King Dumuzid or Du’uzu the shepherd whose city state was Kua or Kuadam. He reigned for 100 years" as the son of Nimrod, he was the third king of the first dynasty of Ur or Uruk. Dumuzi was also called Tammuzh or Tamizhi – he was considered a Pandyan king of ancient Tamil Nadu whose Kingdom stretched from Assyria to South India, reigning between Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh the son of Lugalbanda. He was later deified by the people of Ur as a reincarnation of Nimrod.
The "sign" of the month is "Sartan," or "The Crab," because a constellation which is observed at this time of year has the appearance of a crab. Crabs pinch and hurt, and this month was basically a time in which the Israelite People are hurt.
The word “tammuz” in Aramaic Hebrew means to heat up. This is the first hot month of the summer. Also, in spiritual terms, things get a little hot this month. Some of the worst tragedies in Israelite history have happened during Tammuz, such as the sin of the golden calf and the subsequent breaking of the first tablets, the mission of the spies who gave a bad report about the land of Israel in Moses' time, the beginning of the destruction of the Temple, etc. This season marks the exile and suffering of the Shekinah.
The Hebrew letter associated with this month is "Chet," the eighth letter of the alef-bet. The word "Chet" means transgression. There's an unusual danger of transgression at this time.
In the Chet portion of Psalms 119 we read: “You are my portion, O Yahweh; I have promised to obey Your words. I have sought Your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to Your statutes. I will hasten and not delay to obey Your commands. Though the wicked bind me with ropes, I will not forget Your Torah. At midnight I rise to give you thanks for Your righteous laws. I am a friend to all who fear You, to all who follow Your precepts. The earth is filled with Your love, O Yahweh; teach me Your decrees. (Psalms 119: 57:64)”
The eighth or Chet – chapter of the Book of the Revelation shifts from Earth to Heaven “on a plane above nature.”
“When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Revelation 8:1)”
There on the Heavenly Plane we see seven angels with seven trumpets anxiously awaiting the next even – the eighth event.
Then “Another angel (the eighth angel), who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much Ketoret (incense) to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before Yahweh from the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:3-5)”
When man’s prayers are mixed with the Heavenly Incense man “transcend the limitations of physical existence.”
Biblical Significance of the Month of Tammuz
The Daughters of Zelophehad. We read parashat (Torah portion) Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1) during the month of Tammuz. In this parasha we learn that a man named Zelophehad has died without leaving male heirs to inherit his portion of the land of Canaan. Zelophehad's five daughters declare that the land should not be lost to their family because there are no sons. Instead, they assert: "Give us a holding (of land) among our father's kinsman!" In the end, Yahweh approves of the daughters' claim, commands that Zelophehad's land be transferred to them, and institutes a new law: "If a man dies without leaving a son, you shall transfer it to his daughters. If he has no daughter, you shall assign his property to his brothers ...."
We read of the Battle of Israel against the five kings of the Emorite Nation that occurred on the 3rd of the Month of Tammuz in the Book of Joshua 10:11-14: “As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, Yahweh hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites. On the day Yahweh gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to Yahweh in the presence of Israel: ‘O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.’ So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when Yahweh listened to a man.
Surely Yahweh was fighting for Israel!”
· On the 9th day of the month of Tammuz King Nebuchadnezzar breached of the walls of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 39:2, 52:6-7) and broke them down by the 17th.
· On the 14th day of the Month of Tammuz, Commemorates a time during the Second Temple period when the Pharisees gained victory over the Sadducees in a dispute over the interpretation of the Torah.
· Noah also sent a dove out of the ark of the 17th of Tammuz. (Genesis 8:8)
· On the 17th of Tammuz Moses smashed the first tablets of the Law and destroyed the golden calf. Exodus 32:20 He then ascending back up Mount Horeb for the second time where he spent the next forty days pleading for forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf, Exodus 33:11
· On the 17th of Tammuz King Menashe, one of the worst of the Jewish kings had an idol placed in the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple (2 Kings 21:7).
· On the 17th of Tammuz the daily sacrifices in the Second Temple came to an end.
· On the 17th of Tammuz Romans set up an idol in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
· On the 17th of Tammuz Apostumus, a Greek official burnt the Temple Torah scroll.
On the 17th of Tammuz, Titus and Rome also breached the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
On the 17th of Tammuz Pope Gregory IX ordered the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud and burned them all in 1239.
On the 17th of Tammuz in 1391, more than 4,000 Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain.
On the 17th of Tammuz in 1559 the Jewish Ghetto of Prague was burned and looted.
· The 27th of Tammuz commemorates the burning of the tanna Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion who was burned at the stake for teaching Torah, his wife was murdered and his daughter was placed into a brothel in service to Adonis, which occurred during the persecutions of the emperor Hadrian.
Used with kind permission of Rabbi Rob Miller
