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right according to the Holy Covenant Law of Yahavah to be there. That’s the “point of no return” for the Sanctuary. Once Menelaus (the non-Levite) outbid Jason, the Priesthood was no longer just corrupted—it was legally severed from the Holy Covenant Law that Moses recorded down.
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Then came The Total Breakdown (c. 172–170 B.C.) To pay back the massive bribe he promised the King, Menelaus did the unthinkable: he began stealing the gold vessels directly from the Temple to sell them. [Citation: 2 Maccabees 4:32–39].
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The rightful High Priest, Onias III, spoke out against this temple-robbing from his place of exile, but Menelaus didn’t argue scripture; he hired an assassin (Andronicus) to murder Onias III. [Citation: 2 Maccabees 4:33–38].
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With the rightful “Old Guard” dead and a non-Levite “thief” occupying the office, The First Betrayal was complete. The Sanctuary was now a political engine fueled by murder and Greek silver.
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Now we come to the second betrayal which was performed by the Maccabees. They rose up in 167 BC to fight the corruption of Menelaus and the Greeks. While they started as “liberators,” they eventually became the Second Betrayal by illegally taking the High Priesthood for themselves despite not being the lawful line of Levites.
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While the Maccabees (the Hasmoneans) are often celebrated as heroes for kicking out the Greeks and Menelaus, they committed a legal crime that solidified the “Inside Job.”
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The Hasmonean Usurpation (152 B.C.). The Maccabees were Levites, but they were of the line of Joarib, not the high-priestly line of Zadok. By taking the office for themselves, they permanently broke the Holy Covenant Law of the Sanctuary.
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Jonathan Apphus (the youngest brother of Judas Maccabeus) accepted the High Priesthood as a political gift from a Syrian usurper (Alexander Balas) rather than by divine right. [Citation: Antiquities of the Jews, Book 13, Chapter 2, Section 2) explicitly records Alexander Balas conferring the high priesthood upon