The Feast of Trumpets

“In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord” (vv24-25).

“Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled …And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice” (Ex.`9:16, 19).

“Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! They walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance” (Ps.89:15).

“With trumpets and the sound of a horn; Shout joyfully before the Lord, the King” (98:6).

“Therefore’ by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name” (Heb.13:15).

And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat.24:31).

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1Cor.15:52).

The seventh month was in the Jewish religious calendar (see Numbers 10:10), a month full of feast and fast days, it was a sabbatical month. The Jewish New Year began with 10 days of repentance, pardon with joy – “a joyful sound” (Ps.89:15), culminating with Yom Kippur. Traditionally celebrated with sweet or round foods such as apples and honey, and the blowing of the shofar, during religious services. A customary greeting is "happy new year!" This festival, usually held in mid-September, celebrated the end of the agricultural year and the beginning of the New Year in the Jewish civil calendar. In an age with no written calendars, trumpets (originally the ‘shofar’) were sounded on the first day of each new lunar month (see Psalm 81:3), and as a sign of the new agricultural season. The sound of the trumpet raises great and joyful expectations. They may herald a feast or they may call to battle (Num.10:7-10), the trumpet represents the voice of God, at Sinai, later to battle and finally in the Revelation, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet” (Rev.1:9; 4:1; 4:1; 8:1-2, 6-8; 8:10-13;9:1, 13-14; 11:15). There is no reference to the Feast of Trumpets in the New Testament. The trumpets anticipate and heralds the feast of Yom Kippur and the preaching of the gospel of Jesus’ death and our salvation. Passover represents Israel’s dispensation and Pentecost represents the Christian’s dispensation.