Tag Archives: Feast of Trumpets

The Shofar Blasts on the Feast of Trumpets and the New Year

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Feasts & Festivals

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The Shofar Blasts on the Feast of Trumpets Marks the Jewish New Year

The LORD said to Moses,”Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the LORD by fire.'” Leviticus 23:23-25

     Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast; this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.   Psalm 81:3-4

    In biblical times on the first day of every month (at the New Moon), the ram’s horn (shofar) was sounded. By the decree of God, the first day of the seventh month (Tishri) was to be as a Sabbath day (a sacred assembly and a day of rest) commemorated with the sounding of the shofar.

     This holiday, The Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah), is popularly known as Rosh Hashanah meaning the “Head of the Year” or Jewish New Year. Although, according to the ceremonial calendar, it is the first day of the seventh month, it is the day that the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity and marks the beginning of the Jewish civil calendar. Much the same way in our culture, though January marks the first month of the year, some businesses and government agencies calculate the fiscal year beginning in April.

     The liturgy in synagogues around the world not only includes the reading of the same biblical accounts on each Sabbath, but the same passages are read each year on each of the Festivals of the LORD. On Shavuot (The Feast of Weeks/Day of Firstfruits), the Book of Ruth is read because it concerns the harvest. On Rosh Hashanah, the Binding of Isaac  

is the Torah passage that is read in every synagogue throughout the world because it concerns a ram’s horn.

     Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

     Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

     Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

     When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.

     “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

     So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”  Genesis 22: 1-14

     The future lamb that was promised to be provided by God himself and would serve as an atonement offering was the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29b).

     By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him,”It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.Hebrews 11:17-19

     When the shofar sounds in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, it announces the raising of Isaac from the dead (figuratively speaking, Abraham did receive his son back from death). The Babylonian captivity lasted seventy years. The Jews that returned to the Promised Land had been dead as a nation for a lifetime (three score and ten years). When they returned on the Feast of Trumpets, the sound of the shofar blast announced the resurrection of a nation.

     Also at your times of rejoicing-your appointed feasts and New Moon festivals-you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the LORD your God.”  Numbers 10:10

     At the New Moon festivals and appointed feasts, trumpets were sounded. According to God’s command (Numbers 10:2), two silver trumpets were to be fashioned. They were to be used for calling the community together and for announcing that the camps set out.

     On the Feast of Trumpets, which occurs on the first day of the seventh month (a New Moon Festival), both silver trumpets are blown which announces that the whole camp gather together in the presence of the LORD and the shofar is blown which is a reminder of the resurrection of the dead.

     I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed– in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”1Corinthians 15:50-54

   According to the Law of Moses, trumpets are sounded to gather God’s people into His presence. They were sounded to announce the setting out of the camps as each of the Israelite tribes followed the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night. Trumpets herald the approaching of a king. They are sounded when a battle is to take place.

     According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. 1Thessalonians 4:15-18

     At the Feast of Trumpets, God’s elect will be translated in the blinking of an eye and gathered into His presence to be forever with the Lord.

The seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD, assembly and rest.

19 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Old Testament Study

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Although the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD, a day of sacred assembly and of rest, the disciples had to wait in Jerusalem ten days for the Holy Spirit.  With the many commandments and regulations focusing on the number seven, I sought to find out why there were ten days between the ascension of the glorified Mashiach (Messiah/Christ) into heaven and the empowerment of the church by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Shavuot/Feast of Weeks).

Leviticus 23:3

“There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD.”

The LORD commanded all of Israel to observe the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath day.

Leviticus 23:15-16

“From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD.”

The LORD also issued a command for the entire nation of Israel to observe annually the Feast of Weeks by counting seven full weeks.

Leviticus 25:4

But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

Even the land was to have a sabbath of rest. Not only was the seventh day and the seventh week commemorated, but in the seventh year the land was to lie fallow.

Leviticus 25:8-9

“Count off seven sabbaths of years-seven times seven years-so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.

The biblical regulations concerning counting by sevens extended to the counting of seven times seven years totaling forty-nine years. Then in the fiftieth year, liberty was proclaimed throughout the land to all its inhabitants during the year of Jubilee.

Moses was commanded by the LORD to consecrate Aaron and his sons. The consecration of the priests and the mishkan (tabernacle) lasted seven days (Lev 8:33-35). Other important seven day life cycle events were: Yaacov’s (Jacob’s ) marriage (Gen 29:27), Yoseph’s (Joseph’s) mourning over the death of his father Yaacov (Gen 50:10), a seven day period after birth before the circumcision of a newborn on the 8th day (Gen 17:12, Lev 12:2-3), and the seven day period before taking the young animal from its mother to be slaughtered as a sacrificial offering (Ex 22:29).

The number seven also has significance in relation to the fall cycle of biblical festivals.  After the first three spring months on the Hebrew calendar, there are no commanded festivals during the summer months. But during the seventh month, all three fall festivals – The Feast of Trumpets, The Day of Atonement and The Feast of Tabernacles – are celebrated.

Luke 24:1

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

All four Gospels record that Yeshua (Jesus) resurrected on the first day of the week. This day after the Sabbath of the Passover week, was the day that the Feast of Firstfruits was celebrated.

Leviticus 23:9-11

The LORD said to Moses,  “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.

The fact that Yeshua the Christ rose from the dead in a glorified body on the Feast of Firstfruits is confirmed by the Apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 15:22-23

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

Christ the Firstfruits of the resurrection, resurrected on the Feast of Firstfruits. The day of the Messiah’s resurrection also coincided with the start of the count of seven weeks and one day (49 days + 1 day = 50 days), to the celebration of the Feast of Weeks which is also known as Pentecost (Greek for the 50th day).

Acts 1:1-3

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

Luke, who wrote the Gospel according to Luke, also was the author of the Book of Acts. He wrote to Theophilus (lover of God) that Jesus walked in resurrection power for forty days until He was taken up into heaven.  Jesus ascended into heaven ten days before Pentecost (50th day – 40 days = 10 days).

Acts 1:4-5

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Three times a year all the men were to appear before the Sovereign LORD, at the Passover, at the Feast of Weeks and for the Feast of Tabernacles. Although most men of Israel returned to their fields or flocks after the Passover and did not return to the temple in Jerusalem until fifty days later, the disciples were commanded by the Lord to remain and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Although every regulation concerning the Festivals of the LORD is associated with periods of seven days, there was a ten day period between the time that  “Jesus the firstfruits of the resurrection” being taken up into the clouds and the outpouring from heaven of the Holy Spirit.

Just as Messiah Jesus fulfilled the spring cycle of biblical festivals in the First Advent: Redemption (the Passover), Sanctification (The Feast of Unleavened Bread), Resurrection (Firstfruits) and the birth of the Church (Pentecost), He will fulfill the fall cycle of biblical festivals in His Second Coming.

The Messiah being taken up into heaven as the Firstfruits of the resurrection is a foreshadowing of the rapture of the church. The Holy Spirit coming down from heaven to eternally indwell the church, is a foreshadowing of Emmanuel’s (God with us), return to earth to eternally dwell with His people.

The ten days starting with the Feast of Trumpets and ending with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), are commonly known as the Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim) or the Days of Repentance. For the unsaved Jew, this is a time for serious introspection, a time to consider the sins of the previous year and repent before Yom Kippur.

Luke 21:27-28

At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

On the Feast of Trumpets,  just as Christ was taken up into the clouds, the church will be raptured. Ten days later on the Day of Atonement, just as the Holy Spirit came down on Pentecost, so shall Christ return with His glorified saints to rescue Israel and establish His throne in Zion.

To learn more of the chronology and nature of end time events as revealed through the Hebrew calendar and the Festivals of the LORD read:

THE LAST DAYS CALENDAR: Understanding God’s Appointed Times.

To study through the Book of Revelation – verse by verse, read: THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: Understanding the Apocalypse