Feast of Trumpets

Biblical Text

Leviticus 23:23-25 sets apart "the seventh month, in the first day of the month" as a day of rest, calling it "a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation." A holy convocation is a sacred assembly. On this day the people were to do no ordinary work and were to present an offering made by fire to the LORD, that is, a sacrifice burned on the altar.

Numbers 29:1-6 calls it "a day of blowing the trumpets" and specifies the offerings for the day. The burnt offering consisted of one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year, presented with their meat offerings, and the sin offering was one kid of the goats. These offerings were made in addition to the burnt offering of the new moon and the daily burnt offering. The text does not explain what the day commemorates or why the trumpets were blown.

Background

• Name: The Hebrew expression in Leviticus 23:24 is zikhron teru'ah, and in Numbers 29:1 it is yom teru'ah. Teru'ah refers to the sound of a trumpet or a loud shout. Because neither passage names the instrument, interpreters differ over which instrument was blown. In later Judaism the shofar, made from a ram's horn, is sounded.
• Calendar: The seventh month falls in the autumn. 1 Kings 8:2 calls it the month Ethanim. The tenth day of the same month is the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles begins on the fifteenth. Numbers 10:10 commands that trumpets be blown at the beginnings of months and at the appointed feasts, and Psalm 81:3 likewise says, "Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day."
• Other records: The people who had returned from exile resumed offering burnt offerings from the first day of the seventh month (Ezra 3:6). Ezra read the book of the law before the people on the first day of the seventh month (Nehemiah 8:2). When the people wept, their leaders told them not to mourn, because the day was holy (Nehemiah 8:9-10).
• Later Judaism: Judaism observes the day as Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. It is regarded as the day on which God judges the world, and the ten days leading up to the Day of Atonement are set aside as a period of repentance. This understanding, along with the tradition that the world was created on this day, was developed in later rabbinic literature and does not appear in the Old Testament text.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

The New Testament does not mention the Feast of Trumpets directly. However, the sound of the trumpet frequently appears in the New Testament as a sign of the end times. Examples include Matthew 24:31, 1 Corinthians 15:52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, and the seven trumpets of Revelation. Paul calls the holy days and new moons "a shadow of things to come" and says that "the body is of Christ" (Colossians 2:16-17), indicating that the Old Testament feasts are fulfilled in Christ.

Interpretations and Issues

• Typological interpretation: Some interpreters read the feasts of Leviticus 23 as a sequence in the history of redemption. On this reading, the feasts from Passover through the Feast of Weeks correspond to Christ's first coming and the church age, while the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles correspond to events from the Second Coming onward. Within dispensationalism, the Feast of Trumpets is often read as a type of the Rapture or the Second Coming. Others take a more cautious position on the grounds that the New Testament does not make this connection explicitly. At times, claims identifying the Feast of Trumpets in a particular year as the date of the Rapture have circulated widely. Many denominations warn against such date-setting, citing the teaching that no one knows the day or the hour (Mark 13:32-33).
• Whether it must be observed: Most Protestant denominations hold that, because the Old Testament feasts have been fulfilled in Christ, Christians are under no obligation to keep them as such. Passages cited in support include Colossians 2:16-17, Galatians 4:9-11, and Romans 14:5-6. By contrast, the World Mission Society Church of God, which the general assemblies of a number of denominations have declared heretical, maintains that the Old Testament feasts, including the Feast of Trumpets, must still be kept under the new covenant, and it observes them in practice.

In the Korean Church

The Feast of Trumpets is not part of the church calendar of Korean Protestantism, and most denominations do not observe it. It is introduced as one of the seven feasts in expository sermons on Leviticus 23 and in Bible studies on the Old Testament feasts, where interpretations linking it to the Second Coming are sometimes discussed as well.