Jesus in the Feasts of Israel: Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah)

 

This is the fifth in a series of articles on Jesus in the feasts of Israel.

 

 

Name Scriptures Time / Date Purpose Fulfillment
Trumpets Lev. 23:23-25; Num. 10:10, 29:1-6 1st day of Tishri (September/October) To usher in the seventh month and begin “The Days of Awe.” The rapture of the church(1 Cor. 15:51-2; 1 Thess. 4:16-17)

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Background

In Scripture, Rosh Hashanah is referred to as Zikhron Teruah (“Memorial of Blowing [of trumpets],” Lev. 23:24) and Yom Teruah (“Day of Blowing [of trumpets],” Num. 29:1).  Because of these biblical descriptions, Rosh Hashanah is often referred to as “the Feast of Trumpets.” It is a day of sounding trumpets in the Temple and throughout Israel. Rosh Hashanah literally means “head of the year.” This holiday marks the first day of the Jewish civil New Year. However, this designation only came to be after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Since there was no longer a central place of worship and an altar of sacrifice – the Temple in Jerusalem – the observance necessarily had to change. Today, the emphasis is on the Jewish New Year rather than the blowing of trumpets.

The Biblical Observance

The Scripture references to the Feast of Trumpets are simple and straightforward:

  • Israel is commanded to memorialize the day by blowing trumpets and by keeping the day as a Sabbath of rest (Lev. 23:23-25; Num. 29:1).
  • A special burnt offering, consisting of a young bull, a ram, and seven lambs, is offered. A kid goat also is sacrificed as a sin offering. These offerings are in addition to the required daily sacrifices (Num. 28:1-8), and those for the new moon, which also are offered on that day (Num. 28:11-15).

Rosh Hashanah is the only Jewish holiday occurring on the first day of the month, when the moon appears as a thin crescent. Just as the seventh day and the seventh year are holy according to Mosaic law (Ex. 20:8-10; Lev. 25:4), so is the seventh month, Tishri, the Sabbath of months. Jews in ancient Israel announced the new moon with short blasts of a trumpet, but the new moon of Tishri was announced with long blasts, setting it apart.

The type of horn used for the Feast of Trumpets is the shofar, a curved trumpet made from a ram’s horn. This is different from the hatzotzerah, the silver trumpets priests blew to announce the beginning and ending of the Sabbath, and with the sacrifices. During the Feast of Trumpets, a priest is chosen to sound the shofar. He stands in a row of priests with silver trumpets facing the altar. The shofar sounds long blasts while the silver trumpets sound short blasts over the sacrifices of the day. 

Besides the sacrificial ceremony, the trumpet had many uses for Israel:

  • To gather an assembly before the Lord (Num. 10:2-4).
  • To sound a battle alarm (Num. 10:9).
  • To announce the coronation of a new king in the cases of Solomon (1 Kings 1:34, 39), Jehu (2 Kings 9:13), Joash (2 Kings 11:12-14), and Absalom (2 Sam. 15:10).

The Modern Observance

The observance of Rosh Hashanah today bears little resemblance to the biblical Feast of Trumpets. 

The Days of Awe. Jewish tradition holds that the 10 days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are the “Days of Awe.” It is believed that God reviews the books of judgment on Rosh Hashanah and delivers final judgment on Yom Kippur. These 10 days are considered the last chance for a person to repent before God’s judgment falls, possibly resulting in the death of the disobedient in the coming year. It is believed that three books are opened and every person’s name is entered into one of the books:

  • The Book of Life for the wicked. If a person’s name is entered here, judgment is final and that person’s life will be cut short in the coming year.
  • The Book of Life for the righteous. Those whose names are entered here are granted another year of life and prosperity.
  • The Book of Life for the in-between. Those whose names are written here have their lives hanging in the balance. If they sincerely repent during the Days of Awe, tradition holds that God will grant them life until the following Yom Kippur.

There is a Biblical origin of this tradition (Ex. 32:32-33; Psalm 69:28), but Jewish tradition has greatly embellished it. The Days of Awe are so solemn, weddings and other festive occasions are postponed until after Yom Kippur.

Prayers of repentance. Faithful Jews recite penitent prayers called selihot (“forgiveness”) throughout the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah.

The casting ceremony. On the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, observant Jews gather near a body of water to recite the Tashlikh (“cast off”) prayer. In Israel, this may take place on the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea or at the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. Several Hebrew Scriptures make up the prayer – Micah 7:18-20; Psalm 118:5-9; Psalm 33; Psalm 130; and often Isaiah 11:9. After the prayer, worshipers may shake their pockets, or throw bread crumbs or stones into the water, symbolically ridding themselves of sins.

The sounding of the shofar. Jewish tradition holds that on Rosh Hashanah, Satan appears before God to accuse Israel as God opens the books for judgment. The Jews blast the shofar on this day to confuse Satan, so he might believe Messiah has come and ended Satan’s reign on earth. It is customary to sound 100 shofar blasts on each day of the Rosh Hashanah synagogue services.

Synagogue services for Rosh Hashanah are lengthy, lasting five or more hours, and are focused on God’s kingship. The prayers and readings emphasize God’s majesty, His remembrance of His everlasting covenant with Israel, and the key role of the shofar in the history of the nation. The benediction speaks of the end of days, in which God will reveal Himself, sounding the shofar and sending the promised Messiah (Zech. 9:14).

The Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah has its festive moments as well. Since it is identified as the start of the civil New Year, Jews often send festive cards to family and friends, wishing them Shanah tovah, “a good year.” They also dress in new clothing and eat special foods, like apples dipped in honey and oval loaves of hallah bread; the round loaves of bread remind them of crowns and God’s kingship.

The Talmud, the ancient rabbinical commentary, suggests the world was created in the month of Tishri. Other rabbinic authorities say Rosh Hashanah was the day on which man was created.

The Fulfillment

Israel’s four springtime feasts – Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits and Pentecost – were fulfilled in the first coming of the Messiah. The three fall festivals – Rosh Hashanah, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles – will be fulfilled at the Messiah’s second coming.

For Israel, the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets will be a dark day. Just as Rosh Hashanah occurs at the new moon, when the sky is darkest, Israel’s prophets warn of a coming day of judgment for the nation. For example, Amos 5:18-20, Zeph. 1:14-16, and Joel 2:31 all speak of the day in which the Lord will turn off the heavenly lights, pour out His wrath on the wicked, and bring Israel to repentance and into the new covenant.

Ancient Jewish tradition held that the resurrection of the dead would occur on Rosh Hashanah. As a result, many Jewish grave markers feature a shofar.

God’s last trump and the resurrection of the dead are tied to the rapture of the church in the New Testament. Consider these key passages:

  • 1 Cor. 15:51-52 – “Listen! I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, 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 will be changed.”
  • 1 Thess. 4:16-17 – “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with the Lord.”

Remember the reasons for trumpet blasts in the Old Testament? They will be the same in the days to come:

  • To gather an assembly before the Lord (the rapture of the church).
  • To sound a battle alarm (God will defeat Satan’s rebellious followers throughout the tribulation and at Christ’s return).
  • To announce the coronation of a new king (Jesus the Messiah will sit on the throne of David as King of kings and Lord of lords).

Next: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)

 Copyright 2008 by Rob Phillips

* While several sources were used in preparing these notes, I drew heavily from The Feasts of the Lord: God’s Prophetic Calendar from Calvary to the Kingdom by Kevin Howard and Marvin Rosenthal.

Sound reasons to trust the Scriptures (part 5)

This is the fifth in a nine-part series of articles offering sound reasons to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

In Systematic Theology (Vol. I), Dr. Norman Geisler presents many lines of evidence supporting claims for the Bible as the Word of God. In unique fashion, he labels each line of evidence with a word beginning with the letter “S,” making his arguments relatively easy to follow and remember. This article borrows his headings and then incorporates some of Geisler’s research with numerous other sources, which are cited.

Reason 5: The testimony of structure

  • Even though the Bible was recorded by some 40 different authors – from different backgrounds, occupations and levels of education; who spoke in three different languages; who wrote over a period of 1,500 years – there is remarkable unity amid the vast diversity of scripture’s 66 books.
  • There is throughout scripture the unfolding drama of redemption, with Jesus Christ as its central person, seen in the Old Testament by way of anticipation and in the New Testament by way of revelation.
  • The Bible proclaims a unified message: Mankind’s problem is sin, and the solution is salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:16-19; Luke 19:10; John 3:16; 5:24; Rom. 3:10, 23; 4:4-5; 6:23; 10:9-13; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-7).

Next – Reason 6: The testimony of the stones

Copyright 2008 by Rob Phillips

Death and life in the Valley of Camarones

Recently I had the privilege of joining six other Christians from Middle Tennessee on a trip to northern Chile, where we worked with missionary Rojelio Silva to share the gospel with the Aymara Indians. In all, 95 people trusted in Christ. Here is a report of God’s work through us in one of many divine appointments. Many thanks to teammate Rob Tudor for the photographs.

The Aymara Indian’s skull was crushed, and his twisted legs were all that could be seen protruding from beneath the wrecked SUV that lay above us on the Andean hillside. “There has been an accident,” a policeman told us. “Three people are dead. Can you help us recover the bodies?”

We were on our way to Pachica, one of 142 pueblos in the Chilean province of Camarones, to encourage new Christians and share Christ with Aymarans who have never heard the gospel. There were 11 of us on this LifeWay sponsored trip, in partnership with a Chilean ministry called “Manantiales en el Desierto” – Streams in the Desert. We got out of our vehicles and began the somber climb to the site of the crash.

The rugged mountains, steep ravines, and serpentine dirt roads carved out of volcanic rock make passage through these Andean foothills slow and treacherous, especially when, as the police explained, 14 people are crammed into one vehicle, traveling at night.

This pass is particularly devilish, climbing 600 feet in altitude through a series of switchbacks and hairpin curves. Apparently, the driver of the SUV, nearing the top of the mountain, failed to navigate one of the turns. The vehicle slid back and rolled over the edge, plummeting more than 120 feet before resting upside-down in the rocky ravine. Amazingly, 11 people survived, including a two-year-old.

The dead evidently had been thrown from the car and suffered fatal injuries, with one – an 81-year-old man – pinned beneath it. We later read his name in the newspaper and learned that his daughter also died in the crash, along with an unrelated traveler on his way to a job. We climbed the jagged rocks, helped place the bodies on stainless steel litters and carry them to the road below.

The body of the elderly man required the assistance of nearly a dozen people who tilted the SUV just enough so two of us could free his corpse. As I thrust my hands under the man’s arms and another grabbed his legs, I saw his round face, closed eyes and eerily peaceful smile and wondered whether he had been sleeping at the moment he plunged into eternity.

The policemen thanked us for our help while a photographer from the newspaper in nearby Arica snapped pictures. A few hours later we were in Pachica, and then Esquina, sharing the gospel with school kids, adobe craftsmen from Peru, and a candle salesman – all of whom found new life in Christ.

Of course the tragic accident reminds us of the brevity of life. James writes that we are “a bit of smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes” (James 4:14). And any preacher worth his salt will share an experience like this to remind unbelievers of the precarious state they are in apart from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

But seeing the Aymara Indian’s face brought home to me three other simple truths:

First, life is brief for all people, not just unbelievers. When Christians stand before the judgment seat of Christ we will give an account, not of how long we lived, but of how faithfully we served. On the long dusty ride to Pachica after helping the police, I prayed to be more mindful of my life’s ticking clock.

Second, our choices have consequences in time and eternity. The driver of the SUV, who survived, will spend the rest of his life agonizing over his failure to negotiate a hairpin turn. The families of the dead are grieving yet today. And the survivors are confronted with the mystery of why they made it, and what it means. The three who died, of course, passed into eternity without a chance to say goodbye or make their peace with God.

Third, God is evident in all things if only we look. Seeing the bloodied face of the Aymara Indian man, I thought how God created, loved and sustained him for 81 years. Did he know this? Coming upon the scene of the accident as we did, at the moment we did, gave us a God-ordained opportunity to help the officials who would deal directly with the injured and the grieving. But there’s more.

Two days later we were in Taltaca, a small pueblo on the other side of the mountain from Pachica. We met an Aymara woman named Veronica and six members of her family. She told us she had just read in the paper that her sister-in-law, along with two others, had died in a car wreck across the mountain. She showed us the newspaper, which said some English-speaking tourists stopped to assist the police. Looking at the photographs, she recognized that those tourists were us.

We asked for the chance to tell her about Jesus and she eagerly agreed. That afternoon Veronica and six members of her family passed from death into life (John 5:24). If ever the imprint of God’s finger on human destiny was clearer, I have not experienced it.

We hugged Veronica and the rest of her family and said our goodbyes. The dust from our wheels hung briefly in the air and then vanished in the fading sunlight as Veronica and her family waved so long. While the eternal destiny of the three crash victims is known only to God, I took comfort in knowing that through Christ’s death, eternal life came that day to the Valley of Camarones.

Jesus in the Feast of Pentecost (part 3)

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Completing our study of the fourth spring feast, we find that every person can see Jesus in the Feast of Pentecost by observing His promises about the coming Holy Spirit:

  1. His promise to depart and return to the Father (John 16:7). The coming of the Holy Spirit was contingent upon Jesus completing His work of redemption and returning to His Father.  See also John 7:39; Acts 2:32-3.  A.J. Gordon writes, “The Spirit of God is the successor of the Son of God in His official ministry on earth. Until Christ’s earthly work for His church had been finished, the Spirit’s work in this world could not properly begin. The office of the Holy Spirit is to communicate Christ to us – Christ in His entireness” (The Ministry of the Spirit, p. 28).
  2. His promise to send the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is said to be a gift from the Father (John 14:16, 26) sent by the Son (John 15:26: 16:7). Roy B. Zuck, in A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, comments: “Whatever else is meant by the difficult statement that the Spirit ‘goes out from the Father’ (John 15:26), it implies that the Spirit shares the same essential nature as the Father. In fact, John was indicating here the parallelism between the mission of the Son, sent from God (3:17, 34; 5:36-38; 6:29, 57; 7:29; 8:42; 10:36; 11:42; 17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20:21), and the mission of the Son’s replacement, the Holy Spirit, who would be ‘another Paraclete’ to the disciples and who would enable them to carry on Jesus’ mission after He returned to the Father.”
  3. His promise of the Spirit’s ministry to unbelievers (John 16:8-11). Without the Spirit’s work to convince unbelievers of the sin of unbelief, the righteousness of Christ, and the judgment that will fall upon them if they persist in their rejection of Jesus, no one could be saved. In fact, the Spirit already was at work on the morning of Pentecost, pricking the hearts of the Jewish unbelievers listening to Peter (Acts 2:37).
  4. His promise of the Spirit’s ministry to believers, specifically:
    • To regenerate us, or make us spiritually alive (John 3:3-8; Titus 3:5).
    • To indwell us, or take up permanent residence in our human spirit (John 14:17; 1 Cor. 3:16).
    • To baptize us, initiating our relationship to Him and establishing our connection with Christ and other believers (Acts 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13).
    • To seal us, a guarantee that God will take us fully into His presence one day (Eph. 1:13-14).
    • To teach us, or give us divine assistance (John 14:26; 1 Cor. 2:12-13; 1 John 2:27).
    • To empower (fill) us for witnessing (Acts 1:8).
    • To empower (fill) us for service (Act. 6:5; Eph. 5:18). As Paul S. Karleen writes in The Handbook to Bible Study: With a Guide to the Scofield Study System, “Filling is the result of a consistent walk with God, and depends on a genuine and mature relationship with the Holy Spirit, Simply asking to be filled will not bring it.”
    • To equip us with spiritual gifts (Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:7-11; Eph. 4:11; 1 Peter 4:11).

5.   His promise to identify His Body (the church) by the Spirit (John 14:16-18; Rom. 8:9-11).

Read more about Jesus in the feasts of Israel

Sound reasons to trust the Scriptures (part 4)

The Word of God

The Word of God

This is the fourth in a nine-part series of articles offering sound reasons to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

In Systematic Theology (Vol. I), Dr. Norman Geisler presents many lines of evidence supporting claims for the Bible as the Word of God. In unique fashion, he labels each line of evidence with a word beginning with the letter “S,” making his arguments relatively easy to follow and remember. This article borrows his headings and then incorporates some of Geisler’s research with numerous other sources, which are cited.

Reason 4: The testimony of the supernatural

The Bible features nearly 300 prophecies of the Messiah, the latest of which dates to more than 200 years before the birth of Jesus. Every prophecy has been fulfilled, with the exception of those pertaining to His glorious return. Many are clear and specific, including:

† His virgin birth (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:21).

† His being “cut off” or killed 483 years after the declaration to reconstruct the temple in 444 B.C. (Dan. 9:24-26).

† His birthplace in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:1; Luke 2:4-7).

† His miracle-working authority (Isa. 35:5-6; Matt. 9:35).

† His rejection by the Jews (Ps. 118:22; Isa. 53:3; Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7)

† His suffering and death (Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Matt. 27:27ff).

† His resurrection (Ps. 2:7; 16:10; Mark 16:6; Acts 2:31; 1 Cor. 15:3-8).

† His ascension into heaven (Ps. 68:18; Acts 1:9).

† His place today at the Father’s right hand (Ps. 110:1; Heb. 1:3).

Contrast these specific predictions and their fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth with the predictions of psychics today who, according to The People’s Almanac, 1976, are wrong 92 percent of the time. Even the highly reputed visions of Nostradamus are suspect. He often was wrong, especially when being specific, and his predictions were usually so vague as to be practically useless.

The bible gives us many supernatural confirmations of its divine origin. For example, Moses, Elijah and other prophets were given the authority to perform miracles to confirm God’s sovereign power and divine message. Jesus, we are told by Luke, was “a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22).

Next — Reason 5: The testimony of structure