Skip to content

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

Week 1 of 3 in The Autumn Feasts · next: The Day of Atonement: Once a Year, Once for All

A ram's horn on an outlined moon: Trumpets, awaiting His return On the first day of the seventh month Israel stopped work and filled the day with sound. Leviticus calls it "a memorial" of that sound, and Numbers calls it "a day of shouting." It is the fifth of the seven appointed times and the first of the three in the autumn.

In one sentence: Yom Teruah is a day of rest and shouting at the seventh new moon, a memorial in which God's people sound out before Him and He remembers them; the New Testament never names the feast, so its link to "the last trumpet" stays a suggestive inference, while the call it sounds is plain, and it is yours: be ready, because the Lord Himself is coming for His people.

✝️ Leviticus 23:23-25 (ESV)

23 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 24 "Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. 25 You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the LORD."

Key Takeaways

(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)

Types & Prophecy

  • Prophecy, stated. Scripture promises trumpets still to sound. Isaiah 27:13 says "a great trumpet will be blown" to bring Israel's exiles home to worship at Jerusalem. Paul says the dead will be raised and the living changed "at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:52, ESV).
  • Type, inferred. Reading Yom Teruah as a picture of that last trumpet, and so of the rapture, is typology from shared vocabulary. No New Testament text names the feast. The closest fit is 1 Thessalonians 4:16, which pairs a cry of command with a trumpet as the feast pairs a shout with the horn. The case is weighed below, and it stays unsettled.

Lessons about Jesus

  • He is the King the shout announces. Israel hailed God as King with the teruah (Psalm 47:5). "The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16, ESV). Jesus comes in person for His church.
  • He set readiness in place of a date. "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect" (Matthew 24:44, ESV).

Memory verses

✝️ 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (ESV)

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, 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.

Be Transformed

  • Think. God remembers His people. Israel's shout on this day was sounded before a God who had bound Himself to remember them, and He has bound Himself to you in Jesus.
  • Attitude. Live awake. "Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42, ESV).
  • Do. On the next new moon, stop for a few minutes, read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 aloud, and pray for one person who is not ready to meet Him.

Prayer

Father, you set the moon for seasons and gave Israel a day of shouting before you, and you remembered your covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thank you that you have remembered us in your Son Jesus, who died for us and rose again, and who will Himself descend with the trumpet of God to raise the dead and gather His church. Keep us awake and ready. Make our lives a sound that calls others to you before that day comes.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Study outline

The day in Israel's calendar

Leviticus 23 sets out Israel's year as one calendar. Passover, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits fall in the first month. Weeks comes fifty days after Firstfruits. Then the seventh month holds three: Trumpets on the first day, the Day of Atonement on the tenth (Leviticus 23:27), and Tabernacles from the fifteenth (Leviticus 23:34). Yom Teruah opens that autumn cluster. The ESV Study Bible's note on Leviticus 23:23-25 reads its blasts as a call to prepare for "the most sacred month" of the calendar.

It is the only feast in Leviticus 23 that falls on the first day of a month. Every other feast is counted from a month already begun, so Israel knew its day at least nine days ahead. A month began at the new moon, and a lunar month runs 29 or 30 days, so the first of the seventh month could fall on either of two days. Israel prepared for the day without knowing which of the two it would be.

Numbers gives the day its name and its offerings. "It is a day for you to blow the trumpets" (Numbers 29:1, ESV) is, in Hebrew, יוֹם תְּרוּעָה (yom teruah), "a day of shouting." Numbers 29:2-6 lists a bull, a ram, seven lambs and a goat for a sin offering, on top of the new moon's own offerings. The day was a Sabbath rest as well: Leviticus 23:24 calls it שַׁבָּתוֹן (shabbaton, H7677), "a day of solemn rest."

Teruah: a shout before God

The word

תְּרוּעָה (teruah, teh-roo-AH, H8643) comes from the verb רוּעַ (rua, H7321), which the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament glosses "raise a shout" (TWOT 2135; teruah is 2135b, "shout of war"). The noun occurs 36 times in the Hebrew Bible. It is Israel's war cry and alarm (Amos 1:14; 2:2; Ezekiel 21:22; Zephaniah 1:16). It is the shout when the ark came into the camp and when David brought it up to Jerusalem (1 Samuel 4:5-6; 2 Samuel 6:15). It is the people's joy at the temple's foundation (Ezra 3:11-13) and the shout that brought down Jericho's wall (Joshua 6:20). A teruah is a loud sound made before God or before an enemy, by voice or by horn.

The instrument Leviticus does not name

Leviticus 23:24 says זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה, "a memorial of shouting." It names no instrument. The two Dead Sea Scrolls copies of the verse in the database (11Q1 and 4Q24) read the same words. The instrument came in early: the Septuagint renders the phrase μνημόσυνον σαλπίγγων (mnēmosynon salpingōn), "a memorial of trumpets," and the English tradition follows it. KJV, ASV and WEB print "a memorial of blowing of trumpets"; the ESV prints "a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets." Young's Literal, which keeps the Hebrew word for word, prints "a memorial of shouting."

The translators supply something real. Psalm 81:3 calls for the שׁוֹפָר (shofar, H7782, a ram's horn) "at the new moon ... on our feast day" (ESV). Numbers 10:10 has the priests blow the silver trumpets "at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months." And the Mishnah describes a shofar sounded in the Temple on this day with two silver trumpets beside it (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:3). The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible judges the blasts "probably" from a shofar. That is a fair judgement and it is a judgement. Leviticus fixes the sound and leaves the instrument unnamed.

Why the sound is a memorial

Numbers 10 explains the pairing of shout and memory. Moses has two silver trumpets made. One kind of blast gathers the congregation; the verb is תָּקַע (taqa, H8628), and the ESV renders it "a long blast" (Numbers 10:7). A teruah sets the camps marching (Numbers 10:5-6). Then the same sound is turned toward God:

✝️ Numbers 10:9-10 (ESV)

9 And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies. 10 On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the LORD your God.

"Reminder" in verse 10 is זִכָּרוֹן (zikkaron, zee-kah-RONE, H2146), the same word Leviticus 23:24 uses. The shout goes up, and God remembers His people. This is covenant language. When God "remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob" (Exodus 2:24, ESV), He came down to rescue them from Egypt. God never forgets; His remembering is His acting on a promise He has made. Numbers 10:10 speaks of every appointed feast and every new moon. Yom Teruah stands out because Leviticus names the whole day for that sound. Later Jewish tradition calls it Yom HaZikkaron, the Day of Remembrance, and Leviticus 23:24's own vocabulary carries that name.

The shout of a King

The teruah was also how Israel hailed its King. Balaam, hired to curse Israel, blesses it instead: "The LORD their God is with them, and the shout of a king is among them" (Numbers 23:21, ESV). The "shout" is תְּרוּעַת (teruat, H8643), the same word. Psalm 47 sets the shout and the horn around God's throne: "God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet" (Psalm 47:5, ESV), where the shout is teruah and the trumpet is shofar, "for God is the King of all the earth" (Psalm 47:7, ESV). "Blessed are the people who know the festal shout" (Psalm 89:15, ESV) uses teruah again.

So the day's first meaning has three strands, each from Moses' own books. The shout gathers God's people and sets them moving (Numbers 10:2-7). It puts them before Him to be remembered (Numbers 10:9-10). And it hails Him as King (Numbers 23:21). The earliest record of how the day was prayed orders its liturgy under the same three heads: verses on God's kingship (malkhuyot), on His remembrance (zikhronot) and on the shofar (shofarot), with the shofar sounded after each (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 4:5-6). No psalm names the day. Reading Psalm 47 as the day's own liturgy is a scholarly proposal and stays unproven; the settled point is that Israel greeted its King with the sound the day is named for.

How Israel kept it

The Mishnah, compiled about AD 200, records how the day was kept late in the Second Temple period and after. It is later than Moses by more than a millennium, so it shows practice, and Scripture remains the authority for what the day means. Three of its records bear on this study (quoted from the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0).

The new year. The tractate itself is named Rosh Hashanah, "head of the year," and it opens with four new years. "On the first of Nisan, the new year for the kings and for the festivals" and "on the first of Tishrei, the new year for years, for the Sabbatical years and for the Jubilee years" (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1). Exodus 12:2 makes the month of the Exodus "the first month of the year" for Israel, and the Mishnah keeps that for the festivals while counting years from the seventh month. The phrase רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה (rosh hashanah) occurs once in Scripture, at Ezekiel 40:1, where the ESV renders it "at the beginning of the year" and dates it "on the tenth day of the month." Scripture never uses it as a name for this feast.

The witnesses. The month began when two witnesses reported seeing the new moon to the court (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:7). Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 4:4 records that testimony was once received all of the thirtieth day. Then witnesses came so late that they "interrupted the Song of the Levites," and the cut-off moved to the afternoon; anyone arriving later meant "that and the following day were kept as holy." After the Temple fell in AD 70, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai restored testimony all day. Israel could know the feast would come on one of two days, and could not know which until the witnesses spoke.

The shofar. "Three sounds are blown thrice" (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 4:9): a long tekiah, a teruah, and a long tekiah again, three times over. The pattern grows from the two signals of Numbers 10.

What carries over to the church

Leviticus 23:23-25 is ceremonial law, given to Israel through Moses. The witness procedure, the shofar order and the offerings of Numbers 29 belong to Israel's worship, and the New Testament does not lay them on the church. Paul says a festival or a new moon is "a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (Colossians 2:17, ESV), so you are free to keep the day or to leave it, and free to learn from it either way. What carries over is what the day shows about God: He calls His people to attention, He remembers them, and He fixes the day of His acting.

The trumpets typology: what is stated, what is inferred

The scheme

A popular reading, common in prophecy and Messianic teaching, names three trumpets. The "first trump" sounded at Sinai, "as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder" (Exodus 19:19, ESV), and belongs to Shavuot. The "last trump" of 1 Corinthians 15:52 belongs to Rosh HaShanah, so the rapture will happen on a Rosh HaShanah. The "great trump" of Matthew 24:31 belongs to Yom Kippur, so Christ will return on a Yom Kippur. It links the first two to the two horns of the ram Abraham offered in Isaac's place (Genesis 22:13).

What Scripture states

Paul states the trumpet, and he states it as revelation:

✝️ 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 (ESV)

51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

Jesus states the trumpet of His coming: "he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds" (Matthew 24:31, ESV). Neither passage names Yom Teruah, Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, and neither gives a day of the year.

The shout in 1 Thessalonians 4:16

Of the New Testament trumpet texts, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 sits closest to the feast's own word, because it has a shout as well as a trumpet. The Lord descends "with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God" (ESV).

  • The cry of command. κέλευσμα (keleusma, KEH-loo-smah, G2752) occurs once in the New Testament. Its one use in the Septuagint is Proverbs 30:27, where locusts with no king march out ἀφ᾽ ἑνὸς κελεύσματος, "at one command," in good order (the ESV, from the Hebrew, has "yet all of them march in rank"). It is the word of command that sets ranks moving, the job Numbers 10:5 gives the teruah: "When you blow an alarm, the camps that are on the east side shall set out" (ESV). Paul does not say whose cry it is. Some read the Lord's own voice, others the archangel's, and the Greek leaves both open.
  • The voice of an archangel. The only archangel Scripture names is Michael (Jude 9). In Daniel 12:1-2 Michael "shall arise" in the time when "many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake" (ESV). Paul names no one, so the identification is likely and unstated.
  • The trumpet of God. The ESV Study Bible's note on 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 lists Psalm 47:5 among the trumpets that proclaimed the Lord's presence. There God goes up with teruah and shofar; the Septuagint has ἐν φωνῇ σάλπιγγος (en phōnē salpingos), "with the sound of a trumpet" (Psalm 46:6 LXX). In Paul the Lord comes down with cry, voice and trumpet, and the church goes up "to meet" Him. That noun, ἀπάντησις (apantēsis, G529), the same note explains as the welcome a city gave an arriving dignitary.

Paul quotes none of these texts and names no feast. The match is one of function: the day Israel kept with a shout that gathered the camp, set it marching and hailed its King pictures what 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says the Lord will do for His church. That fit rests on Paul's own account of the sounds, which makes it closer than the "last trumpet" link below. It is still typology, and it gives no date.

The voice like a trumpet in Revelation

Revelation adds a second pattern beside Paul's, and it begins at Sinai. When the LORD came down on the mountain "the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder" (Exodus 19:19, ESV), and then "the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up" (Exodus 19:20, ESV). The trumpet sounds, and God calls His servant up to Him.

  • The voice of Jesus. On Patmos John "heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet" (Revelation 1:10, ESV), turned to see it, and saw "one like a son of man" (Revelation 1:13, ESV). The Greek, φωνὴν μεγάλην ὡς σάλπιγγος, is a comparison: the voice is Jesus' own, and no trumpet is blown. Its three words, loud, voice and trumpet, are Sinai's (Exodus 19:16, 19 in the Septuagint); with the feast it shares only σάλπιγξ (salpinx, G4536). "The Lord's day" in the same verse is κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ, which the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible both read as Sunday, the day Jesus rose. It gives the feast no date.
  • "Come up here." The same voice returns: "the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, 'Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this'" (Revelation 4:1, ESV). The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible hears in it God's summons of Moses up the mountain (Exodus 19:20, 24; 24:12). John goes up through a door open in heaven, and from the throne room he watches the judgments of the book unfold.
  • Called up, then the seventh trumpet. The two witnesses, raised after three and a half days, "heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up here!' And they went up to heaven in a cloud" (Revelation 11:12, ESV). Ἀνάβατε ὧδε is the plural of the command to John. Three verses on, "the seventh angel blew his trumpet," and heaven proclaims "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Revelation 11:15, ESV). The voice of 11:12 is called loud and is not likened to a trumpet; here the trumpet follows the summons.

Twice, then, Revelation joins a voice from heaven, a call upward and a trumpet, in the order Sinai set and Paul follows: "the trumpet of God," then "caught up... to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, ESV). Dispensational readers take Revelation 4:1 as a picture of the church caught up before the judgments, which is where it falls in the book, and the two witnesses as a second picture of God's people taken up in full view. That is typology, and it is marked as such here: John is called up to receive visions, the witnesses are two prophets, and none of the three texts names the feast or a day of the year. What Revelation adds is a second witness beside Paul: when the voice like a trumpet sounds, God calls His people up to Himself.

The links are built from three sources, and each can be checked.

  • The two horns. The tradition is in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31, a midrash usually dated to the eighth or ninth century AD. There the left horn of the ram was blown "upon Mount Sinai," and the right horn "is destined in the future to be sounded in the world that is to come," with Isaiah 27:13's "great trumpet" as its proof text (Friedlander's 1916 translation, public domain). The source names the future horn the great trumpet, and gives no feast day for it.
  • "No one knows the day or hour." The popular reading takes Matthew 24:36 as an idiom for Rosh HaShanah, "the hidden day," drawing on a reading of Psalm 81:3 as "in concealment of the day of our festival." The Hebrew word is כֶּסֶה (keseh, H3677). It occurs twice (Psalm 81:3; Proverbs 7:20), and the ESV, NIV, CSB, NASB and NKJV all render it "full moon." The resemblance to the uncertain new moon is real. But the "day and hour" of Matthew 24:36 is the coming of the Son of Man in Matthew 24:30-31, which the same scheme assigns to Yom Kippur.
  • The named trumpets. No first-century text found in this study ties "the last trumpet" to a feast day. Paul gives it no date (1 Corinthians 15:52), and the Mishnah's rules for the Rosh HaShanah shofar (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:3; 4:9) never name a "last" trumpet.

How to hold it

This site holds a pretribulational rapture, on the strength of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and the texts the rapture study sets out (statement of faith). The typology fits that position well: a trumpet at the start of the seventh month for the church, and on the tenth day of that month the Day of Atonement, on which Zechariah 12:10 has Israel mourn for "him whom they have pierced." The fit is real. The links are traditional, and the earliest of them is medieval. So the typology is suggestive and unsettled, and the rapture does not rest on it. The Trumpet Call of God reads the three New Testament trumpet texts one at a time, and We Shall All Be Changed treats 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 itself.

One related claim links the two new-moon witnesses to the two witnesses of Revelation 11. No source consulted here makes it, and the two share only the number two.

What the feast teaches

For Israel the day was a meeting God set at the seventh new moon. The people stopped work, gathered, and shouted before their King so that He would remember them, nine days before the Day of Atonement. That shows three things about God, and each reaches you.

God remembers His people. The shout of Yom Teruah went up "that you may be remembered before the LORD your God" (Numbers 10:9, ESV). That is the covenant faithfulness of God: He binds Himself to a people by promise and keeps it. In Jesus you are inside that promise. "All the promises of God find their Yes in him" (2 Corinthians 1:20, ESV), and He will not forget you.

God summons His people to attention. The prophets used the same sound to wake Israel. "Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! ... for the day of the LORD is coming" (Joel 2:1, ESV). A few verses on, the call becomes repentance: "return to me with all your heart," and "blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast" (Joel 2:12, 15, ESV). Ezekiel's watchman blows the trumpet so the people can take warning (Ezekiel 33:3-6). A trumpet from God is mercy, sounded before the day so you can be ready for it.

The King is coming for His people. Israel shouted to hail its King (Numbers 23:21; Psalm 47:5). At the rapture the shout comes from heaven: "The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4:16, ESV). Whatever is made of the feast's link to it, Scripture states this outright. The command that sets God's people moving raises the dead first, and then the living are caught up to meet their King. Israel kept a day it could not date to the hour. The church waits for a day no one can date at all: "you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42, ESV). So live awake, and let the sound of the trumpet be the thing you are listening for.

Discussion questions

  1. The language. Leviticus 23:24 calls the day זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה, "a memorial of shouting," and names no instrument; elsewhere teruah is Israel's war cry and the shout that hailed its King (Numbers 23:21). When the sound is what God commands, what does that suggest about how His people are meant to come before Him?
  2. The text in its context. Numbers 10:9 sounds the alarm "that you may be remembered before the LORD your God," and Exodus 2:24 says God "remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." What does it mean for God to remember, when He never forgets?
  3. Christ. Israel hailed its King with the teruah: "God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet" (Psalm 47:5). Paul says the Lord Himself will descend "with the sound of the trumpet of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). What does it show about Jesus that He comes for His church with the sound Israel used to hail its King?
  4. The hard part. No New Testament text names the feast. Leviticus 23:24 sets "a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets" on the first day of the seventh month, and Paul places the resurrection "at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:52). How far does the wording of the two texts carry the link between them?
  5. Readiness. Yom Teruah was the only feast in Leviticus 23 whose day Israel could not fix in advance. How does that sit beside Jesus' words "you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42)?
  6. Be transformed. "Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast" (Joel 2:15). What would it look like for you to hear that call this week?
Group study sheet for a 40-minute group: two A4 sheets, or one with the guided path

The point, the passage, the questions and the response, from this study. Print on both sides of two A4 sheets, flipping on the long edge. While this block is open, printing the page prints the sheet; close it to print the study.

Group study · 40 minutes

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

Leviticus 23:23-25

The point Yom Teruah is a day of rest and shouting at the seventh new moon, a memorial in which God's people sound out before Him and He remembers them; the New Testament never names the feast, so its link to "the last trumpet" stays a suggestive inference, while the call it sounds is plain, and it is yours: be ready, because the Lord Himself is coming for His people.

0–5min

Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Feast of Trumpets? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

5–12minRead it aloud BSB

Leviticus 23:23-25 23The LORD also said to Moses, 24“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly announced by trumpet blasts. 25You must not do any regular work, but you are to present a food offering to the LORD.’”

12–25minLook closer
What does it say?
What did it mean to them?
What does it mean for us?
Page 1 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

The study in brief
  1. The day in Israel's calendar. Where Yom Teruah sits in Leviticus 23, and why it is the one feast that falls on a new moon.
  2. Teruah: a shout before God. The word the day is named for, the instrument the Hebrew does not name, why the sound is a memorial, and the shout that hailed Israel's King.
  3. How Israel kept it. The Mishnah's record of the witnesses, the new year and the shofar, and what of it binds the church.
  4. The trumpets typology: what is stated, what is inferred. The "first, last and great trumpet" scheme, the shout and trumpet of 1 Thessalonians 4:16, the voice like a trumpet and the call "Come up here" in Revelation 1, 4 and 11, and where each link comes from.
  5. What the feast teaches. God remembers, God summons, and the Lord is coming.
Notes
Page 2 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

12–21minStep 1 · The day in Israel's calendar

1The hard part. No New Testament text names the feast. Leviticus 23:24 sets "a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets" on the first day of the seventh month, and Paul places the resurrection "at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:52). How far does the wording of the two texts carry the link between them?

2Readiness. Yom Teruah was the only feast in Leviticus 23 whose day Israel could not fix in advance. How does that sit beside Jesus' words "you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42)?

21–30minStep 2 · Teruah: a shout before God

3The language. Leviticus 23:24 calls the day זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה, "a memorial of shouting," and names no instrument; elsewhere teruah is Israel's war cry and the shout that hailed its King (Numbers 23:21). When the sound is what God commands, what does that suggest about how His people are meant to come before Him?

4The text in its context. Numbers 10:9 sounds the alarm "that you may be remembered before the LORD your God," and Exodus 2:24 says God "remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." What does it mean for God to remember, when He never forgets?

Step 3 · How Israel kept it
30–35minStep 4 · The trumpets typology: what is stated, what is inferred

5Christ. Israel hailed its King with the teruah: "God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet" (Psalm 47:5). Paul says the Lord Himself will descend "with the sound of the trumpet of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). What does it show about Jesus that He comes for His church with the sound Israel used to hail its King?

Step 5 · What the feast teaches
Page 3 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

35–40minBe transformed

6Be transformed. "Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast" (Joel 2:15). What would it look like for you to hear that call this week?

  • Think. God remembers His people. Israel's shout on this day was sounded before a God who had bound Himself to remember them, and He has bound Himself to you in Jesus.
  • Attitude. Live awake. "Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42, ESV).
  • Do. On the next new moon, stop for a few minutes, read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 aloud, and pray for one person who is not ready to meet Him.
Memory verse

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, 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.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (ESV)
Pray together

Father, you set the moon for seasons and gave Israel a day of shouting before you, and you remembered your covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thank you that you have remembered us in your Son Jesus, who died for us and rose again, and who will Himself descend with the trumpet of God to raise the dead and gather His church. Keep us awake and ready. Make our lives a sound that calls others to you before that day comes.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Notes
The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/feasts/trumpets/
Page 4 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission
Group study · step by step

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

Leviticus 23:23-25

Open Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Feast of Trumpets? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

Read it aloud Leviticus 23:23-25

Step 1The day in Israel's calendar — Where Yom Teruah sits in Leviticus 23, and why it is the one feast that falls on a new moon.

1The hard part. No New Testament text names the feast. Leviticus 23:24 sets "a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets" on the first day of the seventh month, and Paul places the resurrection "at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:52). How far does the wording of the two texts carry the link between them?

2Readiness. Yom Teruah was the only feast in Leviticus 23 whose day Israel could not fix in advance. How does that sit beside Jesus' words "you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42)?

Step 2Teruah: a shout before God — The word the day is named for, the instrument the Hebrew does not name, why the sound is a memorial, and the shout that hailed Israel's King.Key verses: Numbers 10:9-10

3The language. Leviticus 23:24 calls the day זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה, "a memorial of shouting," and names no instrument; elsewhere teruah is Israel's war cry and the shout that hailed its King (Numbers 23:21). When the sound is what God commands, what does that suggest about how His people are meant to come before Him?

4The text in its context. Numbers 10:9 sounds the alarm "that you may be remembered before the LORD your God," and Exodus 2:24 says God "remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." What does it mean for God to remember, when He never forgets?

Step 3How Israel kept it — The Mishnah's record of the witnesses, the new year and the shofar, and what of it binds the church.
Step 4The trumpets typology: what is stated, what is inferred — The "first, last and great trumpet" scheme, the shout and trumpet of 1 Thessalonians 4:16, the voice like a trumpet and the call "Come up here" in Revelation 1, 4 and 11, and where each link comes from.

5Christ. Israel hailed its King with the teruah: "God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet" (Psalm 47:5). Paul says the Lord Himself will descend "with the sound of the trumpet of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). What does it show about Jesus that He comes for His church with the sound Israel used to hail its King?

Step 5What the feast teaches — God remembers, God summons, and the Lord is coming.
Be transformed

6Be transformed. "Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast" (Joel 2:15). What would it look like for you to hear that call this week?

  • Think. God remembers His people. Israel's shout on this day was sounded before a God who had bound Himself to remember them, and He has bound Himself to you in Jesus.
  • Attitude. Live awake. "Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42, ESV).
  • Do. On the next new moon, stop for a few minutes, read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 aloud, and pray for one person who is not ready to meet Him.
Page 1 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

The point Yom Teruah is a day of rest and shouting at the seventh new moon, a memorial in which God's people sound out before Him and He remembers them; the New Testament never names the feast, so its link to "the last trumpet" stays a suggestive inference, while the call it sounds is plain, and it is yours: be ready, because the Lord Himself is coming for His people.

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/feasts/trumpets/
Page 2 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission
  • Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1; 3:3; 4:4-6; 4:9, Sefaria Community Translation (CC0), fetched with references/build/sefaria.py.
  • Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31, trans. Gerald Friedlander (London, 1916; public domain), via Sefaria.
  • Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament — root 2135 (רוּעַ), with teruah at 2135b; zikkaron at 551b.
  • ESV Study Bible, note on Leviticus 23:23-25; NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Leviticus 23:24 — consulted, each cited for a phrase; ESV Study Bible, note on 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (Psalm 47:5; apantēsis).
  • Hebrew and Greek text and word data from this project's bible-text.db (MACULA Hebrew, WLC; MACULA Greek, SBLGNT; the Septuagint lemmas for Psalm 46:6 and Proverbs 30:27); the Dead Sea Scrolls readings from its 11Q1 and 4Q24 transcriptions.

On this site