---
title: "Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah"
category: "feasts"
description: "Leviticus 23:23-25's Yom Teruah, the day of shouting at the seventh new moon: what teruah means, why the day is a memorial before God, how Israel kept it, and how far the trumpets-rapture typology can be carried by what Scripture states."
tags: ["leviticus", "prophecy", "lang/hebrew", "method/word-study", "method/typology", "rosh-hashanah", "trumpet", "rapture"]
draft: false
primary_passage: "Leviticus 23:23-25"
bible_references: ["Leviticus 23:23-25", "Numbers 29:1-6", "Numbers 10:1-10", "Leviticus 25:9", "Psalm 81:3", "Ezekiel 40:1", "Exodus 2:24", "Exodus 19:16-20", "Exodus 24:12", "Numbers 23:21", "Psalm 47:5-7", "Psalm 89:15", "Proverbs 30:27", "Daniel 12:1-2", "Jude 9", "Isaiah 27:13", "1 Corinthians 15:51-53", "1 Thessalonians 4:16-17", "Revelation 1:10-13", "Revelation 4:1", "Revelation 11:12-15", "Matthew 24:30-31", "Matthew 24:36", "Matthew 24:42-44", "Joel 2:1", "Joel 2:15"]
date_created: 2025-08-10
date_modified: 2026-10-22
ai_provider_models:
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
  - anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
  - anthropic/claude-sonnet-5
---

# Feast of Trumpets: Yom Teruah

![A ram's horn on an outlined moon: Trumpets, awaiting His return](https://the-way.lewy.au/assets/img/feasts/trumpets.svg){ align=right width="96" }
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](https://the-way.lewy.au/feasts/feasts/) 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](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/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](#the-trumpets-typology-what-is-stated-what-is-inferred), 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](#the-day-in-israels-calendar). Where Yom Teruah sits in
  Leviticus 23, and why it is the one feast that falls on a new moon.
- [Teruah: a shout before God](#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.
- [How Israel kept it](#how-israel-kept-it). The Mishnah's record of the witnesses, the new year
  and the shofar, and what of it binds the church.
- [The trumpets typology: what is stated, what is inferred](#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.
- [What the feast teaches](#what-the-feast-teaches). God remembers, God summons, and the Lord is
  coming.
- [Discussion questions](#discussion-questions). Six, for a group or on your own.

## 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, <span dir="rtl">יוֹם תְּרוּעָה</span> (*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 <span dir="rtl">שַׁבָּתוֹן</span>
(*shabbaton*, H7677), "a day of solemn rest."

## Teruah: a shout before God

### The word

<span dir="rtl">תְּרוּעָה</span> (*teruah*, teh-roo-AH, H8643) comes from the verb <span dir="rtl">רוּעַ</span>
(*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 <span dir="rtl">זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה</span>, "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 <span dir="rtl">שׁוֹפָר</span> (*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 <span dir="rtl">תָּקַע</span> (*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 <span dir="rtl">זִכָּרוֹן</span> (*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 <span dir="rtl">תְּרוּעַת</span> (*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 <span dir="rtl">רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה</span> (*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.

### Where each link comes from

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 <span dir="rtl">כֶּסֶה</span> (*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](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/rapture/) sets out
([statement of faith](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/statement-of-faith/#end-times)). 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](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/trumpet/#at-the-last-trumpet-three-texts-not-automatically-one-event) reads
the three New Testament trumpet texts one at a time, and [We Shall All Be
Changed](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/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 <span dir="rtl">זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה</span>, "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?

## References & Recommended Reading

- **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 (<span dir="rtl">רוּעַ</span>), 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

- [The Appointed Times](https://the-way.lewy.au/feasts/feasts/) — the series overview, and where Trumpets sits among the seven.
- [The Trumpet Call of God](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/trumpet/) — the shofar and the silver trumpets, and the
  trumpet texts of the New Testament.
- [The rapture of the Church](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/rapture/) — the case for a pretribulational rapture.
- [We Shall All Be Changed](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/we-shall-all-be-changed/) — 1 Corinthians 15:35-58.
