The feast of trumpets is the first of the three fall feasts and the first Jewish feast since the feast of Pentecost, the last of the four spring feasts. The feast of trumpets is known today in Israel as Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year. The feast of trumpets is the first day of the Jewish civil year, but the first day of the seventh month of the religious calendar. It is on 1 Tishri, the seventh month in the Jewish calendar and normally in September of our calendar, but sometimes in October. (Leviticus 23:24-25 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
25 Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.) (Numbers 29:1 And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.) The feast of trumpets as all of the Jewish feasts points to Jesus.
Prior to the feast of trumpets the ram’s horn or shofar is blown to call people to repentance and remind them the holy days are about to start. The feast of trumpets is the first of ten days of repentance celebrated by Jews and ends on the day of atonement or Yom Kippur. These ten days are known as high holy days. Jews will often spend the 30 days of the previous month Elul preparing in repentance for these ten holy days. The trumpet or shofar is blown 100 times during the synagogue service on the day of the feast of trumpets. Most Jews who never even go to the synagogue throughout the year will go on the feast of trumpets and the day of atonement. Jewish tradition says God writes the words, deeds, and thoughts of every person in the book of life which God opens on the feast of trumpets. Jews believe that if their good deeds are more than their bad deeds then their name will be kept in the book of life for one more year. Jews believe they can do works of repentance during this ten day period to get more good deeds. This is completely unscriptural and shows how Jews try to work their way to heaven just like every other false religion. This may be why Jews today also refer to this feast as Yom Hadin or the day of judgment. Jesus is the Judge of judges and will judge one day. (II Timothy 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;) (Acts 10:42 And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.) God does have a book of life in which every person who has or will ever be born has their name written in it. God also has the Lamb’s book of life that once your name is in it, it cannot be removed. Jews and all people can have their name written in the Lamb’s book of life by admitting they are a sinner and asking Jesus to save them. Jews need to call upon their Messiah Jesus to have their name in the Lamb’s book of life. This is the only book that matters. Only saved people are in the Lamb’s book of life. A person can call upon Jesus on any day of the year, not just the feast of trumpets to have their name added to the Lamb’s book of life. As an unsaved person dies, his name is blotted out of the book of life and was never written in the Lamb’s book of life. Eventually both books will match their names as the last unsaved person is removed by God from the book of life. These are the books that God will check to see if a person’s name is written in them on the day of the Great White Throne judgment. No unsaved person’s name will be found in either book. (Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.)
In Biblical days the Jews were to make a burnt offering, a meat offering, and a sin offering to God on this feast and it was to be a day of rest. Like all of the Jewish feasts, it was a holy day since it represented Jesus. These offerings might represent us casting our sins on Jesus and his redemption for us. (Numbers 29:1-6 And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.
2 And ye shall offer a burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year without blemish:
3 And their meat offering shall be of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals for a bullock, and two tenth deals for a ram,
4 And one tenth deal for one lamb, throughout the seven lambs:
5 And one kid of the goats for a sin offering, to make an atonement for you:
6 Beside the burnt offering of the month, and his meat offering, and the daily burnt offering, and his meat offering, and their drink offerings, according unto their manner, for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD.) These were to be a sweet savour to God. Today Jews eat food with the feast including apple slices dipped in honey. The apples represent provision and the honey represents sweetness for the coming year. Is the honey unknowingly to the Jews a representative of the sweet savour of the Biblical sacrifices?
The feast of trumpets in scripture points to the gathering of the Jews to the Promised land and ultimately to him. (Isaiah 27:13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.)
The main meaning of the feast of trumpets was to point Jews to Jesus and his coming for his bride the church in the rapture. The rapture is the time when Jesus will gather his people in the clouds in the air to meet him and he will bring them to heaven. At this time Christians will get their glorified bodies. The rapture is for the new testament church only with the old testament saints getting resurrected at part two of Jesus’ second coming. The rapture will occur before the wrath of God comes at the time of the great tribulation. God always removes his people before his wrath on the unsaved such as removing Noah and his family before the Genesis flood and removing Lot and his family before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Let us look at the rapture in scripture. (I Corinthians 15:51-52 Behold, I shew 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 trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.) Paul refers to the rapture as the last trump or last trumpet. Jesus himself will blow this trumpet. (I Thessalonians 4:13-18 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.) The trumpet sounded by Jesus will even wake up the dead in Christ. That is how powerful the trumpet of God is. The Philadelphia church, one of seven churches mentioned in Revelation 2-3 represents the true church of believers and Jesus said he will take them away from the hour of temptation showing the church will not see the wrath of God during the tribulation. (Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.) The word rapture is not found in scripture, but comes from the Latin word rapio which means caught up as is found in the English King James Bible.
Today Israel usually celebrates the feast of trumpets as a two day event followed by 7 days of repentance followed by the day of atonement. The seven day period might be representative of the 7 year tribulation with the rapture at the feast of trumpets and the salvation of Israel at the end of the tribulation and then the second coming of Jesus with the day of atonement. Most Jews probably are not even aware of what they symbolize.
When the Israelites blew trumpets in Biblical days there were many reasons for it. Some reasons were a call to war and another one was to gather people together for an announcement and another was a warning of a coming judgment. There were other reasons. Two types of trumpets were used, silver ones and ram’s horns. (Numbers 10:2 Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.) The people brought silver to the priests as half shekels to represent being redeemed by God. Silver represents Jesus Christ’s redemption for mankind. Redeemed people would listen to the sound of the trumpet when it was sounded and they will at the rapture as well. The trumpet will sound just before the rapture occurs and we can see some of the meanings of the trumpet call from the old testament. When the rapture trumpet blows, God will gather Christians to him in heaven, he will be announcing to the Jews and the rest of the world that a great judgment in the tribulation is coming from him and Jesus will also be declaring war on Satan. The rapture is Jesus’ declaration of war on Satan and all evil. It is during the tribulation when one third of the Jews will finally realize that Jesus is their Messiah and will call upon him and be saved. Two thirds of the Jews alive at the start of the tribulation will die unsaved, but the remaining one third which will be the whole nation will be saved. Prior to this happening great judgment will come upon Israel as the whole point of the tribulation is to bring the Jews to Jesus. (Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.)(Zechariah 13:8-9 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.) I mentioned earlier how the feast of trumpets represents the Jews gathering back to Israel. This gathering back to Israel will finally gather the nation to Jesus just as the church is gathered to Jesus at the rapture. The trumpet was also used to call the Israelites to worship and after the rapture we will worship Jesus and praise him for redeeming us and calling us home.
The feast of trumpets is the first of the three fall feasts and comes three months after Pentecost, the last of the four spring feasts. Pentecost represents the start of the church and the feast of trumpets represents the rapture of the church or the removal of it from earth. The three month gap in between the spring and fall feasts represents the church age with the time before that being about Israel and after the rapture during the tribulation being about Israel again. I believe these feasts and what they represent show that the church will not be here for the wrath of God during the coming tribulation. Just as the feast of trumpets represents the rapture of the church, it also signals the beginning of the restoring of Israel as I just mentioned how the whole nation will be saved during the tribulation. The rapture can occur at any time with no events that need to happen first. Scripture says we do not know the day or hour of the rapture when Jesus will return, but most likely the rapture will happen on the feast of trumpets at some point in the future as all of the main events of Jesus always happened on a Jewish feast. We still would not know the year or hour and the day changes each year so since we do not know the year, we still do not know the day either so this is not predicting the rapture. (Matthew 24:36 ¶ But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.) The spring feasts were all fulfilled in his first coming and the second coming will see the fulfillment of the fall feasts. Scripture is all about Jesus and his chosen people Israel so there is no reason the rapture would not be on a Jewish feast and most likely this one as it even has trumpet in its name. The rapture even has a trumpet just as the feast does. Some people believe the feast of trumpets is the visible part of the second coming of Jesus at the end of the tribulation and not the rapture, but that will be the day of atonement, not the feast of trumpets.
It is possible that God has a verse in scripture between the spring and fall feasts that shows God’s grace during this age of grace that we are living in. (Leviticus 23:22 ¶ And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God.) The Israelites were to leave some of the harvest for the poor and stranger (Gentiles). This verse is to be taken literally, but it is possible that this was a picture of God bringing his grace to the Gentiles as well during the church age and then allowing them to be raptured along with any saved Jews as represented in the feast of trumpets in the next two verses. The verses just before verse 22 deal with the feast of Pentecost which was the start of the church.
In conclusion the feast of trumpets represents the calling of the church home to heaven at the rapture. To anyone listening whether Jew or Gentile, if you are not saved, please call upon Jesus today and ask him to save you so that you may have your name written in the Lamb’s book of life for all eternity without any rituals as in Judaism and only temporary as is believed in the book of life and so you will not miss the trumpet sound calling you home at the rapture. What a glorious sound that will be. Even so come, Lord Jesus.
