An introduction to the Feast of Trumpets and its prophetic meaning, for Christians.
In the bible, there are several Moedim or Appointed Times of God (YHVH), also referred to as “biblical feasts. Most believers out there have heard of some of them, such as Passover (Pesach) or Pentecost (Shavuot.) But there are several moedim in the spring, and more in the autumn.
Yom Teruah, or the Feast of Trumpets is the first of the fall feasts.
It is the 5th feast of the cycle of the year in YHVH’s appointed times.
The word “trumpets” in Hebrew is Teruah, so this feast is also called Yom Teruah – Yom being “day” and Teruah being “Trumpets.” In Judaism it is called Rosh Hashanah, “the new year.”
But the word Teruah also implies a “clamor, cries of joy or a battle cry, an alarm, a splitting of the ears”
Trumpets or shofars in the bible were used for many things, depending upon the pattern that is blown. Like morse code.
They were used to lead into battle, warning of danger, in celebration, the arrival of a groom for a wedding, or the coronation of a KING!
All scripture quotes below are from the CJB bible.
Leviticus 23:23-25:
Adonai said to Moshe, “Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar. Do not do any kind of ordinary work, and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai.’”
Numbers 29:1-2:
“‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you are to have a holy convocation; do not do any kind of ordinary work; it is a day of blowing the shofar for you. Prepare a burnt offering to make a fragrant aroma for Adonai — one young bull, one ram and seven male lambs in their first year and without defect —
God’s people were told to set aside the first day of the seventh month as a memorial or a remembrance to be held with “Teruah” and they were told to remember….what remember what?
I would offer that this was prophetic. That it was a rehearsal for a coming event. And this is a view that countless people hold.
You see the spring feasts, Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Weeks which leads to Shavuot/Pentecost were all fulfilled by Yeshua/Jesus at his first coming.
He was killed when the Passover lambs were killed. Cooked whole – perfect, with no flaws and no broken bones, insides and head all fully intact, on a spit/stake, while people came and cut away strips or slices of meat.
Just as Yeshua was killed on an execution stake, not one broken bone, and prior to his death, he had slices of his flesh ripped away but the cat of nine tails. He even had thorns on his head like the ram that was supplied to Abraham, (Genesis 22) when YHVH said He would provide His own sacrifice. The cutting away while on the stake could even be represented in the insults and taunts that people threw at him while he was dying a wretched death on our behalf.
The feast of Unleavened Bread is a time of getting out the leavening. We know that leavening represents sin. And getting the sin out is exactly what Yeshua did.
First Fruits is when the very first ripened barley is offered up to God, and Yeshua was resurrected on First Fruits, and is called the First Fruits of the Resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15: 20-24:
But the fact is that the Messiah has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died. For since death came through a man, also the resurrection of the dead has come through a man. For just as in connection with Adam all die, so in connection with the Messiah all will be made alive. But each in his own order: the Messiah is the firstfruits; then those who belong to the Messiah, at the time of his coming; then the culmination, when he hands over the Kingdom to God the Father, after having put an end to every rulership, yes, to every authority and power.
Once Yeshua ascended to sit at the right hand of the throne, until the appointed time… the counting of the weeks began – 7 weeks and then the next day being Shavuot/Pentecost – when the spirit of God was given to the believers, to teach them His ways and lead them into all truth.
THE SPRING MOEDIM – God’s appointed times, were fulfilled in Yeshua’s first coming.
Going back to Yom Teruah, God’s people were commanded to have a day of acclamations of joy, the shouts of trumpets, the splitting of ears. They were to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly. And in the days of the tabernacle or temple, the priests would offer a special burnt sacrifice.
Scriptures tell us that when Messiah comes back, he will be accompanied by the sounds of a trumpet!
Zechariah 9:14-17:
Adonai will appear over them,
and his arrow will flash like lightning.
Adonai Elohim will blow the shofar
and go out in the whirlwinds of the south.
Adonai-Tzva’ot will defend them;
they will devour and trample the sling-stones.
They will drink and roar
as if they had drunk wine;
they will be filled, like basins
and like the corners of the altar.
On that day Adonai their God
will save them as the flock of his people;
for they will be like gems in a crown,
sparkling over his countryside.
What wealth is theirs, what beauty!
Grain will make the young men thrive,
and new wine the young women.
1 Corinthians 15:52:
It will take but a moment, the blink of an eye, at the final shofar. For the shofar will sound, and the dead will be raised to live forever, and we too will be changed.
1 Thess. 4:16:
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a rousing cry, with a call from one of the ruling angels, and with God’s shofar; those who died united with the Messiah will be the first to rise;
Revelation 11:25:
“The seventh angel sounded his shofar; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and his Messiah, and he will rule forever and ever!”
No Man Knows!
But doesn’t the bible say we won’t know when He is coming? That no MAN knows the day or the hour, only our Father in Heaven?
Here comes the confusing part: the Calendar.
The Calendar Controversy
Exodus 12:1-7:
Adonai spoke to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt; he said, “You are to begin your calendar with this month; it will be the first month of the year for you. Speak to all the assembly of Isra’el and say, ‘On the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb or kid for his family, one per household — except that if the household is too small for a whole lamb or kid, then he and his next-door neighbor should share one, dividing it in proportion to the number of people eating it. Your animal must be without defect, a male in its first year, and you may choose it from either the sheep or the goats.
“‘You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Isra’el will slaughter it at dusk. They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two sides and top of the door-frame at the entrance of the house in which they eat it.
According to scripture and YHVH’s own instructions, the year was to begin in the spring, and Passover was in the first month of the year.
Each month was then referred to as what month is was following after…second, third, fourth, etc. Days were the same way. First day, second day…the 7th was declared the Sabbath. Many of names for months and days that we have today, actually come from pagan cultures.
In the original Roman calendar the year began in the spring, just like the biblical instruction.
- March – Mars, the God of war, because this was the month when active military campaigns resumed.
- May & June named for goddesses Maia and Juno.
- Seventh (September), eighth (October), ninth (November), and tenth (December) actually got their names from the number of month.
- Eventually, January (Januarius) and February (Februarius) were added to the end of the year, giving all 12 months proper names.
Then we have the transitions of the Julian calendar where we see January made into the first month. Quintilis (the 5th month) is renamed to July in honor of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and then we have, Sextilis (6th month) renamed August in honor of Roman Emperor Augustus in 8 BC.
The days of the weeks are also mostly named after pagan gods. You see this in Latin, Italian, French, Spanish and Anglo-Saxon or Saxon
- Sunday named for Sol, the god of the sun
- Tuesday is Mars, the god of war or Anglo-Saxon god “Tiw”
- Thursday is Jupiter or Thor
The only day of the week where you see a deviation from the pattern is when you come to the 7th day of the week, Saturday.
In both Latin and Anglo-Saxon, it is named after Saturn, the Roman god of fun and feasting. But in French, Italian and Spanish, it is Samedi, Sabato, Sabodo… All derived from the Latin word for SABBATH.
So, suffice it to say, I don’t think OUR calendar has ANY biblical significance.
There are MANY calendars today that are out there being used to determine the biblical times and seasons.
The Hebrew or Jewish calendar is most commonly used today, and it is luni-solar, just like the Ancient Macedonian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Chinese calendars. It was established in the 400th century AD/CE under Hillel II.
It is a very complicated calendar system that has a 19 year cycle, with 7 leap years, and it can have 12 or 13 months of 29 or 30 days. It can also be 353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days long.
And just like the Roman calendars, the names of the months are mostly adopted from pagan cultures from when the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity.
New Months Were Originally Determined Based on Lunar Sightings
Originally there was no fixed calendar. Each month, the Sanhedrin—the rabbinical supreme court—would decide whether that month would contain 29 or 30 days, depending on when the following month’s new moon was first sighted.
On the 30th day of every month, the Sanhedrin began accepting witnesses who claimed they had spotted the new sliver moon the previous evening. If the witness was deemed reliable, they would proclaim that day as the first of the month. The previous month was now retroactively determined to have had only 29 days.
If no witnesses came on the thirtieth day, then the next day, the thirty-first day, was automatically declared the first day of the new month, retroactively rendering the previous month a “complete” month of 30 days.
The Genesis account says that God gave us the lights of the sky for signs and seasons.
Genesis 1:14-15:
God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night; let them be for signs, seasons, days and years; and let them be for lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth”; and that is how it was.
The month began when the new, sliver moon was seen.
But, according to the traditional Jewish calendar, the New Year starts in the fall, and yet what scripture calls the First Month (as we read above in Exodus 12) is in the Spring when we celebrate Passover. As a matter of fact, the Jewish calendar doesn’t just have 2 new years, it has 4! The new year for years, for kings & festivals, for trees and for animals.
Exodus 13: 3-8:
Moshe said to the people, “Remember this day, on which you left Egypt, the abode of slavery; because Adonai, by the strength of his hand, has brought you out of this place. Do not eat hametz. You are leaving today, in the month of Aviv. When Adonai brings you into the land of the Kena‘ani, Hitti, Emori, Hivi and Y’vusi, which he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you are to observe this ceremony in this month. For seven days you are to eat matzah, and the seventh day is to be a festival for Adonai. Matzah is to be eaten throughout the seven days; neither hametz nor leavening agents are to be seen with you throughout your territory. On that day you are to tell your son, ‘It is because of what Adonai did for me when I left Egypt.’
The word “Aviv” actually means fresh ears of barley.
But today the instructions of YHVH, the barley having its first fresh and ready grains for first fruits, indicating the first month and when they should celebrate Passover and all the other spring feasts, is ignored. Instead, a systemic calendar based upon the cycles of the sun and moon are used to determine it.
And that is only one of the many calendars people are using to determine the dates for the Appointed Times of YHVH.
Another calendar that is growing in popularity is the Zadok calendar, also called the Qumran Zadokite calendar. This calendar is based on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the several prophetic references in Ezekiel in regards to the future kingdom such as
Ezekiel 48:11:
The portion set aside as holy will be for the cohanim who are descendants of Tzadok that remained faithful to my commission and did not go astray when the people of Isra’el and the L’vi’im went astray.
I am just beginning to study this calendar, so I can’t give too many details about it, but I do know that it is also a calendar based upon the vernal equinox.
Though with just a cursory look – I have concerns about it because it says that the feast days NEVER change. It puts First Fruits (when Yeshua was resurrected) as being long after Passover. Always.
But if Yeshua was resurrected on First Fruits, following the pattern of fulfilling the prophetic meaning of each of the spring feasts, it is not possible to have First Fruits 12 days after Passover. Not when Yeshua was crucified, buried and resurrected 3 days later.
Then there’s the Karaite or Agricultural calendar. It is a calendar based upon the barley season, and counted by the new moon. Just like it says in the book of Exodus, when YHVH said when to begin the year.
It is a calendar that I see being mocked by pretty much every “expert” out there. Which truthfully makes it all the more intriguing to me.
And there’s other calendars besides these.
This is why you see the variation of when people are celebrating holidays like Passover. It is simply based upon which calendar they are going by.
But this calendar controversy is nothing new. Even when Yeshua was walking the earth in flesh, the calendar disputes were taking place between the Jewish sects – Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc.
No One Knows the Day or the Hour
“No one knows the day or the hour” is an idiom, a figure of speech that actually refers to the Feast of Trumpets.
The feast is on the first day of the seventh month of the year. The people of Israel had to be watching the phases of the moon, and only as the cycle got closer would there be an idea of when it would actually be. There was a range of time that it could fall into.
But with the confusion and controversy of the calendars, it makes that all the clearer, just how unclear it is. No one knows they day or the hour, but we will know the season. We can look at the sky and know what is happening. And children of the light are not taken by surprise, only those in darkness.
1 Thess. 5:1-6:
But you have no need to have anything written to you, brothers, about the times and dates when this will happen; because you yourselves well know that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people are saying, “Everything is so peaceful and secure,” then destruction will suddenly come upon them, the way labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there is no way they will escape.
But you, brothers, are not in the dark, so that the Day should take you by surprise like a thief; for you are all people who belong to the light, who belong to the day. We don’t belong to the night or to darkness, so let’s not be asleep, like the rest are; on the contrary, let us stay alert and sober.
All of the moedim, the appointed times of YHVH, point to Yeshua.
The spring to His first coming, to the gospel, and the fall feasts point to His second coming. His return!
By keeping the moedim, we are remembering what was done for us, and looking to the day our redeemer returns. When the groom comes for his bride!
In the meantime, we know when that time year comes, we can have a day of shouting, of trumpets, of blowing the shofar!
And we look to the day when the FINAL deafening one is blown.
The one that the whole world will hear.
Additional Study Resources on the Biblical Feasts
To learn more, and dive deeper into the Moedim, or biblical feasts, I recommend these books:
Messiah in the Feasts of Israel by Sam Nadler
God’s Appointed Times: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Celebrating the Biblical Holy Days by Barney Kasdan
A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays: With Activities for All Ages by Robin R Sampson and Linda Pierce
I never knew or heard anything like this before. Thank You for the telling. Please enter me.
Thank you, Constance for your dedication in teaching the truth. I am interested in learning biblical feasts and doing my best to observe / keep them as I learn. I ordered two of the books you referenced and am looking forward to diving in deeper.
May our Father in Heaven continue to bless you and keep you.
Alissa Rodman
In Texas :)
That was so interesting! I’ve never really heard of such indepth teaching on the different calendars, and the one Believers should be paying attention to. I am paying more attention to the OT feasts, as you have done, and realizing what I’m used to is a more secularized one, even though I am a Christian. Thank you for your teaching gifting, and sharing with us. 🙏✝️💕
Thank you for typing this out and sharing it. I definitely agree that we will all one day find out we were wrong on so many things. :) The calendar thing, I had no idea until this year it was such a thing. I have just been using for the past year one from Israel. I figure they know better than me at this point.
I’m finding along this path of discovery that sooo many argue about a lot of various things. I’m very disappointed how many fellow “Christians” get so worked up over Feasts, Sabbath, Pork etc…. Ive been accused of trying to “earn” my salvation through “works”. I am very secure in my belief and know it is the blood of the lamb, Yeshua. Once again, thank you and keep it coming. Shalom
Amen Rachelle! Studying the Torah doesn’t make me have less faith in Yeshua. Much the opposite. It shows me just how desperately I need him! It isn’t some abstract understanding, it is deep knowledge of just how lost and wicked I was. I am the woman washing his feet with my tears and hair.
Hi Constance,
I have been wanting to learn more about the feasts of the Lord and your study is so nice and easy to understand, while being very informative.
I have been reading and studying, also using the book from Sam Nadler you reccomended, and been loving it. Thank you!