A MEDITATION ON ROSH HASHANAH
Towards the end of the book of Leviticus, there is a section dedicated to listing the seven annual feasts of Israel and their associated rituals and purposes. Some of the celebrations are commemorative, recounting some aspect of the Lord’s rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt, His covenant with Israel at Sinai, and Israel’s wilderness wanderings on the way to the promised land. An ingenious teaching tool, these holidays helped create and pass on the identity of Israel as a nation set apart, and her unique relationship with her God, YHWH.
While some of the feasts are referencing obvious aspects of the story of the Exodus, others are more obscure. For instance, in Leviticus 23:23-25, the Feast of Trumpets is mentioned, “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. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord.’”
Today, because of the restructuring of the Jewish calendar by the sages of the Mishnah in post-second Temple Judaism, this Feast of Trumpets, also known as, “Rosh Hashanah,” is considered the day the civil New Year begins in Israel.[1] Rosh Hashanah, or “head of the year” is celebrated on the first two days of the month of Tishri, and marks the beginning of a ten-day period known as the Days of Awe, which culminate in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
But why should Rosh Hashanah, a holiday that seems little more than a glorified Shabbat, deserve our special attention? What is the purpose of this day of holy convocation that is marked by the blasting of trumpets? What is the lesson that is meant to be passed down to the Jewish nation from its celebration?
Perhaps our first clue is in what the holy day is commemorating: the unique element of the proclamation of the blast of the trumpets. While many English Bible translations say, “…a memorial proclaimed with the blast of the trumpets” in Leviticus 23:24, the Hebrew is less precise. I think that it is fair to say along with translations such as the American Standard Version or the King James Version, that it does not stretch the text to say, “a memorial of the blowing of trumpets.” But what event involving trumpets sounding was so fresh and so significant that no further details as to what the trumpets were commemorating were needed?
This can only be a reference to the awesome display that accompanied the descent of God’s presence on the peak of Sinai as described in Exodus 19:16-20: “On the morning of the third day, there were booms of thunder and flashes of lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.”
Just before this powerful series of events took place, God had told Moses who the nation of Israel would be to Him in Exodus 19:6, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” A kingdom of priests, with a glorious God-King, bound in covenant together in a set-apart country—this is truly a magnificent inheritance. After agreeing to embrace this identity, the nation of Israel consecrated themselves and washed their garments, preparing to see their King descend on the mountain top. The trumpet blast would be a call for the Israelites to approach the mountain, so that every eye would see and bear witness. They would not be able to go up the mountain, however, and approach the glorious presence there, for to do so would be certain death.
After the third day, thunder and lightning and thick clouds covered the top of Sinai. If the Israelites had thought that they would be able to see their God’s face or form from the base of the mountain, they were mistaken. They could only see the secondary evidence of His presence: smoke and red glow of the fiery heart of heaven shone from Sinai, the stormy flashes of lightning struck the peak and the roars of thunders crashed and echoed, but God Himself remained hidden in thick darkness. To announce this kingly appearance—this revelation of YHWH to the entire nation—a trumpet sounded, and became louder and louder so that the people and the mountain itself trembled with its reverberations. So intense and long was the blast, that the Israelites were completely overwhelmed to the point of death, and begged that no further revelation be given to them directly.[2]
This is the dramatic scenario that is imprinted on the memory of national Israel, the day they met their God as King at Mount Sinai, and surely must be the event commemorated by the blasting of trumpets on Rosh Hashanah. But the memory that was meant to be passed on faded, and nearly a thousand years later, we find the people of Israel almost forgetting the Feast of Trumpets and its meaning in the book of Nehemiah.
The time of Ezra and Nehemiah was a time of the Jews returning to their homeland after exile in Babylon. They had been separated from Israel for seventy year; but their sojourn was over, and a remnant of people were making the journey back to rebuild the Temple and repair of the walls of Jerusalem. Though there were great prophetic expectations in the regathering of Israel’s children to the land and the rebuilding of the Temple, they were a people who had lost their identity and forgotten their history. In Nehemiah 8, Ezra gathers the people on the first day of Tishri, and begins to read and explain the Torah to them. Like their forefathers who had just been redeemed from the land of Egypt who said, “All that the LORD has spoken, we will do,” these returnees from Babylon said, “Amen, amen” to the word of God that was read to them.
As they listened more and more to Ezra’s reading of the Law, however, the people began to weep. The reason for their sorrow is not directly stated in the text. Perhaps, as King Josiah did when he heard the law of Moses read, they wept that they had not kept the statutes of God as their ancestors had promised.[3] Perhaps they wept that the presence of God was not manifestly among them as it was as a pillar of cloud with their fathers in the wilderness,[4] or as the Shekinah when King Solomon dedicated the First Temple.[5] Perhaps, they wept at the revelation of God that was being given to them in the reading of His Word, and they were completely overwhelmed as their Exodus counterparts were at the foot of Mount Sinai.
To comfort the people in their weeping, Ezra and the priests remind them that the day is holy, that it is, in fact, the Feast of Trumpets. Instead of mourning, they should eat, drink, and rest. “Do not be grieved,” they instructed the people, “For the joy of the LORD is your strength.”[6]
Over five hundred years after the building of the Second Temple and the people responding to Ezra’s reading with weeping, Jesus and his disciples walked through that same Temple complex.[7] After Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple, His disciples later came to ask Him what would be the signs of His coming at the end of the age. Jesus begins by warning them that no one lead them astray, as many will come and say, “I am the Messiah.” He then continues to describe many “labor pains” leading up to the birth of the Messianic era: wars, earthquakes, famines, lawlessness, and the love of many growing cold. The gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed to all nations, and then the end will come.
Jesus then pivots back to the Temple, and begins to teach on the prophet Daniel’s visions. There will be an abomination that causes desolation set up in the holy place of the Temple. This is the crucial sign—a moment when those who live in the land of Israel should flee to the mountains. This marks the beginning of a time of great tribulation.
Again, Jesus warns against false Messiahs and people claiming to be the Christ. The fact that He mentions it twice in the same teaching only speaks to its life-and-death importance: how can we discern between the false and the true Messiah and not be taken in by pretenders? “For as lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man.”[8] The return of Jesus will be as obvious as a flash of lightning across the sky. It will not look like zealots in the wilderness trying to overthrow a government—it will be an obvious manifestation of God.
What will this manifestation look like? “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”[9]
It is no accident that this description of the Day of the LORD as described by Jesus sounds reminiscent of Sinai, with not only the earth, but the heavens also shaken, the LORD descending in clouds, the trumpet blasting a loud call, and the witnesses of this event shaken to their core, such that they weep and mourn. But Jesus takes the scene beyond Sinai by referring to the sign of the Son of Man, referencing the Prophet Daniel’s description: “…behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”[10]
As the LORD first revealed Himself to national Israel at Mount Sinai in dark clouds, fiery glory, a trumpet blast, and thunder and lighting, and forever associated that scene with His presence, so He will reveal Himself again to His people at the end of the age. But as they look in awe at the sight and sounds they have recounted year after year in the trumpet blast, they will see something more than the terrifying tempest their forefathers saw—they will see a figure, a Son of Man, descending from the midst of the storm clouds as the prophet Daniel spoke. No longer is He hidden in thick darkness, but now the glory of the LORD will be revealed.
When all Israel looks upon the one they have pierced, the Son of Man descending from the clouds, they will recognize Him and they will mourn, just as Israel did at the first revelation at Sinai, and at the reading of the word in Nehemiah.[11] But, as in the days of Nehemiah, they shall be comforted: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins…And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”[12]
Amen. Maranatha.
Devon Phillips is just a pilgrim longing for the Day of the revealing of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies. Meanwhile, she is privileged to serve in the Middle East with Frontier Alliance International and contributes regularly to THE WIRE. She can be reached at devon@faimission.org.
[1] This based on the Torah’s description of the early fall as “the end of the year” in Exodus 23:16. The Jewish calendar has, in fact, four “New Years”: Nisan 1, which is the Biblical New Year; Elul 1, which is the New Year for tithes; Shevat 15, which is the New Year for trees; and Tishri 1, which is the civil New Year as well as the beginning of the Days of Awe.
[2] Exodus 20:19, Deuteronomy 5:5, Deuteronomy 18:16, Hebrews 12:18-19
[3] 2 Kings 22, 2 Chronicles 34
[4] Exodus 13:21–22, Numbers 14:14, Deuteronomy 1:33
[5] 1 Kings 8:10-11
[6] Nehemiah 8:10
[7] Matthew 24:1
[8] Matthew 24:27
[9] Matthew 24:29-31
[10] Daniel 7:13-14
[11] Zachariah 12:10
[12] Isaiah 40:1-2
