Trumpets

The trumpet runs through Israel's life as the standing instrument of summons, alarm, and consecration. Made of beaten silver under the Mosaic ordinance and elsewhere of the ram's horn, it gathers the camp, signals the march, opens battle, marks the new moon and the appointed feasts, sounds at the anointing of kings and at the laying of foundation stones, warns of the coming sword, and finally — in the prophets and the apostles — announces the day of Yahweh, the resurrection of the dead, and the kingdom of God.

The Silver Trumpets and Their Ordinance

The founding instrument is given to Moses by name and by metallurgy. Two trumpets, of beaten silver, were ordered for the calling of the congregation and for the journeying of the camps: "Make two trumpets of silver; of beaten work you will make them: and you will use them for the calling of the congregation, and for the journeying of the camps" (Nu 10:2). One blast summoned the princes; both gathered the whole congregation. An alarm-blast moved the camps in sequence — east, then south — while a steady (non-alarm) blast was the assembly-call (Nu 10:3-7). The blowing was reserved to a particular line: "And the sons of Aaron, the priests, will blow the trumpets; and they will be to you⁺ for a statute forever throughout your⁺ generations" (Nu 10:8). Two further uses are written into the ordinance — the war-trumpet and the worship-trumpet: "when you⁺ go to war in your⁺ land against the adversary that oppresses you⁺, then you⁺ will sound an alarm with the trumpets; and you⁺ will be remembered before Yahweh your⁺ God" (Nu 10:9), "Also in the day of your⁺ gladness, and in your⁺ set feasts, and in the beginnings of your⁺ months, you⁺ will blow the trumpets over your⁺ burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your⁺ peace-offerings" (Nu 10:10). The same ordinance later sends "Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest" out to Midian "with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand" (Nu 31:6).

The Trumpet at Sinai

Before the silver trumpets are commanded, a trumpet sounds the theophany. On the third day at Sinai, "there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceedingly loud; and all the people who were in the camp trembled" (Ex 19:16). As Moses leads the people up, "when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice" (Ex 19:19). The audience-trumpet is also a trumpet of approach and of restraint: "no hand will touch him, but he will surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it is beast or man, he will not live: when the trumpet sounds long, they will come up to the mount" (Ex 19:13). After the words are spoken, "all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood far off" (Ex 20:18). Hebrews receives the Sinai-trumpet as an unbearable sound: "and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which [voice] those who heard entreated that no word more should be spoken to them" (Heb 12:19).

The Festal Calendar

The seventh month opens under a trumpet-memorial. "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, will be a solemn rest to you⁺, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation" (Le 23:24). The same convocation is repeated in the wilderness rule: "in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you⁺ will have a holy convocation; you⁺ will do no servile work: it is a day of blowing of trumpets to you⁺" (Nu 29:1). The post-exilic assembly hears this again under Ezra: "And Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month" (Ne 8:2). On the tenth day of the same month, the loud trumpet of the jubilee proclaims liberty across the land: "Then you will send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement you⁺ will send abroad the trumpet throughout all your⁺ land" (Le 25:9). The festal trumpet is also the new-moon trumpet: "Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast-day. For it is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of the God of Jacob" (Ps 81:3-4).

The War-Trumpet in Israel

From the judges onward the trumpet opens battle and recalls the troops. Ehud blows it in Ephraim and the men come down (Jg 3:27). The Spirit of Yahweh comes upon Gideon, "and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together after him" (Jg 6:34). Gideon's stratagem at the Midianite camp turns three hundred trumpets into a corporate weapon: "he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put into the hands of all of them trumpets, and empty pitchers, with torches inside the pitchers" (Jg 7:16); "When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you⁺ blow the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, For Yahweh and for Gideon" (Jg 7:18); "Gideon, and the hundred men who were with him, came to the outermost part of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, when they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets" (Jg 7:19); "they blew the three hundred trumpets, and Yahweh set every man's sword against his fellow soldier" (Jg 7:22). Saul opens the Philistine war by trumpet: "Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear" (1Sa 13:3). Joab uses the trumpet to halt fighting and to dismiss assemblies: "Joab blew the trumpet; and all the people stood still, and pursued after Israel no more" (2Sa 2:28); "Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel; for Joab held back the people" (2Sa 18:16); after Sheba's head is thrown to him, "he blew the trumpet, and they were dispersed from the city, every man to his tent" (2Sa 20:22). The signal is also seized by rebels — Absalom uses it to declare himself king in Hebron (2Sa 15:10), and Sheba uses it to break Israel from David: "he blew the trumpet, and said, We have no portion in David" (2Sa 20:1). Abijah's priests carry it as a battle-emblem: "his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you⁺. O sons of Israel, don't fight⁺ against Yahweh, the God of your⁺ fathers" (2Ch 13:12); "the priests sounded with the trumpets" while Judah cried to Yahweh (2Ch 13:14). At Nehemiah's wall the trumpet is built into the construction: "everyone had his sword girded by his side, and so built. And he who sounded the trumpet was by me" (Ne 4:18); "in whatever place you⁺ hear the sound of the trumpet, resort⁺ there to us; our God will fight for us" (Ne 4:20). The war-horse senses the same sound: "As often as the trumpet [sounds] he says, Aha! And he smells the battle far off, The thunder of the captains, and the shouting" (Job 39:25); "He swallows the ground with fierceness and rage; Neither does he believe that it is the voice of the trumpet" (Job 39:24). Paul gathers the practical sense up into a one-line maxim: "if the trumpet gives an uncertain voice, who will prepare himself for war?" (1Co 14:8).

The Maccabean record carries the same Mosaic ordinance into the Greek-period wars. Judas opens the field: "they went out of the camp to battle, and those who were with Judas sounded the trumpet" (1Ma 4:13). Antiochus's armies copy the form: "the armies made themselves ready for the battle, and they sounded the trumpets" (1Ma 6:33). After Adasa, "they sounded the trumpets after them with signals" (1Ma 7:45). At the close of the line, "they sounded the trumpets: and Cendebaeus and his army were put to flight" (1Ma 16:8).

Jericho

The longest single trumpet-narrative in Israel is the seven-day siege of Jericho. "Seven priests will bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark: and the seventh day you⁺ will circle the city seven times, and the priests will blow the trumpets" (Jos 6:4). On the seventh circuit, "when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, Shout; for Yahweh has given you⁺ the city" (Jos 6:16). Then comes the conquest-line: "the people shouted, and [the priests] blew the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat" (Jos 6:20). The same city is the city Joshua had "straitly shut up because of the sons of Israel" (Jos 6:1), and the trumpet is the instrument by which the shut-up city is opened.

The Anointing of Kings

The trumpet sounds at three royal acclamations. At Solomon's coronation, "let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel; and blow⁺ the trumpet, and say, [Long] live King Solomon" (1Ki 1:34); the act is then carried out: "Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the Tent, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, [Long] live King Solomon" (1Ki 1:39). Jehu is acclaimed in the same idiom: "they hurried, and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the top of the stairs, and blew the trumpet, saying, Jehu is king" (2Ki 9:13). At Joash's enthronement: "the king stood by the pillar, as the manner was, and the captains and the trumpets by the king; and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew trumpets" (2Ki 11:14).

At the Ark and the Temple

When the ark is brought up the trumpet is part of the worshipping procession. "David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of Yahweh with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet" (2Sa 6:15). The Chronicler matches it: "And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, even with songs, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets" (1Ch 13:8); "all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, sounding aloud with psalteries and harps" (1Ch 15:28); "with them Heman and Jeduthun [with] trumpets and cymbals for those who should sound aloud, and [with] instruments for the songs of God" (1Ch 16:42). At the dedication of the temple the trumpets stand with the singers: "the Levites who were the singers, all of them, even Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and their brothers, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets" (2Ch 5:12); the priests at their offices stood "with the trumpets" while "all the Levites also with instruments of music of Yahweh" (2Ch 7:6). At Hezekiah's reform "the song of Yahweh began also, and the trumpets, together with the instruments of David king of Israel" (2Ch 29:27); "the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets" (2Ch 29:26). Jehoshaphat's victory-procession returns to Jerusalem "with psalteries and harps and trumpets to the house of Yahweh" (2Ch 20:28). At the storage of temple-silver the trumpet is named among the unmade vessels: "there were not made for the house of Yahweh cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the silver that was brought into the house of Yahweh" (2Ki 12:13). Sirach's high-priestly portrait at Aaron's altar gathers it up: "Then the sons of Aaron sounded With the trumpets of beaten work; Yes, they sounded, and caused a mighty blast to be heard, For a remembrance before the Most High" (Sir 50:16).

At the Second Temple

The post-exilic foundation-laying takes the same trumpet-and-Levite shape. "When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Yahweh" (Ezr 3:10); "they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks to Yahweh, [saying,] For he is good, for his loving-kindness [endures] forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised Yahweh, because the foundation of the house of Yahweh was laid" (Ezr 3:11). At the wall-dedication the trumpets gather again: "certain of the priests' sons with trumpets: Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph" (Ne 12:35), "and the priests, Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah, with trumpets" (Ne 12:41). The Maccabean rededication likewise turns the captured temple back into a trumpet-and-string sanctuary: at Mizpeh, before the Beth-horon battle, the priests "fell down to the ground on their faces, and they sounded with the trumpets of alarm, and they cried toward heaven" (1Ma 4:40); at the Idumea campaign, "he came with three companies behind them, and they sounded their trumpets, and cried out in prayer" (1Ma 5:33).

Trumpets in the Psalms

The Psalter sets the trumpet in the orchestra of corporate praise. "With trumpets and sound of cornet Make a joyful noise before the King, Yahweh" (Ps 98:6). "Praise him with trumpet sound: Praise him with psaltery and harp" (Ps 150:3).

The Watchman's Trumpet

The trumpet is fastened to the prophetic vocation. Ezekiel's watchman-oracle grades responsibility around the trumpet-blast: "if, when he sees the sword come upon the land, he blows the trumpet, and warns the people; then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, and does not take warning, if the sword comes, and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head" (Eze 33:3-4); "if the watchman sees the sword come, and doesn't blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes, and takes any soul from among them; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand" (Eze 33:6). Jeremiah hears the same complaint over Israel's silent watchmen: "I set watchmen over you⁺, [saying,] Listen to the sound of the trumpet; but they said, We will not listen" (Je 6:17). Jeremiah himself feels the alarm in his own body: "Inside me, inside me! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can't hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war" (Je 4:19). Isaiah sets the prophet's voice itself in the same register: "Cry aloud, do not spare, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins" (Is 58:1).

The Day-of-Yahweh Trumpet

The prophets press the trumpet into the eschatological alarm. "Blow⁺ the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of Yahweh comes, for it is near at hand" (Joe 2:1). Hosea pairs the same blast against Benjamin: "Blow⁺ the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: sound an alarm at Beth-aven; behind you, O Benjamin" (Ho 5:8). The Sovereign himself takes up the instrument: "Yahweh will be seen over them; and his arrow will go forth as the lightning; and the Sovereign Yahweh will blow the trumpet, and will go with whirlwinds of the south" (Zec 9:14). Amos grounds the war-trumpet in Yahweh's agency: "Will the trumpet be blown in a city, and the people not be afraid? Will evil befall a city, and Yahweh has not done it?" (Am 3:6); against Moab, "Moab will die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet" (Am 2:2). Zephaniah hears it on the Day of Yahweh as "a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements" (Zep 1:16). Jeremiah hears it from Tekoa as the Babylonian advance approaches: "blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth-haccherem; for evil looks forth from the north, and a great destruction" (Je 6:1). Even the flight to Egypt is staged as the wish to escape the sound: "we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there we will dwell" (Je 42:14). Jeremiah's oracle against Babylon runs the trumpet outward to the nations: "Set⁺ up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz" (Je 51:27). At the other end of the prophetic register, Isaiah turns the trumpet into the gathering-call of the scattered: "in that day, that a great trumpet will be blown; and they will come who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt" (Is 27:13).

The Last Trump

The apostolic writings carry the prophetic trumpet into the resurrection. Paul's mystery in the Corinthian letter sets it at the moment of bodily change: "Look, I tell you⁺ a mystery: We all will not sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed" (1Co 15:51-52). The Thessalonian letter places the same trump at the descent of the Lord: "the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ will rise first" (1Th 4:16).

The Seven Trumpets of Revelation

The Apocalypse opens and closes around trumpets. The inaugural vision sounds like one: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet" (Re 1:10). The throne-room is entered through one: "After these things I looked, and saw a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, [a voice] as of a trumpet speaking with me, one saying, Come up here, and I will show you the things which must come to pass hereafter" (Re 4:1). After the seven seals there is a half-hour of silence in heaven, and then: "I saw the seven angels who stand before God; and there were given to them seven trumpets" (Re 8:2). Six judgments follow in sequence: hail and fire mingled with blood (Re 8:7); a burning mountain into the sea (Re 8:8-9); the star Wormwood on the rivers (Re 8:10-11); the striking of sun, moon, and stars (Re 8:12); the eagle's three-fold woe over the trumpet-voices yet to sound (Re 8:13); the abyss opened by the fifth angel and the locust-army released (Re 9:1-3); and the sixth angel — "And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Loose the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates" (Re 9:13-14). The interlude promises the seventh: "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good news which he declared to his slaves the prophets" (Re 10:7). The seventh trumpet then seals the kingdom: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world has become [the kingdom] of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he will reign forever and ever" (Re 11:15). At the fall of Babylon the lost city is mourned for the cessation of the same instruments: "the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute-players and trumpeters will be heard no more at all in you" (Re 18:22).