What is the Feast of Trumpets?

A new subject is introduced here by the words, "the Lord spoke to Moses"... Thus the Sabbath, the Passover, and the feast of unleavened bread are given under the first communication. The wave sheaf, the wave loaves, and the ungleaned corners are given under the second; after which we have a long unnoticed interval, and then comes the soul-stirring feast of trumpets, on the first day of the seventh month. This ordinance leads us on to the time, now fast approaching, when the remnant of Israel shall sound the trumpet for a memorial, calling to remembrance their long-lost glory, and stirring up themselves to seek the Lord.

This illustrates the long time elapsing following Pentecost which introduced the extended dispensation of the grace of God, while Israel has been in a state of unbelief. But the Feast of Trumpets symbolizes the regathering of Israel to their land as is noted in Matthew 24:31: "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

The most general use was to assemble Israel together... The blowing of the silver trumpets was to assemble the people at the door of the tent of meeting. They were called in this way to draw near to the presence of God. Again, supposing the enemy was at hand, an alarm was blown... The trumpets were blown for gathering to the joy of communion; and there was also the alarm trumpet sounded by God's own testimony in the presence of the enemy. The effect was to be this: the people would be comforted with the thought that, when the silver trumpets blew an alarm, it was God after all who dwelt in the camp.

The fourth great festival, the Feast of Trumpets, has the clearest reference to the ingathering of Israel after the close of the present period of the Two Loaves. Isaiah says, "you will be gathered one by one, O people of Israel. And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem." Isaiah (and other prophets) further explain that in that time the enmity between the ten tribes and the two tribes will be removed. But in order to be welded together they must pass through a most fiery ordeal, "the great tribulation."

This feast does not foreshadow the coming of the Lord to rapture the heavenly saints, but the regathering of Israel into the land of promise. And the trumpets here spoken of must not be confused with the resurrection trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15:52, or the "trump of God" in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Some are making this mistake and putting forward wild theories about the coming of the Lord as a result.

Israel forgot their God and forsook Him, and now it appears as though God had forgotten and forsaken and cast away His people Israel. But it is appearance only. Paul asks, "Has God cast away His people?" And the reply is clear and decisive, "Far be the thought — God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew"... but we believe the day is near when the Trumpet will be blown that shows God again remembers Israel, and His covenant with them, and that Trumpet will call Israel to remember their God, and turn to Him again.

Dispensationally it stands for the regathering of Israel and is followed by the day of atonement, that future day, when they shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and after that the final feast, the harvest feast of tabernacles, a type of the millennium. So with the blowing of trumpets begins the revival of Israel's hope.

The first day of the seventh month was the feast of the blowing of trumpets, a figure of the restoration of Israel in the last days... Whether in this case the trumpets were blown is not recorded; and the very fact that it is not, is significant... When all is in confusion, through neglect of the word of God, the first thing to be done is not the restoration of feasts, but of the authority of the Scriptures over the conscience.