Five-minute study · Day 315 · Leviticus 23
Leviticus 23:24
A word worth stopping on: blowing of trumpets תְּרוּעָה teruah
'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, a holy convocation.' The Hebrew word for the trumpet blast is teruah. It is a war cry. An alarm. A shout that signals something is about to happen. Every other Israelite festival has an explanation attached: Passover remembers the exodus, Tabernacles remembers the wilderness, the Day of Atonement provides cleansing for sin. The Feast of Trumpets has only this: 'a memorial of teruah.' A memorial of a shout. No further explanation is given in the Torah. The shofar sounds. The people stop. Something has changed. The seventh month begins. The Day of Atonement is nine days away. The blast says: pay attention. What comes next matters.
Word study: blowing of trumpets
- Hebrew
- תְּרוּעָה
- Pronounced
- teruah
- Strong's
- H8643
- Definition
- A shout, a blast of war, alarm, or joy. Used of the war cry in battle, the alarm signal on trumpets, the joyful acclamation before God, and the signal blast of the shofar. The word conveys a piercing, disruptive sound that demands response.
Teruah appears 36 times in the Hebrew Bible. BDB defines it as: (1) alarm of war, war cry; (2) blast of a trumpet as a signal; (3) shout of joy. The range is striking. The same word describes the battle cry at Jericho (Joshua 6:5, 'when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout [teruah]'), the joyful acclamation when the ark of the covenant was brought to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:15), and the somber blast that opens the most sacred month of the Jewish calendar.
Milgrom's commentary on Leviticus 23-27 (Anchor Bible) examines the peculiar silence surrounding this festival. Every other appointed time in Leviticus 23 comes with a reason. Passover: 'the LORD's passover' (v. 5). Unleavened Bread: 'ye shall eat unleavened bread' (v. 6). Firstfruits: 'ye shall bring a sheaf' (v. 10). Weeks: 'ye shall count fifty days' (v. 16). Tabernacles: 'because I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths' (v. 43). The Day of Atonement: 'make an atonement for you' (v. 28). The Feast of Trumpets: 'a memorial of teruah.' That is all.
Milgrom argues that the lack of explanation is itself significant. The blast is a summons. It marks the first day of the seventh month, Tishrei, which contains both the Day of Atonement (Tishrei 10) and Tabernacles (Tishrei 15). The teruah serves as a wake-up call for the most intense period of the liturgical year. In later Jewish tradition, this day became Rosh Hashanah (the head of the year) and developed elaborate theological meaning around repentance, divine judgment, and the sovereignty of God. The shofar blast in synagogue worship on Rosh Hashanah includes three traditional sounds: tekiah (a sustained blast), shevarim (three broken blasts), and teruah (nine staccato blasts). The teruah, with its rapid, fragmented bursts, is the sound of alarm.
Historical context · c. 1446-400 BC
The Shofar and Ancient Israelite Worship
The shofar, the instrument that produced the teruah, was typically made from a ram's horn, though ibex and kudu horns were also used in various periods. Archaeological evidence from ancient Israel includes depictions of shofar-blowing on coins from the Bar Kokhba revolt (AD 132-135) and in synagogue mosaics from the third through sixth centuries AD. The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 3:2-4) preserves detailed regulations about which animal horns were acceptable for the shofar and how the instrument should be prepared.
Milgrom notes that the shofar served multiple practical functions in ancient Israelite society. It announced the new moon (Psalm 81:3), signaled the approach of an army (Judges 3:27, 6:34), warned of danger (Amos 3:6, Jeremiah 4:19), and proclaimed the jubilee year (Leviticus 25:9-10). Numbers 10:1-10 distinguishes between silver trumpets (chatsotsrot), played by priests for assembly and marching signals, and the shofar, whose sound carried associations with theophany and divine intervention. At Sinai, the shofar sounded 'exceeding loud' before God descended (Exodus 19:16, 19).
The development of Rosh Hashanah from the biblical Feast of Trumpets occurred during the Second Temple period (516 BC to AD 70). By the time of the Mishnah, the day had acquired themes of divine kingship, remembrance, and judgment that are not explicit in Leviticus 23:24. The Musaf liturgy for Rosh Hashanah organizes its prayers around three themes: Malchuyot (God's sovereignty), Zichronot (God's remembrance), and Shofarot (the shofar blasts). Each section concludes with the sounding of the shofar. The original teruah, the unexplained blast, had become the organizing principle for an entire theology of judgment and mercy.
For reflection
The shofar blast interrupts. It breaks the routine. It says: stop, something important is happening. What in your life right now is trying to get your attention, something you keep moving past because the routine is easier than the reckoning?
The nine days between Trumpets and Atonement were days of self-examination. You do not have to wait for a liturgical calendar to begin.
Sources: BDB; Milgrom, "Leviticus 23-27" (AB)