 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
| by John V. Cordaro The Day of Trumpets (Yom Teruah) The following study is my understanding of the prophetic fulfillment of the shadow of the "Day of Trumpets." The Apostle Paul taught us, in Col 2:17, that Yahweh's holy days are "a shadow of things to come." It is very difficult to perceive the reality of a shadow that one is living under. For example, the Israelites were living under the shadow of the Passover lamb. Each year they would sacrifice a lamb in obedience to the Almighty's commandment. It was very difficult for them to perceive the reality or fulfillment of this in the sacrifice of their coming Messiah. In the same way, it is difficult for us today to perceive the reality of Trumpets or any other holy day. I do not believe, therefore, that we can be dogmatic or 100% certain that our view of the fulfillment is correct. I offer the following as food for thought. Meditate on it. Determine if it is Scripturally sound. Compare it to the prevailing view and embrace it if the Spirit leads. The prevailing view of the prophetic fulfillment of the Day of Trumpets is based on 1 Cor 15:52 and 1 Thess 4:16, both of which state that Messiah Yahshua will return at the sound of the trumpet to resurrect the dead in him. The fact that the shadow and the "perceived" reality have a trumpet in common has led to that simplistic conclusion. A more in depth study of this issue will yield a different conclusion. Lev 23:23-25 says; "And Yahweh spake unto Moses, saying, '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, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Yahweh.' " The phrase "blowing of trumpets" comes from one Hebrew word, "teruah," thus, "Yom Teruah". Strong's Concordance gives the following definition for teruah, #8643; "clamor, ie. acclamation of joy or a battle cry; espec. clangor of trumpets, as an alarm." Since there isn't enough information in that passage to determine the prophetic fulfillment, we need to dig deeper by seeing how "teruah" was used in other verses. Nu 10:2 - "Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps." Nu 10:5 - "When ye blow an alarm [teruah], then the camps that lie on the east parts shall go forward." Nu 10:6 - "When ye blow an alarm [teruah] the second time, then the camps that lie on the south side shall take their journey: they shall blow an alarm for their journeys." Nu 10:9 - "And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm [rua] with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before Yahweh your Elohim, and ye shall be saved from your enemies." Nu 10:10 - "Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your Elohim: I am Yahweh your Elohim." The word "alarm" in verses 5 & 6 is "teruah" and the word "alarm" in verse 9 is "rua," #7321, which is a root of "teruah" and means, "to mar (especially by breaking) fig. to split the ears (with sound), ie. shout (for alarm or joy)." By these verses we can see that "teruah" is associated with alerting Israel of impending danger or war. It is an alarm sounded by blowing the two silver trumpets. Notice, in verse 9, that when the trumpets are blown, Yahweh will "remember" Israel and save them from their enemies. I believe this is why the word "memorial" is used in Lev 23:24. Unlike the Sabbath or Passover which are memorials of creation and the exodus, the Day of Trumpets is not a memorial of some past event for us to remember. It is a memorial for Yahweh to remember His people when the alarm is sounded. Verse10 suggests the same idea concerning the trumpets being a memorial for Yahweh. Jer 4:19 - "My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm [teruah] of war." "The alarm," (teruah), of war put fear in the heart of Jeremiah upon hearing it. Why? Because destruction, devastation, and death would follow. There is a war that is coming upon the inhabitants of this planet. It is a war unlike any other war in history. It is a war between Yahweh and the heathen, those who reject His way, His laws, His salvation through His Son. It is the Day of Yahweh's vengeance. Ob 1:15,16 - "For the day of Yahweh is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been." Isa 34:1-8 - "Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of Yahweh is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of Yahweh is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for Yahweh hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of Yahweh's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." The Day of Yahweh is a future time when Yahweh will judge the nations and "recompence" or reward them for their wickedness. He has been long suffering in allowing men ample time to repent and turn to Him. When the Day of Yahweh begins, His long suffering will end and sudden destruction will come upon the wicked. 2 Pe 3:1-15 - "This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Master and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of Elohim the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with Yahweh as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Yahweh is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of Yahweh will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of Elohim, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the long suffering of our Sovereign is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;" The Day of Yahweh will come upon the heathen who live in darkness, but it should not come suddenly upon believers who live in the night. 1 Thess 5:1-9 - "But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of Yahweh so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For Elohim hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Master Yahshua Messiah," Believers that are alive when the Day of Yahweh is about to begin will know it. It will not overtake them as a thief as long as they are watchful and sober. Zeph 1:14-18 - "The great day of Yahweh is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of Yahweh: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm [teruah] against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Yahweh: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land." Verse 16 says the Day of Yahweh is "a day of the trumpet and alarm [teruah]." It is a "day of the trumpet" and a "day of teruah" just as Lev 23:24 mentions. Even though Zephaniah wrote this passage thousands of years before its fulfillment, Yahweh inspired him to write words like "near" and "hasteth greatly." A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day to Yahweh. To Him, judgment day is near. Amos 5:18-20 - "Woe unto you that desire the day of Yahweh! to what end is it for you? the day of Yahweh is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?" The Day of Yahweh is not a time we should desire or hasten to arrive. It will be the most devastating, dark time in earth's history. Joel 1:15 - "Alas for the day! for the day of Yahweh is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come." Joel 2:1-2 - "Blow ye 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 cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains:" Again, we see the Day of Yahweh associated with the trumpet and alarm [rua]. The question needs to be asked, "When will this day begin?" Joel 2:11 - "And Yahweh shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of Yahweh is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?" Joel 2:31 - "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of Yahweh come." This is a crucial time element in understanding escatology. The heavenly signs of the sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood occurs prior to the Day of Yahweh. When will the heavenly signs occur? Rev 6:12-17 - "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" The heavenly signs of verse 12 will be a visual sign to those people mentioned in verses 15 & 16. They will have known about those signs through the preaching of Yahshua's faithful witnesses. They will know that when those signs occur, the great day of Yahweh's wrath will begin. Immediately after the heavenly signs, we see the sealing of the 144,000 in Rev 7. In Rev 7:1, the "winds" of the Day of Yahweh are being held back to allow time to seal the 144,000. They are sealed for protection against the trumpet judgments that are about to be blown. This can be seen in Rev 9:4; "And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of Elohim in their foreheads." After the sealing of the 144,000 comes Rev 8:1,2; "And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before Elohim; and to them were given seven trumpets." I consider this the calm before the storm. In Rev 8:7, the first trumpet judgment begins, as does the Day of Yahweh, as does the fulfillment of the Day of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, the Day of Alarm. The seven trumpets of Revelation are alarm trumpets to warn the inhabitants of the earth to wake up, repent, and turn to Yahweh. After the first four trumpets are blown, we read in Rev 8:13; "And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!" The last three trumpets are also called "woes" because of the grief they will produce. In Rev 9:1, the fifth trumpet is blown. Verse 11 then says; "One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter." In other words, the fifth trumpet has ended and two more are left. In Rev 9:13, the next woe or sixth trumpet sounds. It will not end until Rev 11:14 where it says; "The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly." Notice the sixth trumpet not only includes the events of Rev 9:13-21, but also the 1260 days in which the two witnesses of Rev 11 are active. The third woe or seventh trumpet begins in Rev 11:15. It will be the culmination of the Day of Yahweh and will include the resurrection of the dead in Messiah, the seven last plagues, another 1260 day period found in Rev 12:6, and a period of 42 months in Rev 13:5. Rev 11:18 says; "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." This is speaking of the resurrection of the dead in Messiah that Paul said would take place "at the last trump." Not only is the seventh trumpet of Rev 11 the last trumpet in a series of trumpets, but it is also the last trumpet mentioned in the Bible. Since it is the last trumpet, Yahshua will return at that time, but when is that time? Will it be fulfilled on a future Day of Trumpets or is there another possibility? Lev 25:8-10; "And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." Not only are trumpets blown on the Day of Trumpets, but another is blown on the Day of Atonement in a Jubilee year. All references to "jubilee" in Leviticus 25 are from the Hebrew word "yobel" (#3104 in Strong's). except the word "jubilee" in verse 9. That is the Hebrew word "teruah"; "Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of teruah to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month . . ." I believe teruah is used here in the sense of alarm and joy; alarm because it is still one of the seven trumpet judgments of Revelation in which Yahweh will destroy those who destroy the earth (Rev 11:18); and joy because it signals the resurrection of the dead and liberty for all. I believe the great, antitypical trumpet of Jubilee, the last Jubilee trumpet that will ever be blown, and the seventh trumpet of Rev 11:15 are one and the same trumpet. The seventh trumpet signals the resurrection of the dead. That is exactly what the final Jubilee trumpet will do. Lev 25:10 says liberty or freedom will be proclaimed throughout the land at that time. Who is in more need of liberty and freedom than those who are held captive by death and the grave? Mt 16:18; "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell [the grave] shall not prevail against it." The grave has "gates" that are locked so that those who abode there cannot escape. Praise Yahweh that Yahshua has the keys of the grave and death (Rev 1:18). When he returns at the last trumpet, the seventh trumpet, the Jubilee trumpet, he will set the captives of death free. They will be at liberty to return to their possession (the land of Canaan which is promised to all the seed of Abraham, whose seed we are. Gen 17:8; "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their Elohim." Gal 3:29; "And if ye be Messiah's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." They will also be at liberty to return to their families, their brothers and sisters in the faith who resurrected as they have. And so it is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? o grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Cor 15:54,55). It may seem like the grave is victorious in this present age, but when the Jubilee trumpet sounds, freedom and liberty will prevail. Yahshua seems to have alluded to the Day of Yahweh and the Jubilee when he stood up to read in the synagogue in Lev 4:18,19; " The Spirit of Yahweh is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of Yahweh." He was reading from Isaiah 61:1,2a. Had he continued reading, he would have read, "and the day of vengeance of our Elohim; to comfort all that mourn;" The "day of vengeance" is the Day of Yahweh. I believe the "acceptable year" is the Jubilee year. The margin of several Bibles refer the reader of this verse to Lev 25:9. Yahshua literally fulfilled all of Is 61:1, however, there may be a greater fulfillment yet to come in liberating the captives (of death) and opening the prison (graves) to them that are bound. In conclusion, I believe the Day of Trumpets is a shadow of the Day of Yahweh which will be heralded by trumpets of alarm. The first trumpet of Rev 8:7 will be blown on a future Day of Trumpets and the seventh trumpet will be blown on a future Day of Atonement in the final Jubilee year in history. Yahshua will return on that day to resurrect the dead. May we be ready when he comes. |
The TRUE Feast of Trumpets (Day of Shoutings)
| | | | | | | | |