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New Year's Day... |
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| Those familiar with Jewish Holy days know that Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, is generally celebrated in September. Rosh HaShana is followed ten days later by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Because of its relationship to Yom Kippur, Rosh HaShana is also know as Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. We’ll come back to this later. Regarding New Year’s Day, it traditionally commemorates the past event of the Creation of the world, and according to custom, it is memorialized with the blowing of a ram’s horn (shofar). A number of historical and Scriptural occasions are remembered as well: Abraham’s finding a ram to replace his son Isaac for sacrifice; Joshua and the army of Israel ‘instrumentally’ (oy) bringing down the walls of Jericho with the blowing of the ram’s horns. Sorry, But Not Really Actually, what isn’t well known regarding Rosh HaShana is that according to the Bible... 1. It isn’t New Year’s Day 2. It may not even be necessary to use an actual ram’s horn as your ‘horn of choice’ 3. It doesn’t commemorate a past event! First, it couldn’t be a New Year’s Day since biblically it takes place in the month of Tishri, the seventh month of the biblical calendar: “In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation” (Lev. 23:24). In fact, it is never called New Year’s Day in the Bible; it is called the Feast of Trumpets (literally Yom HaTeruah, the Day of the Blowing of Trumpets). If that was not enough, in the Scriptures we already have a “New Year’s Day” in the same month that Passover is celebrated. This month actually has two names. The first is Abib, meaning Spring, (see Exodus 13:4, 23:15, 34:18; Deut. 16:1) and the second is Nisan, meaning flight; (Neh. 2:1; Esther 3:7). In Scripture Abib/Nisan is called the first month of the year (Ex. 12:1-2, Lev. 23:5; etc). God wanted Passover to be the focus of the first month, and foundation for the rest of the year. With God everything begins with redemption. So, how do we get a New Year in the 7th Month? How did Trumpets become New Year’s Day? It happened during the Babylonian Captivity of the sixth century BC. When we came out of Babylon we had adopted the Babylonian New Year for the first day of the seventh month. In fact, the name of the seventh month, Tishri is not found in the Bible, but it is an adopted Aramaic/Babylonian word meaning “beginning.” Biblically, the seventh month is called Ethanim (1 Kings 8:2), a Hebrew word that means “flowings” since it looked forward to the rains to come. So, what about the horn? Secondly, in the biblical text it’s not only a ram’s horn as the instrument of choice to be blown on the first day of the seventh month. Though we traditionally use a ram’s horn (called a “shofar”, as in Psalm 81:3), interestingly there is another trumpet that the Scriptures command to be blown on that day. These are the silver trumpets found in Numbers 10:2,10. The silver of the silver trumpets is a picture of redemption. The silver itself was collected from the redemption tax that all redeemed people had to pay to demonstrate that they are ransomed from bondage by the Lord. “This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary...a half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD ... from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls” (Ex. 30:13-15). Not to be misunderstood, one could not buy his own redemption, but the half shekel was a memorial of his redemption: “...that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls” (Ex. 30:16). Thus whenever these silver Trumpets were blown for assembly or alarm, for worship or for war as in Numbers 10:3-9, the redeemed of the Lord would respond. Since the silver trumpets were used primarily in the Temple, when the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the use of much of the Temple paraphernalia, including the silver trumpets, was discontinued as well. The shofar took the ubiquitous role for the feast of Trumpets or New Year’s as it is now called. Look Ahead, Look Up Finally, the feast of Trumpets is never biblically identified in relationship to a past historical event. In fact, very little is actually mentioned in the Tenach (the Hebrew Scriptures) regarding this feast. It is a ‘mystery festival’ with no factual solution given in the Tenach. This is why it was probably so easy to accept the Babylonian names and New Year observances for the date. But Trumpets is truly a biblical mystery that is revealed, not in the Tenach, but in the New Covenant; and it points not to a past event, but to a future event: the Rapture! Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:51,52 “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed!” Again in regard to this great Trumpet call of God, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.” Get Ready, Live Ready When that trumpet of God sounds, all the redeemed in Messiah will be miraculously caught up together to be with Him forever. Ironically for the world, Rosh HaShana is also a Yom HaDin, a Day of Judgment, for that trumpet signals the tribulation that is to come upon the world. Yeshua said, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt 24:21,22; see also Jeremiah 30:7- “the time of Jacob’s [Israel’s] trouble.”) Through the Feast of Trumpets God desires His people to be ready to flee the wrath to come. How do we get ready? Turn to the Lord today and trust in His atonement for forgiveness of sins provided in the Passover Lamb of God, Messiah Yeshua. Then you will be ready whenever He asks you to respond. If you’re already a believer in Yeshua, then live ready, so that you will be “unashamed at His appearing” (1 John 2:28). Since no one knows the day or the hour of His return for the redeemed, let us get ready now and live ready, for our day of redemption draws near! (See Luke 21:28) Though it might not be technically a New Year’s Day, Rosh HaShana does remind us to be sure that we have New Life in Messiah, and that we are new creations in Him. ( 2 Cor. 5:17). So, be sure, and be ready! |
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