Numbers 10:2

Make thee two trumpets of silver,.... A metal very valuable and precious, durable, and fit for sound; only two are ordered, Aaron having but two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, who were to blow with them,

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.

Two trumpets, for Aaron’ s two sons; though afterwards the number of trumpets was much increased, as the number of the priests also was. See These trumpets were ordained, both for signification of the great duty of ministers, to wit, to preach the word; and for use, as here follows. Silver is a metal pure and precious, and giving a clear sound. A whole piece. See .

Numbers 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.Ver. 2. Two trumpets of silver.] Signifying the voice of the law and gospel in the mouths of God’ s ministers, who must "lift up the voice like a trumpet," with fervour, zeal, and courage; (1.) To gather the people, and assemble the elders; (2.) To put them upon their marchings and motions towards the heavenly Canaan; and here to blow an alarm - “ Sic clames ut Stentora vincere possis - ” as that famous Farellus did, when the friars, to drown his voice in the pulpit, rang their greatest bells, but he drowned them out; (3.) To get them upon their battlements, and there hence to blow an alarm likewise, upon the approach of spiritual enemies; taking the same liberty to cry down sin, that men take to commit it; and to descry the devil’ s stratagems that are so destructive to men’ s souls. They must cast away the inverse trumpets of Furius Fulvius, which sounded a retreat when they should have sounded an alarm; they must faithfully show God’ s "people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins," yea, "all their transgressions in all their sins." Lastly, as the priests were to sound the silver trumpets at their solemn feasts, for a monument of spiritual gladness before the Lord; so must ministers of the gospel publish the glad tidings of the gospel; "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, her sin is pardoned"; make the people hear the joyful sound, that they may walk in the sense of God’ s presence, and in the light of his countenance; yea, "rejoice in his name all the day long." Ad ravim usque vocem intendit, nec vinci se a strepitu ullo passus est. - Melch. Adam., 114. Suetonius ea libertate scripsit Imperatorum vitas qua ipsi vixerunt.

X.(2) Of a whole piece.—Better, of beaten (or, turned) work. (See Notes on Exodus 25:18; Exodus 25:31.) The trumpets here spoken of are supposed to have been straight, like that on the triumphal arch of Titus at Rome and on the old Egyptian monuments. In this respect the hazozerah is supposed to have differed from the cornet or horn, keren or shophar (which is interchanged with keren), which was crooked. (See Joshua 6:5. compared with 6:4, 6, 8, 13.) We find reference to the jubilee trumpet in Leviticus 25:9, from which it has been inferred that the trumpets here mentioned were not first made at this time. It is true, indeed, that the first verse might be rendered: “Now the Lord had spoken unto Moses, saying”; but the word used in Leviticus 25:9 is shophar, not hazozerah, and the latter word occurs in this place for the first time.

Verse 2. Make thee two trumpets of silver] The necessity of such instruments will at once appear, when the amazing extent of this numerous army is considered; and how even the sound of two trumpets could reach them all is difficult to conceive; but we may suppose that, when they were sounded, the motion of those that were within reach of that sound taught the others in succession what they should do. As the trumpets were to be blown by the priests only, the sons of Aaron, there were only two, because there were only two such persons to use them at this time, Eleazar and Ithamar. In the time of Joshua there were seven trumpets used by the priests, but these were made, according to our text, of rams' horns, Joshua 6:4. In the time of Solomon, when the priests had greatly increased, there were 120 priests sounding with trumpets, 2 Chronicles 5:12. Josephus intimates that one of these trumpets was always used to call the nobles together, the other to assemble the people; see Numbers 9:4. It is possible that these trumpets were made of different lengths and wideness, and consequently they would emit different tones. Thus the sound itself would at once show which was the summons for the congregation, and which for the princes only. These trumpets were allowed to be emblematical of the sound of the Gospel, and in this reference they appear to be frequently used. Of the fate of the trumpets of the sanctuary, See Clarke on Exodus 25:31.

2. trumpets] or Clarions (ḥ ?aẓ ?τẓ ?erτth). This rendering serves to distinguish the word from (a) the ‘ram’s horn’ (yτbhηl), used at Sinai (Exodus 19:13), at Jericho (Joshua 6:5), and to usher in the year of yτbhηl, i.e. the ‘Jubile’—(b) the ‘trumpet’ (shτphβr), which was the instrument ordinarily employed for secular purposes. The clarion is a secular instrument only in Hosea 5:8 (R.V. ‘cornet’), 2 Kings 11:14 = 2 Chronicles 23:13 (R.V. ‘trumpet’). It is a sacred instrument in Psalms 98:6 and frequently in P and Chr.-Ezr.-Neh. Its shape was that of a straight slender tube with an expanding mouth. See the illustrations in Driver’s Amos, p. 145. 2b–8. During the journeyings the clarions are to be used for summoning an assembly of the congregation (Numbers 10:3), or a council of the princes (Numbers 10:4), or for a signal to start on the march (Numbers 10:5-6).

The trumpet was a straight instrument, differing in this respect from the curved horn or cornet; and is represented, among the other spoils of the temple, on the Arch of Titus. See Exodus 25:23 cut.

PART SECOND.THE SILVER SIGNAL , Numbers 10:1-10.The necessity of some system of signals is manifest when we consider the vastness of an assemblage of more than two millions of people.