Trumpet (sounding) is in Exo 19:16-19, the forerunner of the appearance of God, and of the proclamation of the law.
Amongst the Jews trumpets were used on several occasions.
1. To give notice, whilst they were in the wilderness, when the camp should remove, Num 10:2.
2. To call assemblies, Num 10:2.
3. To proclaim the return of the Jubilee, Lev 25:8-9.
4. To sound over the daily burnt-offering, and over the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings on the solemn days and new moons. 2Ch 29:27-28; Psa 81:3.
5. To give notice of the entrance and going out of the Sabbath.f1
6. To sound alarms in time of war;f2 whence they signify, in the Prophets, a denunciation of judgments, and a warning of the imminent approach of them; as in Jer 4:19-21 : "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 of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried, for the whole land is spoiled; suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet." See also Jer 42:14; Jer 51:27; Amo 3:6; Zep 1:16.
7. Trumpets sounded at the inauguration of the Jewish kings. 1Ki 1:34; 2Ki 9:13; 2Ki 11:14.
8. When the city Jericho was to be taken the trumpets were to sound, and a shout was to be raised, Jos 6:16.
Trumpets were used at the laying of the foundation of the second temple, Ezr 3:10. It is highly probable that trumpets were used at the laying of the foundation of the first: for, during the time of the building of it, music was continually used. Compare 1Ch 6:31-32, with 1Ch 16:7, and 1Ch 25:1.
Amongst the heathens, trumpets were used also upon divers accounts.
1. The Romans made use of them to notify the watches in the night; and to give notice also of the time upon several other occasions.f3
2. They made use of them at the inauguration of their emperors.f4
3. The Roman magistrates caused trumpets to sound at the execution of criminals, whom they looked upon as sacrifices, or persons devoted, as appears from Tacitusf5 and Seneca.f6
4. Trumpets were used by the heathen in sounding alarms for war. Thus Homer makes the heaven to sound the trumpet when the gods went to war.f7 And Plutarch, in the Life of Sylla, says, that there were many omina of the war between Sylla and Marius, but that the greatest of all was the sound of a trumpet in the air.
5. Trumpets were used by the heathens at the destruction of cities. Thus in Amo 2:2 "I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kirioth, and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And exactly in the same manner is the burning of Troy described by Virgil,-the Grecian army shouting, and their trumpets sounding.f8 Homer also makes mention of this custom in the following verses:
The sense of which is given in the following lines;-
" When foes encamped around a city lie,
And wait surrender from the enemy,
Great fear runs thrilling through their breast within
The walls when echoing trumpets do begin;
Such was Achilles’ voice, such dread appeared
In the Dardanian host, ’twas so distinctly heard."-J. A.
According to the same custom the Romans demolished Corinth by sound of trumpetf10 These were a kind of religious acts. And therefore Alexander the Great, concerning Persepolis, declared to his generals, that they ought to make a sacrifice to their ancestors by its destruction.f11 And thus the inhabitants of Jericho were accursed or devoted, and as sacrifices slain. Jos 6:17-18; Jos 6:21.
6. The foundations of cities were laid at the sound of musical instruments;f12 in allusion to which, in Job 38:6-7, it is said, " That when God laid the foundation of the earth, the stars and angels sung and shouted for joy;" which shews that such a custom had been used in the patriarchal times; to which also there is allusion in Zec 4:7.
We read much of the use of trumpets in the old church in the wilderness. And as they were formed by the express command of the Lord no doubt their signification was important. (See Numb. x. 1, &c.) I do not stay to enter into particulars, for the limits I must observe necessarily compel me to be very short on each subject. It maybe proper however to remark on this particular, that there were four distinct uses for the service of the trumpet in the church of Israel. They had the trumpet to call the people to their religiousservice; the fast trumpet, the feast trumpet, and the war trumpet, beside the Jubilee trumpet, which was heard but once in nine and forty years; and though it was never heard but on that day, yet so particular was the sound of it that no captive in Israel could mistake its meaning. See Jubilee.
The Lord commanded Moses to make two trumpets of beaten silver, to be employed in calling the people together when they were to decamp, Num 10:2-3, &c. They also chiefly made use of these trumpets, to proclaim the beginning of the civil year, the beginning of the Sabbatical year, and the beginning of the jubilee, Lev 25:9-10. Josephus says, that these trumpets were near a cubit long; and had a tube, or pipe, of the thickness of a common flute. Their mouths were only wide enough to be blown into, and their ends were like those of a modern trumpet. At first there were but two in the camp, but afterward a greater number were made. Even in the time of Joshua there were seven of them, Jos 6:4. At the dedication of the temple of Solomon six-score priests sounded as many trumpets, 2Ch 5:12. Beside the sacred trumpets of the temple, the use of which was restrained to the priests only, in war there were others, which the generals sometimes employed for gathering their troops together. For example, Ehud sounded the trumpet, to assemble the Israelites against the Moabites, who oppressed them, and whose king Eglon he had lately slain, Jdg 6:27. Gideon took a trumpet in his hand, and gave every one of his people one, when he assaulted the Midianites, Jdg 7:2; Jdg 7:16. Joab sounded the trumpet, to give the signal of retreat to his soldiers, in the battle against those of Abner’s party, and in that against Absalom; and lastly, in the pursuit of Sheba the son of Bichri. 2Sa 2:28; 2Sa 18:16; 2Sa 20:22. The feast of trumpets was kept on the first day of the seventh month of the sacred year, the first of the civil year. See MUSIC.
[MUSIC]
The Lord commanded Moses to make two trumpets of beaten silver, for the purpose of calling the people together when they were to decamp, Num 10:2 . They used these trumpets to proclaim the beginning of the civil year, of the sabbatical year, Lev 23:24 Num 29:1, and of the jubilee, Lev 25:9-10 . See MUSIC.\par The feast of Trumpets was kept on the first day of the seventh month of the sacred year, which was the first of the civil year, called Tishri. The beginning of the year was proclaimed by sound of trumpet, Lev 23:24 Num 29:1 ; and the day was kept solemn, all servile business being forbidden. In addition to the daily and the monthly sacrifices, Num 28:11-15, a solemn holocaust was offered in the name of the whole nation, of a bullock, a ram, a kid, and seven lambs of the same year, with offerings of flour and wine, as usual with these sacrifices. Scripture does not mention the occasion of appointing this feast.\par
Trumpet. See Cornet.
TRUMPET.—The sole mention of the trumpet in the Gospels occurs in Mt.’s version of the small apocalypse which has been incorporated in the eschatological discourse of Jesus. There (Mat 24:31) we read that when the Son of Man comes in the clouds for the final judgment, He despatches His angels ‘with a loud trumpet’ to gather His elect from the four corners of the earth. The context, especially in Mt., is a Jewish-Christian application of the older Messianic tradition (cf. e.g. Is 27:13, Zec 2:10 [LXX Septuagint ]) which depicted the scattered members of Israel being summoned together by a trumpet-blast at the Messiah’s advent. The figure was natural, for the trumpet-blast denoted the approach of majesty. ‘Power, whether spiritual or physical, is the meaning of the trumpet: and so, well used by Handel in his approaches to the Deity’ (Fitzgerald’s Letters, i. 92). It was a favourite figure of John Knox, too, as Stevenson has noted (in Men and Books). But it is rather as a rallying summons than as a herald of royalty or even an awakener of sleepers, that the trumpet is employed as a pictorial detail in the passage before us. The writer does not develop the sketch. We are not told who blows the trumpet, though possibly the angels were meant. St. Paul seems to reflect, in 1Th 4:16, the tradition which connected it with the archangel Michael, but Mt. merely inserts the realistic trait, owing to his characteristic love of Hebrew Messianic prophecy.*
James Moffatt.
("ḥaẓoẓerah"):
By: Cyrus Adler, I. M. Casanowicz
In Shab. 36a (comp. Suk. 34a) it is noted that since the destruction of the Temple the names for the shofar and the trumpet had been confused. The same complaint may be made against the Septuagint, which generally renders the Hebrew "shofar" by
In Num. x. 1 et seq. two trumpets of beaten silver are ordered to be made, and, according to II Chron. v. 12, the number was increased in Solomon's Temple to 120; while, judging from the representation on the Arch of Titus, in the Herodian Temple the number was reduced to the original two. Besides the shofar, the trumpet is the only musical instrument of the Old Testament concerning whose shape there is absolute certainty, there being extant a detailed description of it in Josephus and representations on the Arch of Titus and on a Bar Kokba coin. According to Josephus ("Ant." iii. 12, § 6), the trumpet was nearly a yard long and a little wider than a flute, with a slight expansion near the mouthpiece to catch the breath, and terminated in a bell. This description tallies better with the representation on the Bar Kokba coin than with that of the two trumpets leaning against the table of show-bread on the Arch of Titus.
The trumpet, like the shofar, was not so much an instrument of music as one of "teru'ah" (noise), that is, of alarm and for signaling. Its primary use was to give signals to the people and their chiefs to assemble and to break camp (Num. x. 5 et seq., 9, where the manner of blowing is specified so as to indicate the different signals intended); also generally to announce an important event and to aid in the joyous shouting of the people on festive occasions (II Kings xi. 14; Hos. v. 8; Ps. xcviii. 6, cl. 3). But its chief use, at least in later times, was religious; and it was therefore almost exclusively a priestly instrument (Num. x. 8, xxxi. 6; II Chron. xiii. 12, 14). It was sounded on New Moons; at the daily offerings; and during the pauses in the singing of the Psalms, when the people fell down and worshiped (Num. x. 10; II Chron. xxix. 26-28; Tamid vii. 3; comp. Ecclus. [Sirach] l. 16 et seq.; I Mace. iv. 40, v. 33). Altogether from twenty-one to forty-eight trumpet-blasts are said to have been sounded daily in the Temple (Suk. 53b). The sound of the trumpet also accompanied the joyous ceremony of water-drawing on the Feast of Tabernacles (ib. 51b); and a blast of trumpets announced the beginning and close of the Sabbath (ib. 53b; Shab. 35b). As the shofar was the instrument par excellence of New-Year's Day, so was the trumpet that of solemn fastdays (R. II. 26b; Ta'an. 15b, 16b).
From Neh. xii. 41 and I Chron. xv. 24 it has been inferred that there were seven trumpets in the Temple orchestra (comp. Stade's "Zeitschrift," 1899, p. 329).
Bibliography:
Adler and Casanowicz, Biblical Antiquities, in Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1896, p. 977;
Brown, Musical Instruments and Their Names, New York, 1880;
H. Grossmann, Musik und Musik-Instrumente im Alten Testament, Giessen, 1903;
Pfeiffer, Die Musik der Alten Hebräer, 1779;
Psalms, in S. B. O. T. (Eng. ed.) p. 220;
Johann Weiss, Die Musikalischen Instrumente in den Heiligen Schriften Alten Testaments, Gratz, 1895.
TRUMPET.—See Music, 4 (2) (e).