Trumpets and horns/shofars are mentioned many times in Scripture. The trumpet/shofar was used to call the Hebrew nation to assembly and was most commonly used as a warning of, and summons to, war; and throughout the Bible during Appointed Times of the Lord, in processions, musical performances, and acts of devotion.
Judg. 3:27; 1 Cor. 14:8.
Only the Priests were allowed to sound these silver trumpet shofars.
The trumpets most people think of are those in the Book of Revelation, seven trumpets are sounded, one at a time, to cue apocalyptic events seen by John in his vision Revelation 1:1,9. The seven trumpets are sounded by seven angels and the events that follow are described in detail from Revelation Chapts. 8 -11.
Readers may be familiar with the term the last Trump/trumpet which is part of the description in the Paul’s 1st letter to the assembly in Corinth. It is actually a reference to the 100th trumpet blast sounded during the Feast of Trumpets. The 100th Trump is the final or the last trump; and this is one of those references in which Hebrew idioms must be understood as it represents a specific moment at the very end of the proceedings.
The Trumpet Shofar blasts have names:
The Tekiah – is a long, single blast. It was straight, plain, smooth, continuous note and it is to symbolize the expression of joy and contentment.
The Shevarim – is three short blasts. A combination of three broken notes to symbolize weeping.
The Truah – Extremely short blasts which are a combination of nine staccato notes in a very quick succession of short trill. This symbolizes trepidation, sorrow and sobbing.
The Tekiah Gedolah – Means “the last trump.” This one symbolizes the hope of redemption. It is a very long, final note.
For more in depth on this subject links below:
https://www.minimannamoments.com/midweek-mannabite-the-sound-of-the-trumpet/
https://www.minimannamoments.com/blowing-your-own-trumpet-2/
In the 100 trumpet blasts during the Appointed Time/feast of trumpets, the first of the three categories above are combined back and forth until there is a total of 99 sounds. Then comes the 100th, the Tekiah Gedolah, a very long-sustained note – as long as the trumpeter had breath to hold it, and this is known as the last trump.
Mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 and Matthew 24:31 “And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
This scripture below in Matthew 6:1-4 includes the words
sounding a trumpet
and it is Jesus/Yeshua warning His disciples about their attitude to giving and it hearkens back to instructions about giving in Deuteronomy 15:7-11.
7 if there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother. 8 Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him whatever he needs.…9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.… 10 Give generously to him, and do not let your heart be grieved when you do so. And because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything to which you put your hand.… 11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land; that is why I am commanding you to open wide your hand to your brother and to the poor and needy in your land.…
Below versions of Matthew 6:2
1Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. 2Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: 4That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. KJV.
New American Standard Bible
“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they will be praised by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
do not sound a trumpet before thee is an idiom meaning:
when giving alms don’t announce it with trumpets.
We have an idiom which is similar when we say:
‘sounding your own trumpet’
its’ meaning: a person is boasting of their own deeds.
This figure of speech/idiom, describes a vain/prideful person as being “their own trumpeter,” or making a “flourish of trumpets” about their own acts, probably common in every country where trumpets have been used. What is meant in scripture is that, whether it is in the offering receptacles of the synagogue, or the alms given to beggars in the streets; there was such a show of generous giving designed to cause men to stare and admire.
To better understand Messiah Jesus, it is beneficial to try to understand the social and cultural background of His Life and times.
Using the Hebrew language is the best way we can get an authentic concept for the culture that has so influenced our lives today.
WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY DEFINES “IDIOMS” AS:
A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elementsA. A specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon: legal idiom.
B. A style or manner of expression peculiar to a given people.
We look and no doubt when we read this phrase
we naturally think…
Sounding the Shofar
is referring to
sounding the trumpets/blowing the shofar.
Sounding the trumpet as found in Matthew 6:1-4, is a warning by the Messiah to His Disciples, not to sound the trumpet when giving Alms.
During the first century, Alms was a synonym for a charitable gift that was required to be given to the poor.
The word alms
in the Aramaic language is the word
zedhqatha
which means:
a right, or righteous act, the proper thing to do.
Jesus/Yeshua was obviously not against giving to the poor as He had already agreed with the need for these Alms to be given as commanded in the Torah, God’s teaching and instruction in Deuteronomy 15:10; and that there was a reward for all who offered gifts to the poor. The Ancient Hebrews believed that there were 3 evidences of the purity of a man’s heart that would be seen, if the man or woman had repented of sin and was faithfully following the Lord.
These 3 qualities were: Prayer, Charity and Repentance.
Collection boxes are still in Jewish Communities today, and are called tzedakah boxes or righteousness boxes.
Every person is expected to do mitvahs = good deeds.
Tzedakah box,
also known by its Yiddish word, pushke, is a:
receptacle for collecting money that is designated for charity.
The Hebrew word tzedakah comes from the root tzedek,
meaning: justice.
Giving money and resources to those in need
is understood to be an act of justice.
Many families decorate boxes or cans, and make a habit of putting money in them before Shabbat. When they are full the money is taken out and given to a person or organization in need.
Tzedakah (צְדָקָה) often translated as charity, is a mainstay in Israel of Jewish life. The sages teach that the world was built upon kindness. Tzedakah goes one step beyond.
The name “ Tzedek Box” comes from the Hebrew root צ.ד.ק. meaning “righteousness.”
Tzedakah is a way of looking at the world and understanding the human role in creating a more perfect world—and by doing so, imitating qualities of the Divine.
tzedakah (charity and righteousness),
chesed (kindness), and
mishpat (justice).
The “right hand” is the higher spiritual element in us that leads to acts of true charity;
the “left” is the baser, self-seeking nature.
As far as
Let not thy left hand know…..
This phrase was probably proverbial, and points to and in a way, overemphasizes, extreme secrecy. It’s possible that there may be some reference to the practice of using the right hand as was usual in offering gifts at the altar and was thought to exclude the mingling of motives.
Many people were forced into begging because of unjust rulers who placed heavy taxes and tributes on them, reducing some people to a level of poverty. They were then forced to beg to survive, yet these were hardworking people, the ones who found it extremely embarrassing to beg for a handout. That is maybe why Jesus/Yeshua used this old Aramaic expression when He said do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, in other words do not let anyone know that you are giving alms so as not to embarrass the person who is receiving the support. Jewish sages teach that to humiliate a person in public is as bad as committing murder, so was Jesus/Yeshua only enforcing this understanding of a zedhqatha or alms, the doing of a righteous act?
To understand Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, as a proverbial expression for doing a thing secretly is also to do it as secretly as it is done consistently, first with the fact that an individual is choosing to do it at all; and secondly, doing it in the most effectual manner for the need and never speaking of it afterward, unless there be good reasons for making it known.
That thine alms may be in secret. May be known to none but God, whose glory thou must have in view in all thy works, whether of piety, justice, or charity, and whose will it must be thy intention to obey in all things. And thy Father, which seeth in secret. Who knows every circumstance of mews most retired and private actions; himself shall reward thee openly.
Tamara qarna are the exact words used in the Aramaic Bible for sound the trumpet.
However the rabbinic textual experts, render this as do not pass the trumpet. Qarna means the horn of an animal, which would fit the description of a shofar. In the first century synagogues the poor box or the alms box was in the shape of a shofar and in many cases was a real shofar. It would be in a quiet area of the synagogue where people could discretely drop in coins for the poor and was western equivalent to the poor box in a church.
It was not the act of giving in public that Messiah had a problem with, but the fact that the men in the synagogue had started passing around the shofar and taking note of who gave what and how much. Sometimes the religious men in the synagogue would even take the shofar out into the streets and call upon people to drop some coins in the trumpet; and this may be what Messiah was addressing, not blowing a trumpet but passing a trumpet or offering plate?
More than likely it was the attempt by some religious people to bring attention to how much they gave that He was addressing.
The words probably refer to the clang of the coins as they fell into the metal trumpet-shaped alms-boxes in the synagogue. This clanging sound came as sweet music to the ears of the proud giver; and it seems the pharisees never missed an opportunity to show off their self righteousness and would drop large handfuls of coins into these wooden containers which would make a very loud sound as the coins raced through the narrow funnel!
In the tzedakah boxes,
this was known as
“sounding the trumpets”
in an attempt to draw peoples attention to
the givers act of “righteousness”.
Giving is about our neighbor not ourselves, so He cautioned the disciples and apostles to not sound the trumpets when giving, as they were required to do!
In the time of the 2nd Temple, in the Outer Court known as the Women’s Court; and under the colonnades is where 13 wooden collection boxes for alms for the widows, the poor, and the orphans were. They were narrow at the mouth and very large and wide at the bottom, with trumpet-shaped bronze funnels to guide the coins into the box.
This area was the actual Temple Treasury, a storehouse; in Hebrew אוצר ‘otsar.
A related term, the korbanas, is found in the New Testament Matthew 27:6 where the money of Judas Iscariot couldn’t be received into the temple “treasury”, or κορβανᾶς korbanas, because it was “blood money”.
Josephus explains this term korbanas as the temple treasury –
ton hieron thesauron, kaleitai de korbanas
(War of the Jews 2.9.4; #175).
The glazophylakion or “treasury,”
a repository of treasure, especially of public treasure, a treasury.
Strongs # 10049
glazophylakion – gad-zof-oo-lak’-ee-on
גלזופילאקיון
The Temple was surrounded by a court called the
Temple Court or azarah in Hebrew.
The inner area of the Temple contained 3 courts. As noted the Eastern most court was the Court of the Women and it contained the Temple treasury where people donated their money Mark 12:41 – 44. Three gates lead into this court; one on the north, one on the south and a third on the east. This third gate on the east side is almost certainly the Beautiful gate that was mentioned in Acts 3.
The Nicanor Gate which was much larger and ornate. It led from the Court of the Women west into the Court of Israel which was elevated by 15 steps. Women were not allowed to go any further than this.
Hieron is the word used to designate the Court of Women, it was closed to Gentiles but open to Jewish women. Jewish men could congregate in that area as well, but the men could also move on to the Court of Israel, into which the women had no access. As well as being the area in the Temple where the women could pray, Luke 2:37, the Court of Women was the one place in the Temple where all Israelites could gather. Because of this, it naturally became the place where Messiah spoke when He taught in the temple, John 8:20; 18:20. It was there that His enemies found Him sitting and teaching one morning, when they came dragging a woman who had been taken in adultery during the preceding night (8:2).
The illustrations above show the colonnade around the court and within it, against the wall were placed the 13 chests.
Maimonides wrote: “There were always thirteen collection boxes available to the public in the Holy Temple. Each box was in the shape of a ‘horn’, the first was for the collection of the half-shekel donations of the current year. The second was for the collection of the previous year’s half-shekel donations…” The collection boxes were in the shape of a ‘horn’, narrow on top, to prevent thieves from reaching inside and taking money.
11 of these chests were carefully marked and were for the voluntary offerings of money and there were 2 at the Shushan gate for the half shekel tax. Nine of the 13 were for the receipt of what was legally required by worshipers, the other 4 were strictly for voluntary gifts.
Historical documents show that Trumpets 1 and 2 were set aside for the annual half shekel temple tribute. It was into Trumpet 3 that the women who had to bring turtle doves for a burnt and a sin offering, dropped the equivalent in money. This was removed daily and a corresponding number of turtle doves were offered. This saved the work of so many separate sacrifices and also shielded the modesty of those who did not want their offering to be known publicly. In Luke 2:22, 24 it may have been into this trumpet that Mary put the value of her offering. Trumpet 4 also received the value of the offerings of young pigeons or doves.
Trumpet 5 was for contributions towards wood used in the temple. Trumpet 6 was for the incense.
Trumpet 7 was for contributions towards the golden vessels for the ministry.
Trumpets 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 were for what was left over from trespass offerings, offerings of birds, the offering of the Nazarite, of the cleansed leper, and voluntary offerings.
It’s possible this is where John 7 & 8:20, records that Messiah was teaching on the Feast of Tabernacles/Sukkot. Because each one was specifically marked for its’ purpose, it also shows that this is how Jesus/Yeshua could distinguish between the contributions of the rich from that of the poor widow in Mark 12:41; Luke 21:1.
Messiah was observing the people and what they were bringing. He had an advantage over other would be observers, in that He knew the hearts of each of those in this gathering.
Jesus/Yeshua made the comparison between the gifts that the rich people gave with the two mites. The two small coins donated by the widow might not have made much noise when she deposited them; (Greek: lepta, singular: lepton). These coins (lepta) were so small that they had no designated equal in the imperial monetary system of the day and it is significant that she gave both of them, holding back nothing for herself.
This woman was giving, all her life (holon ton bion in Mark 12:44). Messiah knew that, if a woman was reduced even to ten coins, the loss of a single one of them, was a huge concern. Luke 15:8–10.
Giving her all for God, this widow became a symbol, or type, of Messiah Himself, who will lay down his life (bios) His ALL, to further and fulfill His Fathers’ Kingdom plan and purpose.
How did He know that this widow had cast in two little coins? The sound these coins made against the metal would have indicated how much people were offering.
‘And he sat down opposite the Treasury and watched how the crowd dropped money into the Treasury, and many who were rich dropped in large amounts.’
He sat down opposite
He wanted to watch men as they gave, so that from it, He could teach a lesson to His disciples. No doubt some of the richer walked up flamboyantly dropping large sums of money in and were no better than the Rabbis who had been described previously. They were not giving to God with the right attitude but were buying publicity and respect, then there were others, humbly and truly expressing their gratitude to God. Mark 12 41.
It is not given exactly where Messiah was sitting while He made His observations, unless He was sitting on the steps. Neither are we told into which of the receptacles she dropped her life savings, her small yet profound gift. One wonders if she put her coins into the treasury for a sin offering rather than for the voluntary offering? There was a precise amount given for the different sin offerings, such as the price of the turtle dove or pigeon, but this amount probably didn’t even meet the requirements, but it was all she had. Was she desperate for forgiveness for some sin at that time? Could she have been a victim of manipulation on the part of the scribes? Maybe she in danger of losing her home to the scribes, as Jesus had alluded to earlier?
Messiah doesn’t speak to the woman or draw anyone’s attention to her actions, except to His disciples. Was she trying to go unnoticed? If she was, Jesus let her remain anonymous; however He used her heart to teach His disciples a lesson. Showing them that the size of the gift means nothing compared to the heart and motive behind it.
The people coming before and after this woman were bringing the required amounts plus their offering, over and above requirements.
We don’t know if His comments on the rich givers were referring to all that day’s contributors, or just to some of them. The account doesn’t tell the reader of their heart condition. However we do know that they could easily afford what they gave and it didn’t cause them any hardship.
The widow had nothing else to live on, because she gave everything she had. It does raise some questions, first being, why did she do that? We aren’t told if she was fulfilling a promise or was she giving in faith, expecting God to care for her because she could no longer care for herself? How much would that penny have bought in food for her?
There was also a special treasury chamber and on certain occasions the contents of the 13 chests were placed, as well as what was called a chamber of the silent, which was where individuals secretly gave money for the education of children from poor families.
The top left picture depicts the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur. The top right picture depicts the kohanim carrying the vessel of water filled in the Shiloach spring, into the Holy Temple’s inner courtyard. The 2nd down left picture depicts the nightly Simchat Beit Hashoeva festivity during Sukkot.
The Nikanor Gate, the eastern gate of the Court, served as both entrance and exit from the Women’s Court to the Court of Israel. It was named after the man who donated the brass doors of the gate, which he brought from Alexandria, Egypt.
As previously noted, the name, Court of the Women was not because it was exclusively for the women but because they were not allowed to go any further except for sacrificial purposes. It was probably the commonplace for worship. The musical instruments used by the Levites were kept in two rooms under the court of the Israelites and the access was from the Court of the Women. There were 15 steps which lead through the gate of Nicanor into the court of Israel. It was on these steps the Levites sang the 15 Psalms of degrees or Psalms of Ascent (psalms 120 to 134), on the Feast of Tabernacles and this is where they got their name. Here was where all that was ordered to be done before the Lord took place; it was here that the cleansed leper and the women coming for purification presented themselves to the priests.
These steps were shaped as a semicircle.
Each step was half a cubit in height.
These steps led up from the Women’s Court to the Court
(which was higher by 7.5 cubits).
As we think about the widow, her gift has another level if by looking at her heart instead of focusing on the coins. Some individuals who only give a small portion, could represent people trying to withhold a portion of their heart from the Father?
It would be like saying to our Heavenly Father, that He can have this section of our heart, but we’ll take care of the rest on our own, whereas the widow placed her whole heart in the Fathers’ hands.
Was her heart saying? I know it’s not much, but it’s all I have, please take it and do with it as You see best. I trust You with all that I have. Please take all of me.
This is the heart condition our Heavenly Father is searching for and desires above all else – a heart that is wholly His. He doesn’t want us closing the doors of our lives against Him, where we hide the dirty washing. He wants to be able to see and have complete access to every hidden corner, because only then can we truly be His.
Maybe the following words apply to us today…
Father in Jesus Name, I truly believe I have given You access to all the rooms in my heart and life, but I admit that sometimes I try to hurry and push You out, or I only let You in after I think I have cleaned things up. There are times that things sneak in and I try to quietly shut the door thinking You won’t see it. But You always see it and yet in your loving patience You sometimes allow me to wait a little while before asking me to deal with it. Even though You speak to me gently, it often takes a louder voice and brighter light before I deal with it completely. Thank You that You don’t give up on me, or on helping me clean up my life, again. I know you gave Your all for me and I want to be fully Yours, holding nothing back….
One day soon we will hear that welcome sound of the last trump it will not be the sound of coins dropping, but the sound of the trumpet of our Heavenly Father calling us home. Lets make sure we are as ready as we can be….
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