It’s the day of shouting, the day of trumpets, the feast of trumpets: it’s Yom Teruah! It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Rosh Hoshannah, but in scripture it is referred to as Yom Teruah. Join us in this teaching as we learn about one of Yahweh’s moedim. Take part with us as we learn the truth: the God Honest Truth.
Transcript
The transcription is about Yom Teruah, a Hebrew holiday, which is celebrated on the first day of the seventh month. It is a day of rest and a time for blowing trumpets or shofars. The transcription explains the meaning of the Hebrew words Yom (day) and Teruah (shout or blast). It also discusses the historical and traditional beliefs associated with Yom Teruah, including its connection to the creation of the world and the Babylonian influence on naming the months. The transcription emphasizes that Yom Teruah is not the new year, but rather a celebration in the middle of the year. It concludes by highlighting the co-opting of pagan practices in both Christianity and Judaism.
So like I said, tonight’s drash is going to be all about Yom Teruah. If you would like to go to our website and click on the post for this drash, this teaching, there you can find the drash slides, the on-demand video. You can also find the research notes that we put together for this. That way it can help you in your further study on the subject. There’s all kinds of scripture and quotes, historical quotes, text links, video links, all that good stuff.
So go check it out, GodHonestTruth.com, and click on the post for Yom Teruah. Now Yom Teruah itself, obviously, is made up of two different words, even in Hebrew. Yom and Teruah. Yom is the Hebrew word for day, meaning, most of the time, a 24-hour period, both morning and evening. But it can also mean the daylight period of any particular day, from sun up to sun down. But in this context of Yom Teruah, we’re talking about the 24-hour period.
And then the second word, Teruah, meaning a shout or a blast, especially from a trumpet or a shofar. Now for my fellow nerds out here, here is your entries from the lexicons and dictionaries. And just to let you know, I had to cut these entries down a whole bunch. They were huge, lots of information here. So we had to cut it down to fit on the slide for tonight’s drash. But if you would like the full entry, then please feel free to go look that up on your own for verification that way.
Or you can just go to the notes that we put together, and that’s on the entry or the post on GodHonestTruth.com for Yom Teruah. And here’s your third entry for Yom. And of course, all these entries are saying pretty much the same thing, that it means a day, 24-hour period composed of morning and evening. And here is your lexicon and dictionary entries for Teruah, meaning a clangor of trumpets, an alarm blowing the trumpet, blowing the shofar, joyful noise, is to be a time of joy.
So in scriptures, we first come into contact in this first established and ordained in Leviticus 23, verses 23-25. And Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying, Speak to the children of Yisrael, saying, In the seventh new moon, on the first day of the new moon, you have a rest, a remembrance of Teruah. You do no servile work, and you shall bring an offering made by fire to Yahweh. A couple things to note real quick. Number one, it’s going to be on the first day of the seventh new moon.
That means the very first day of the seventh month. It also says that you are to do no servile work. This is what’s referred to in some circles as a Shabbaton, right? You have the regular weekly Sabbath where you rest and you don’t do any work, right? We all know that one pretty well. But a Shabbaton is like a minor Sabbath. In a Shabbaton, generally, you don’t do strenuous work, per se, but you are still allowed to do things like cook and prepare food.
Just light, very light stuff, but try to not do any work if at all possible. Then we go on to look in Numbers chapter 29, verses 1 through 6. And in the seventh new moon, on the first day of the new moon, you have a set-apart gathering. You do no servile work, it is Yom Teruah, and you shall prepare an ascending offering as a sweet fragrance to Yahweh. One young bull, one ram, seven lambs a year old, perfect ones, and their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil, three-tenths of an ephah for the bull, two-tenths for the ram, and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs, and one male goat as a scent offering to make atonement for you, besides the ascending offering with its grain offering for the new moon, the continual ascending offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings, ascending to their right ruling as a sweet fragrance, an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
So back when the tabernacle in this context and then the temple was still standing, this would be one of those times where you brought additional offerings in recognition and in celebration rather of Yom Teruah. Now again, it’s stating that it’s going to be on the first day of the seventh new moon. The first day of the seventh month. Also it again repeats, you do not serve our work, but here notice the point that’s different than the last passage we just read.
Here it specifically calls this Yom Teruah. Now why is this important? Well this is important because this Moadim is known by several different names. Specifically it’s known by Yom Teruah, because that’s the name we just read in scripture. However, it’s also known as Rosh Hashanah, which we’ll get into in just a little bit. Yom Hazikaron, or Hazikaron, and Yom Harat HaOlam, meaning birthday of the world. Tradition has it that on Yom Teruah, that’s when the earth was created.
Way back on the first day of creation, right? You don’t get that from scripture, so take it for what it’s worth. I don’t know of any way to disprove it, but there’s no way to prove it from scripture. It’s just a traditional belief that is held, especially by those within Judaism, specifically Orthodox Judaism. However, this name, the first one up here, Rosh Hashanah, and the month names themselves, this seventh month is known as Tishrei, this all came from Babylon.
We’re told in the Talmud of all places that the names of the months came up with the people from Babylon once they returned from that exile. Now when you read through scripture, you notice that there are no names for the days of the week or the months of the year. It’s always something like first month, second month, fifth month, tenth month, right? There’s no names like we have today. Now the days of the week are very similar.
You have first day, second day, fifth day, sixth day. However, the seventh day is known as Shabbat. Now you can call it seventh day of the week or you can call it Shabbat. It’s all the same thing, but with the months, it’s a lot different. It wasn’t until after the return from Babylonian exile that the months ended up getting names. And the seventh month, which we already read about for Yom Teruah, they named as Tishrei. And these names came from Babylon and did not come from scripture.
Another traditional belief about Yom Teruah, also known as Rosh Hashanah, is that it’s the new year. However, it’s not. It’s the seventh month. So the seventh month is like right in the middle of the year. That cannot be the new year. Unfortunately, this is also another belief that came from Babylon. The Babylonians actually had two new years. One of them they celebrated in the seventh month and the other one they celebrated six months later in what the Hebrew calendar would call the first month or the month of Nisan.
But again, this whole belief that Yom Teruah and the seventh month is the new year is something that does not come from scripture and it’s actually something that was brought up from Babylon along with the names of the months that got added instead of second month, sixth month, and so on. So I guess you could say that it’s not just Catholic and Protestant Christianity that co-opted some parts of paganism. You can also see this within Judaism as well.
Point in case here, or point of fact, the names of the months. Again, when we go to Passover, you sometimes see an egg on the Seder plate. That doesn’t come from scripture and that actually has very good chances of coming from paganism as well, just like the Easter eggs within mainstream Christianity. Also during Hanukkah, there are some of those within Judaism who have something called a Hanukkah bush. Again, you don’t get that from scripture, not the book of Esther, nothing.
That is another co-opt of paganism that’s been brought in. So it’s not just mainstream Christianity that suffers from secretism, it’s also parts of Judaism as well. Now we know that the seventh month isn’t the new year because the first month obviously would be the New Year’s Day. And even Josephus tells us that when Moses established these months, that the first month, Nisan, would be the start of the year. We read in the Antiquities of the Jews, But Moses appointed that Nisan should be the first month for their festivals, because he brought them out of Egypt in that month, so that this month began the year as to all the solemnities they observed to the honor of God.
Now what it’s referring to right here is coming from out of Egypt and the months, we can read in Exodus 12 verse 2. This new moon is the beginning of new moons for you. It is the first new moon of the year for you. So they were still in Egypt at this point, they hadn’t had the Passover or anything like that. And Yahweh was telling Moshe that this first month, this month of Nisan, was to be the first of the months, the beginning of the new moons for you.
And we can further verify that, and that the Passover happened on the 14th day of the first new moon, of the first month, right? So there’s some further verification. Now like I said, originally the Hebrew months did not have names attached to them like we’re used to in our calendar nowadays. Again, just to reiterate, they went by the designation of first month, third month, ninth month, etc. However, like I said, after the Babylonian exile, they brought in the names for the months from Babylonia, and then you start seeing in scripture there the names associated with the months, but a lot of times you also see the scriptural designation for the months.
A little confusing, but let me show you an example. Esther chapter 3 verse 7. In the first new moon, which is the new moon of Nisan, in the twelfth year of Sovereign Ahasuerus, someone cast purr, that is the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from new moon to new moon, until it fell on the twelfth new moon, which is the new moon of Adar. So here you can see, they call it first, the particular month they’re talking about, they first call it the first new moon, which is the standard scriptural designation for which month you’re talking about, right? First new moon, seventh new moon, etc.
It then goes on to use the Babylonian name that was attached at that point to the months, which is the new moon of Nisan. So further verification that the first month, the first new moon, is Nisan. That’s the head of the year, not the seventh month. Now there is one thing that can throw some people off when they read this, because the term Rosh Hashanah is in scripture. Ezekiel chapter 40 verse 1. In the twenty-fifth year of our exile at Rosh Hashanah, on the tenth of the new moon, in the fourteenth year after the city was stricken, on that same day, the hand of Yahweh came upon me, and he brought me there.
I do apologize, I should have done my due diligence in putting the context surrounding this, but this verse is not speaking of the first day of the seventh month, right? This verse is speaking of the first new moon, the first month, and it’s calling it Rosh Hashanah. So again, I apologize for not putting the entire context in there, but if you go and look that up, Ezekiel 40 verse 1, and look at the surrounding context, you’ll be able to determine that this is the first month, and not the seventh month.
The first month is Rosh Hashanah. That term, Rosh Hashanah, literally means head of the year, what we call nowadays as New Years. Here in Ezekiel, Rosh Hashanah is referring to the first month as the New Years, not the seventh month. So what about trumpets? We went over the establishment of Yom Teruah within scripture, we went over the names and where that comes from, and Yom is pretty straightforward, right, it’s just day. What about trumpets? What significance does trumpets have in Yom Teruah and scripture itself? This is where you really do need to start taking notes if you haven’t been doing so already.
But we look in places like Numbers chapter 10 verses 2 through 6, and we see that trumpets are used for the moving of the camp, right? Here we also see it used for calling a meeting. Now in this particular context and passage, we also see that they’re told to make silver trumpets, not just shofars out of animal horns, but silver trumpets. They’re used for, in this passage we just mentioned, Numbers 10, 2 through 6, it’s used for moving the camp, calling meetings, stuff like that.
We also see it used in other ways, like in Numbers 10, 9 through 10, and Psalms 81 verse 3, that trumpets and shofars are used in times of war. On feast days, especially, people usually blow trumpets or shofars to announce the beginning of a feast day or mulladin. It’s used for new moon celebrations or otherwise known as the start of months. We also see in scriptures that shofars and trumpets were used to announce royalty, when royalty came on the scene.
So trumpets and shofars are used for a lot of different things. We look in Joel 2 verses 1 through 2. Blow away shofar in Zion, and sound an alarm in my set-apart mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of Yahweh is coming. For it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains, a people many and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor shall there ever be again after them, to the years of many generations.
So he’s saying, go up on Zion, go to my set-apart mountain, and blast the trumpet, right, making an announcement. In this case, that everyone on earth to tremble in awe. Okay, I think we’re good. Moving on to the words of our master and messiah, Yeshua, Matthew chapter 24 verses 29 to 31. And immediately after the distress of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give its light, and the stars shall fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
And then the sign of the son of Adam shall appear in the heaven. And then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, and they shall see the son of Adam coming on the clouds of the heaven with power and much esteem. And he shall send his messengers with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Now here, Yeshua is talking about the end times, obviously, when Yeshua returns for the second coming.
And at his second coming, there’s going to be the great sound of a trumpet to announce all of this. Just like they use trumpets to announce the moving and meeting back in the wilderness, they use it to announce the entrance of feast days, new moons, and royalty. Here in the end times, trumpets are going to be used in much the same way to announce King Yeshua coming. To announce meeting, because Judgment Day is going to be right around the corner, right? Also announce things like moving.
Those of you who aren’t saved and should fear, better get moving, do good in the end, but hey, you can try. So trumpets here in the end times are going to be used in very similar ways as we see nowadays. Another connection with Yom Teruah, 1 Corinthians 15, 52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we all shall be changed.
So here again, the sound of the trumpet in the end of days will announce, well, pretty much a meeting like it was back in the wilderness, but it’s calling all of the dead to a meeting. All of those who are dead or sleep in Messiah will be raised. Here he says, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. So again, trumpets used for the call of a meeting. First Thessalonians chapter four, verse 16, because the master himself shall come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of a chief messenger and with the trumpet of Elohim and the dead in Messiah shall rise first.
So pretty much saying the same thing as we just read back in 1 Corinthians. At the sound of a trumpet, at the blowing of possibly even a shofar, the dead will rise up, or let me rephrase that, the dead in Messiah, those who are asleep in Messiah, shall rise up with their new bodies and meet Yeshua. It says here the dead shall rise first instead of, well, you understand, the dead will go up first to meet him and then those who are still alive will go up to meet him as it’s stated in other passages.
But maybe some of you have caught on to this already. Things like Passover and Hanukkah and Purim and stuff. We all know what those are meant to remember and to memorialize. Like we’re told specifically in scripture that Passover is to remember and memorialize the exodus from Egypt when the angel of death passed over the houses with the blood of the lamb on them. Now after Yeshua, we also celebrate Passover in remembrance and memorial of what Yeshua did for us as how he became our Passover lamb, right? So it’s got multiple meanings there for Passover.
For Hanukkah, we remember the Maccabeans and their revolt, successful revolts, against the Greeks, Purim, when the Judeans with Esther and Mordecai were successful with the aid of Yahweh to stem off the genocide of the Judeans. So we’re told the Moedim and the feast days, a lot of times, what they are to memorialize or to remember. However, if you remember when we read those passages for Yom Teruah, it says nothing about what it’s for, why we should be doing it, what we should be memorializing or remember, or nothing like that.
So why do we have Yom Teruah if we’re not told that it’s in memorial or remembrance of something in the past? After looking at all these passages concerning the end times, this is something, again, it’s all circumstantial, so make up your own mind, but I, and like a lot of other people, think that Yom Teruah is looking ahead to the end times. When we look at the spring feast days, like Passover, Pesach, and Shavuot, the spring feast days memorialized and fit in with Yeshua’s first coming.
Then after we all know, after Shavuot, there’s this big space in the year before we get to Yom Teruah. Already there’s been a big space between Yeshua’s first coming and Yeshua’s second coming. And I, like a lot of others, believe that the fall feast days are there to symbolize and look forward to and will fit in with the end times and Yeshua’s second coming, starting with Yom Teruah. Yom Teruah is a day that’s not set specifically on any particular day.
Let me clarify this real quick. I know scripture says it’s on the first day of the new moon, of the seventh new moon, right? However, it doesn’t start, or it’s not supposed to start, scripturally speaking, until you see that first sliver of the new moon, right? So sometimes this can be on the expected day, or it could be another day right after that. It could be the later day, depending on the year and what’s going on, right? So no one really knows the timing of Teruah if you’re doing it according to scripture.
Remember when Yeshua was telling us that no man knows the day nor the hour of his second coming except the Father in heaven? So there’s another kind of connection of the end times to Yom Teruah. So there’s a lot of scriptures, a lot of end times stuff, and like I said, the connection to end times prophecy with Yom Teruah is circumstantial, but do your own study, make up your own mind. So you’ve learned these scriptures, you know what Yom Teruah involves from scripture anyways, but how do we celebrate it in our own lives? Well, if you’re going to celebrate this year or in years to come, and you wanted to do a scriptural celebration, well, scripturally speaking, the first day, remember, is a Shabbaton.
You do no servile work. You take the day off, you rest up, except maybe for making a meal or whatnot, but you just rest regardless of what day of the week it is. The first day of Yom Teruah is a Shabbaton. Also, blow a trumpet. Make a joyful noise. Blow a shofar if you have a shofar. But this is the day of trumpets, Yom Teruah. Make a joyful noise, make some sound, announce to the world that Yom Teruah is here.
But as far as scripture goes, that’s the only two things that we see commanded for Yom Teruah. That’s the no servile work on the first day, and then the blowing of the shofars, blowing of the trumpets. Everything else can be up to you. If you’re just going strictly scriptural, you can add in some stuff like Torah readings, Bible study, time with friends and family. It does not specify food or a feast for Yom Teruah, but you can have that, invite friends and family over, make it a joyous occasion.
Now, remember, those within Judaism have their traditions regarding Yom Teruah, calling it by Rosh Hashanah and believing that it’s the new year. So in accordance with those traditions they have, they’ve brought in some customs to go along with that. So here are some things that those within Judaism do on Rosh Hashanah. They believe it’s the new year. They reflect on the past year and what they’ve done, right, whether it’s been good, they’ve improved themselves, or whether they’ve fallen and backslidden some.
So it’s a time of personal reflection for them and thinking about how they’re going to change themselves in the upcoming year. So they also have something called a Tashlik service. Now I’ve been to a couple of these and what we’ll get into that right now, but a Tashlik service is pretty much where those within Judaism will gather together, generally near a flowing stream of water, like a creek or a brook or something like that, possibly even a lake, but usually moving water, and they’ll take pieces of bread and toss them into the moving water, symbolic of casting off their sins for the new year.
However, those of us within the Messianic way of thinking or the Christian way of thinking knows that Yeshua took all of our sins, right, so we don’t need a Tashlik service for us. I’m just describing for you some of the things that those within Judaism do in celebration of Yom Teruah. Now as far as food goes, we know that every feast day has got food, right? And for Yom Teruah, those within Judaism generally have sweet foods on Yom Teruah.
And the reason for this is, well, it’s in, how should I put this, it’s so that they’ll have a sweet new year, that the next year coming up will be sweet, that’s why they have sweet foods. They have things like apples and honey. They, again, the sweet foods, some of them, or a lot of people within Judaism even try brand new fruit and stuff that they’ve never tried before, right? Might be a good idea, it’s always a good idea to try new stuff, right? And of course, on all the feast days except for Passover, you have the obligatory challah, right? And for Yom Teruah, the challah is traditionally made in a circle, as you see on your screen right here.
There’s a lot of people who make their challah for Yom Teruah with raisins in it, again going back to that whole sweet motif, but the food is on the side, okay? It doesn’t go against scripture, it’s not commanded in scripture, so if you want to go with the sweet motif, go for that. There are also those within Judaism who have a fish and they’ll eat a fish head on Yom Teruah. And the reason for this is because they want to be made the head and not the tail.
So they eat the fish head, that’s the symbolism behind that. But again, when it comes to scripture and doing just the scriptural way of celebrating Yom Teruah, no servile work on the first day of Yom Teruah and blow a shofar, blow a trumpet. Now you can add in some other stuff, like I said Torah portion, Bible study, sweet foods, or come up with another theme for your feast, that’d be fine too. But there’s the information, again, no servile work on the first day, blowing of a trumpet, that meets the scriptural prescription for Yom Teruah.
So in summary, Yom Teruah is the day of trumpets or the day of shouting, right? It occurs on the first day of the seventh new moon or the seventh month. The first day, again, of Yom Teruah is a Shabbaton. You do no servile work. And scripture calls it Yom Teruah and not Rosh Hashanah. And that is just the God Honest Truth.
