Feast of Trumpets 2025: What is Memorialized?

 The Feast of Trumpets is introduced in Leviticus 23:23-25 as "a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets" (ESV).  There is no mention in these verses of what is being memorialized.  

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on September 20, 2025, Kyle Kettering surveyed the important things that may be memorialized by this festival.  

Since harvest festivals like Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles are prominent in the annual cycle of celebrations, the fall harvest is one thing to celebrate in this season.  

There are a number of themes associated with the Feast of Trumpets in Jewish tradition.  These include 

• creation
• the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, partly because of the horn of the ram that was a substitute for Isaac.
• a spiritual wake-up call and announcement of coming judgment.
• the coming of the King (Ps 98:6).
• future redemption, including the coming of Messiah (Zech 9:14) and the ingathering of exiles (Isa 27:13).  

Several of these themes are continued in the New Testament, especially that of future redemption.  The imagery of trumpets is prominent in the book of Revelation and in descriptions of the return of Jesus (Rev 11:15-18; Mt 24:29-31; 1 Co 15:51-57; 1 Th 4:13-18).  

Seder 110: Numbers 10:1-10---Trumpet Calls to Remembrance

 Numbers 10:1-10 tells about two silver trumpets that would be used by the Israelites both on the journey to the Promised Land and after they arrived.  

During the journey, different combinations of long and short blasts would summon the people or their leaders together and let the tribes know when to break camp.  In the Promised Land, trumpets would be used for holy wars and for celebrations.  

Num 10:9-10 imply that the blasts from these trumpets would, in a sense, be prayers, calling upon God to remember his people---i.e., to take action on their behalf.  

These silver trumpets were one of two kinds of trumpets used by the Israelites.  There were also the rams' horns, the shofarim, that were heard at Mt Sinai (Ex 19), at the beginning of a Jubilee year (Lev 25), and at Jericho (Joshua 6).  

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on July 30, 2022, Kyle Kettering looked at trumpets in the Bible.  In addition to being calls for God to remember his people, trumpet blasts are calls for God's people to remember God and turn to him in repentance.  We must heed these calls before the final trumpet blasts that signal the return of Jesus (Matt 24:31; 1 Cor 15:50-58; 1 Thes 4:16-18; Rev 11:15).