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).

Seder 88: Psalm 79---Mourning the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple

 Psalm 79 is a communal lament written after the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar had attacked Jerusalem in 587 or 586 BC, looting and destroying Solomon's Temple and taking captives.  These events were a shock to many in Jerusalem.  Even though the possibility of exile had been prophesied by Moses (e.g., in Deut 28) and others, God had been so merciful for so long.  Surely he wouldn't allow the Temple where he was present in the midst of his people to be destroyed, they reasoned.

Those who survived the Babylonian attack were fortunate, but they then had to face what had happened.    Bodies had not received proper burials, creating ritual impurity that reflected Israel's moral impurity.  Other nations, like their relatives the Edomites, were taunting them (vv 1-4).  

In the tradition of Moses (32, e.g.), the psalm asks God, for the sake of his reputation,  to deal with the pagans who had attacked Jerusalem.  Acknowledging the nation's sin, the psalm asks for mercy.  

"Let the groans of the prisoners come before you," verse 11 says.  This verse reminds us Exodus 2:4; 6:5, where the groans of the Israelites in Egyptian slavery were heard by God.  The psalm asks for a new exodus and looks forward to a time when the people will praise God for more of his wondrous works on their behalf (v 13).

This psalm has been used in liturgy for the 9th of Ab, the annual fast mourning the destruction(s) of Jerusalem.  Language like that of Psalm 79 is used to speak of future judgment (Luke 21:20-24; Rev 11:2,8; 16:6).  

Rev 6:9-10 pictures holy martyrs praying as in Psalm 79.  "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"  

 In the case of Psalm 79, we know an answer to the "how long" question in verse 5.  Seventy years after the destruction of the Temple, in 516 BC, the Second Temple was completed.  For the martyrs, we do not know "how long," but we do know that they have a great reward ahead of them (Rev 20:4).