Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
year of jubilee was still to begin with this month (Le 25:8), so that this was their new year's day. It was to be as their other yearly Sabbaths, a day of holy rest--You shall do no servile work therein; and a day of holy work--You shall offer an offering to the Lord; concerning these particular directions were afterwards given, Nu 29:1. That which is here made peculiar to this festival is that it was a memorial of blowing of trumpets. They blew the trumpet every new moon (Ps 81:3), but in the new moon of the seventh month it was to be done with more than ordinary solemnity; for they began to blow at sun-rise and continued till sun-set. Now,
1. This is here said to be a memorial, perhaps of the sound of the trumpet upon mount Sinai when the law was given, which must never be forgotten. Some think that it was a memorial of the creation of the world, which is supposed to have been in autumn; for which reason this was, till now, the first month. The mighty word by which God made the world is called the voice of his thunder (Ps 104:7); fitly therefore was it commemorated by blowing of trumpets, or a memorial of shouting, as the Chaldee renders it; for, when the foundations of the earth were fastened, all the sons of God shouted for joy, Job 38:6,7.
2 The Jewish writers suppose it to have a spiritual signification. Now at the beginning of the year they were called by this sound of trumpet to shake off their spiritual drowsiness, to search and try their ways, and to amend them: the day of atonement was the ninth day after this; and thus they were awakened to prepare for that day, by sincere and serious repentance, that it might be indeed to them a day of atonement. And they say, "The devout Jews exercised themselves more in good works between the feast of trumpets and the day of expiation than at any other time of the year."