Biblical Significance of the Month of Tishrei (5787)
Updated: 6 days ago
Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets, falls on the first day of the seventh month. Every month begins with its own Rosh Chodesh, or “head of the month” - a small new beginning. But the seventh month holds a unique place. It is Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the new year, and it carries far more weight than an ordinary Rosh Chodesh.
The Lord spoke to Moses about it directly. Leviticus 23:24-25 says,
“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the LORD.”
It begins this month on Sabbath, a full holy day, and here in Israel, that means no work, no shopping, nothing of the ordinary. This chapter, Leviticus 23, is the chapter that holds all of Israel’s appointed feasts, and this one sits as the chief.
It is worth starting with a passage that isn’t in Leviticus at all, but in Colossians. Paul writes there about the new life believers have in Christ, “the hope of glory,” and then in chapter 2 he turns to a question that people were arguing about even then. He says,
“Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
It is worth slowing down on what Paul is saying here, and just as much on what he isn’t saying. He isn’t telling us these holidays are meaningless, something to be set aside and forgotten. What he is saying is that people keep different days. Jewish believers keep the feasts seen here in Israel; Christians around the world keep Sunday, a day that actually has no direct precedent in Scripture but became the church’s calendar over time; and Paul says not to judge one another over it. The Sabbath and the new moon, he says, are a shadow of a coming reality, and the substance of that reality is found in Christ himself.
That means those feasts, and this Feast of Trumpets in particular, point forward to something. The full shape of that future glory is not yet clear, but Peter speaks often of a coming restoration of all things, and when that day comes, the full meaning of these holidays will finally come into view.
It is worth remembering, too, that this whole calendar runs by the moon, not the sun. The church calendar shifted to a solar calendar under Constantine, but in Israel, every new moon marks a new month, and Leviticus tells us a sacrifice was to be brought at the start of each month. On Rosh Chodesh, the trumpet was blown, and that blowing was a remembrance in two directions. One direction is upward, toward God, bringing his people into his remembrance, not because he has forgotten them, but because Scripture again and again invites that very thing. It is there throughout the Psalms, the cry of “how long, Lord, have you forgotten me,” and the answer isn’t to stop asking but to keep coming before him until the breakthrough arrives. The other direction is downward, toward us, a reminder of one’s own relationship with the Lord.
Numbers 28 and 29 lay this rhythm out plainly: a daily offering morning and evening, a weekly offering on the Sabbath, a monthly offering at the new moon, and then the larger festival offerings on top of all of that. That daily rhythm is why the disciples went up to the temple at the ninth hour in the book of Acts; that was the hour of the afternoon sacrifice, a devotional pattern the earliest believers still kept, starting and ending each day set apart for the Lord. The weekly Sabbath carried the same idea into a full day, not simply a day off but a day given over to the Lord.
On Rosh Hashanah itself, Numbers 29 describes the sacrifices that were brought two thousand years ago in the temple: a burnt offering, a bull, a grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, and a male goat as a sin offering. Each of these still speaks to us today. The sin offering points back to what Yeshua did at the cross, and a day like this becomes a fitting occasion to remember that sacrifice again, even to gather around communion as a reminder of it. The burnt offering, the Greek word for which shows up again in Romans 12, where Paul calls believers to offer their own bodies as a living sacrifice, speaks of dedication, an offering that was entirely consumed and given nothing back. That is a picture of renewing the mind, making sure life stays in focus and dedicated to God’s purposes, something worth doing regularly and doing as a whole community, a practice that would transform any congregation. And the grain offering, the Mishnah gives its name even now to the afternoon prayers in the synagogue, a picture of the daily walk, letting God’s Word and his Spirit speak into the ordinary rhythm of life.
Put those three together-remembering the sacrifice of Yeshua, renewing dedication, and returning daily to his presence—and that is exactly the practice God had in mind for these holidays, and exactly what would change churches and individual lives alike if lived out.
Across the year, there were seven such trumpet blasts: the first in the month of Nisan at Passover, the third at Shavuot, and now the seventh at Rosh Hashanah, the loudest of them all, sounded across every synagogue in the land. This calls to mind Revelation 10, where it says that in the days of the seventh trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets. That mystery has two sides, the mystery of Israel and the mystery of the church, and Revelation 11:15 tells what happens when it is fulfilled: a shout goes up in heaven,
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
That is what these holidays are pointing toward, a shadow, as Paul says, of a reality that is still coming.
So let this month, with its shofar blast, be more than a marker on the calendar. Let it be a wake-up call, a moment to renew dedication to the Lord and bring life into alignment with his purposes, ten days before the Day of Atonement and two weeks before the joy of Sukkot. As that happens, his blessing can be expected to follow.
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