In this episode of Hebrew Voices #225 - Yom Teruah: Now That You Mention It, Nehemia and Lynell invite everyone to a special Yom Teruah Live Teaching for a Biblical investigation into the purpose of this appointed time that commences the seventh Biblical month, paying particular attention to a series of verses that share a common denominator.
I look forward to reading your comments!
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Hebrew Voices #225 – Yom Teruah: Now That You Mention It
You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.
Nehemia: “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: ‘Yehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzchak, and the God of Yaakov has sent me to you. This is My name forever. This is My…’” and that’s usually translated something like memorial, because remember, zekher is “to remember”, and it’s also “to mention”. But in this verse, indisputably it means “this is my mention for every generation.” Because throughout the Tanakh, zekher, or zikhri, my zekher… zekher means the way you refer to someone, the way you mention them.
Nehemia: Shalom and chag sameach. I’m really excited today; it’s both Shabbat and Yom Teruah. The moon was sighted yesterday in Israel. And Lynell and I, we do these morning Bible studies, and she asked me in one of the studies, “Let’s talk about Yom Teruah. What’s Yom Teruah all about?” And we eventually did this study, and… let me do share screen here. And she said to me, “Why isn’t this on your website?” I’m like, “No, I’m sure it’s on my website.” We did a quick search, and we found that… I actually, later on my own, found that there are references to some of these things, but you have to find kind of like things here and there to get all this information. I just kind of assumed it was there. There are bits and pieces of it there, and then I will say like a very short, short statement like, you know, “See these verses,” and I assume everybody goes and looks them up and sees what the significance of them are.
So, let’s get into Yom Teruah. And there’s a lot of things about Yom Teruah; I don’t have time to get into everything today. I was going through this with Nelson Calvillo, my research assistant at the Institute of Hebrew Bible Manuscript Research, and I said, “Oh, we’ll have to save that for next year. That’s for next year. That’s for next…” There’s too many things! So, this is kind of just the tip of the iceberg, but I think this is some of the main points.
Yom Teruah is in two different places in the Torah. Numbers 29:1 it says, “In the seventh month, on the first of the month, a holy proclamation shall be for you.” And we could do a whole study just on what mikra kodesh, “holy proclamation”, means. Some translate it as… like, the King James says, “Holy Convocation;” that is, a holy gathering. Then it says, “you shall not do any laborious work”. Laborious work; malekhet avoda. That’s a whole study, but don’t have time to get to that today. “It shall be for you a Yom Teruah,” a day of teruah.
And then in Leviticus 23:24, which is the first place it’s mentioned… it’s only really two places, says, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month on the first of the month, there shall be for you a time of rest,” shabbaton; again, a whole study about what’s shabbaton. “Zikhron Teruah,” “a holy proclamation.” So, what is Zikhron Teruah? That’s what I want to talk about today.
Zikhron Teruah is different than Yom Teruah. Meaning, it’s a different phrase. Why didn’t it just say both times Yom Teruah? And it’s interesting; if you go through all the passages, like for example, in Shavuot, you’ll see it’s called multiple different things. Sukkot, you know, you see in one place it’s called the Feast of Asif, feast of ingathering.
It says zikhron teruah; what is zikhron here, and what is teruah? Those are two different questions. First, we’re going to talk about teruah. So, the King James has “a memorial of blowing trumpets”. And then, the NRSV and NIV has “commemorated with trumpet blasts”. We’ll talk about the first phrase later. So, trumpets. Trumpet is a concept in the Torah, which is a silver trumpet. There were two silver trumpets in Numbers 10:1-10, and they were used for gathering the people and for mustering them for war. And then, the JPS translates “commemorated with loud blasts”, because the JPS is thinking, “Well, no, no, no, these Christians who translated this, these non-Jews, they don’t know that we don’t use a trumpet on Yom Teruah, we actually use a shofar.”
NET2, which is supposed to be a scholarly translation… it’s a really interesting translation, they have, “A memory announced by loud horn blasts.” So, now it’s not trumpets, it’s horns. And then it says in the note, “Although the term for horn does not occur here, allowing for the possibility that vocal shouts of acclamation are envisioned, the blast of the shofar is most likely what is intended.” And how is that most likely? They don’t really say, but then they say, “On this occasion, the loud blasts on the horn announce the coming of the new year on the first day of the seventh month.”
So, we just looked at all the verses in the Torah that introduce Yom Teruah or Zichron Teruah. Leviticus 23… there’s a few more verses afterwards about sacrifices, right? But that’s it. And there’s no mention anywhere in the Tanakh, let alone the Torah, about a new year. So, when they translate “announced by loud horn blasts”, what they’ve done is, they went and looked at modern Judaism, and then they read that into the translation of what was written thousands of years ago, anachronistically. And, you know, anachronism is like, if you’re in ancient Rome and you’ve got a telephone or something, right? Well, that doesn’t fit that time period. So, this loud horn blast is something that they saw in the 20th and 21st century, and they read into their translation of Torah.
What is teruah in the Tanakh itself? Meaning, what does it mean in ancient Hebrew? So, it can be blowing a trumpet; we see that in Numbers 10 and other passages. I had all these passages, but this was going to be a three-hour teaching, so… Number two, it can mean blowing shofar. It does mean that in Leviticus 25. It means shouting, as we’ll see. And it could be a noise, a noise made with something called mitzeltayim, which in Hebrew is either cymbals… it’s usually translated as cymbals, as in the things that clang, two metals. Or it could be maracas. And you might think, “Wait a minute; no, that’s like a modern instrument.” Well, no. So, when I was studying archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, we had this thing called Pottery Lab, where you would go into this room, this giant room, and it was full of all the different types of pottery that had been covered by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem… uncovered, during their excavations. And one of those things they had was from next to the Temple Mount. See, the Romans had pushed down the walls of the Temple Mount in the year 70 when they destroyed the Temple, and in that rubble, they found these little clay balls with little, I guess, clay, tinier balls inside, and you’d shake them exactly like this, like a maraca. Or in English, this is actually called a shaker. But I didn’t know that until I looked it up.
So, teruah could mean any of those. Aaron Ben Joseph was a Karaite in the 13th century, and he was born in Crimea, but he was active in Constantinople. And he writes, “The teruah mentioned on this day is praise and exaltation to the name, as in the verse, ‘And all the people shouted a great teruah with praise,’” and we’ll come to the verse in a minute. “For Scripture did not mention a shofar or trumpet.” Now, he goes on to say, “Well, it could also be a shofar or trumpet.” But he wants to emphasize this particular… In a sense, he’s trying to emphasize that it can mean teruah and Yom Teruah can be expressed through teruah. In a sense, he’s doing that, while the rabbis say it has to be a shofar, and a particular type of shofar.
There’s even discussions in Rabbinical Judaism if you’re allowed to use a Yemenite shofar. That’s the kudu horn, the one with the little twirl, which Yemenite Jews have been using for over a thousand years. When other Jews became aware of that, they said, “Wait, that’s not a proper shofar because we use a small ram’s horn.” So, to this day there are some Yemenite Jews who say, “Well, we shouldn’t really be using this because the other Jews say we shouldn’t.” So, in Rabbinical Judaism, it has to be a shofar. You’re not allowed to do it with any… you can’t even use certain types of shofars. Right? It has to be like… I have here a gemsbok, which is a South African, or southern African type of animal. Most Rabbinical Jews would say that’s forbidden, or it’s not valid, at least, for blowing the shofar. So, in a sense, this Karaite is coming out in a reactionary way saying, “No, no, no, it has to be teruah, it has to be shouting.”
Here’s the verse, Ezra 3:11, “And they answered,” or the word can be ‘and they sang responsively’, “with prayer and thanks to Yehovah,” and it seems it’s talking about the Levites here, “for His chesed.” Which… boy, we could do a whole series of studies on that. Maybe we will one day. “For His chesed is forever upon Israel. And all the people shouted a great teruah with praise to Yehovah, because the foundations of the house of Yehovah were laid.” This was… obviously they just rebuilt the Temple; this is the Second Temple. And it says in Hebrew, “heri’u t’rua”.
So, in Hebrew we have this noun, shouting, t’rua, which literally, I guess, you could say means “to make a great noise”. But then it has a verb from the same root, heri’u. So, they teruah’ed a teruah, if I had to say that in Heb-lish. So, it does mean to shout; that’s one of the meanings of teruah.
There’s a Rabbinical Bible commentator named Rabbi Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa. He lived in Spain. He was from Zaragoza, in the late 13th or early 14th century, and he sort of responds to this Karaite position. And he says, “Scripture did not explain to us what this teruah should be.” I agree with him. “It relied on tradition.”
Now, when it says the word there, “tradition”, in Hebrew, it’s kabala. And you might say, oh, Kabbalah, that’s mysticism, that’s maybe even magic, if you believe that about Kabbalah. But in early Rabbinical literature, and even in this period, kabala didn’t mean Kabbalah, it meant the Oral Law. Right? In other words, it’s not just any tradition. Kabala is a technical term which means the Oral Law. And in fact, in Karaite literature, they often refer to the Rabbinical Jews as ba’alei hakabala, the Masters of Tradition. And they refer to themselves as ba’alei mikra, the Masters of Scripture. So, it relied on the Oral Law. I mean, what’s it? The Torah, according to Rabbi Bahya, relied on the Oral Law, for the meaning of the Scripture was only transmitted to the sages, right?
If you read the Torah by yourself, you’d never in a million years think this has to be a shofar. You would think it could be any one of the four ways of making teruah. And it says, “And they received a tradition that this teruah is with the shofar.” And again, “received the tradition” is they received the Oral Law. Right? It’s kiblu. It’s that technical term.
So, I actually agree with Rabbi Bahya, at least the first half of what he says. You would never know this has to be a shofar unless you had the Oral Law to tell you that. You’d never know that from Scripture itself.
What about zikhron? What does zikhron mean? So, King James has “a memorial”. NRSV, NIV has “commemorated”, and JPS has that as well. What is zikhron teruah? So, the word zikhron comes from the root zakhar, Zayin-Kaf-Reish. Every word, with some few exceptions, or really, if we want to be more accurate, every noun, adjective and verb has a three-letter root in Hebrew, and that’s actually one of the key principles of all Semitic languages. There are certain words that might have more than three letters, but those are exceptions to the rule.
So, the three-letter root here is zakhar, which has two different meanings: “to remember” and “to mention”. Now, how could it mean both remember and mention? And it could be they’re completely unrelated meanings. But what we always want to look for when we’re looking at the root, and it has multiple meanings, is, what is the common idea here? What’s the core principle behind these meanings? So, like, for example, the word lechem, as in Bethlehem, means bread, but sometimes in the Tanakh it means meat, as in beef, or usually goat or lamb. Well, how could it mean both? Well, because it meant basic food substance. And so, bread was the basic food substance, but in some periods and in some places, meat was.
So, like, anyway… So, to remember and to mention. So, the core concept here is to summon something up; to invoke it, to invoke something. And you can invoke it in your heart; that’s to remember it, right? We say the brain, but in ancient Israel they talked about… you would think about something in your heart. You would bring it up, you’d think about it actively in your heart. That’s to remember. And if I do that with my lips, that’s to mention it.
So, the real meaning of zikhron, of zekher, is to bring something up in your memory or with your mouth. And I love this; in Genesis 40:14 we have both meanings. Joseph is speaking to the cupbearer whose dream he has just interpreted. He also interpreted the dream for the baker; it didn’t turn out so well for him. And so, he says to the cupbearer, “If you remember me, mention me to Pharaoh.” And the word “remember” is zekhartani, and “mention me” is hizkartani. Right. It’s both from the same root, different forms of the verb. Hebrew has seven different conjugations. Here it’s the qal conjugation, and the hifil conjugation, but it has both meanings, this root, in the same sentence.
What is zikhron teruah? So, I started collecting interpretations, and at a certain point, I said, “It’s going to be a four-hour study!” So, I stopped at six. And five of these are Rabbinical interpretations. One of them is actually a Karaite interpretation. So, the oldest one that we know about, or the oldest ones that are documented, are the first two. Oldest doesn’t necessarily mean right.
So, in the Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 29b, it explains: “Zikhron is remember blowing the shofar on Shabbat.” What does that mean? Well, the rabbis say, “What do we do if Yom Teruah falls out on Shabbat?” What’s the problem? Well, in Rabbinical Judaism… well, the Torah says, “don’t work on Shabbat.” And the rabbis, through the Oral Law, say, “Work doesn’t mean what you think it means. Work has a technical definition of 39 specific actions.” For example, tearing. So, very devout Rabbinical Jews will pre-tear their toilet paper on Shabbat. That’s not a joke. And in Israel, you can actually buy packets of pre-torn toilet paper, pre-cut toilet paper, because tearing is forbidden on Shabbat. It’s work, according to the Oral Law.
So, one of the 39 forms of labor is carrying in the public domain. That is, if you have a handkerchief in your pocket, that’s violating Shabbat, according to the rabbis. My father, growing up, he used to go to the synagogue, and he wouldn’t carry a key, and he’d stand outside. We lived in a big apartment building, 17 stories tall, and he would stand out… and we were in the third floor, he’d stand out on the first floor, and at the top of his lungs he would shout: “Good Shabbos, good Shabbos.” Which was a cue for my sisters to come down, who didn’t go to synagogue, come down and open the door.
So, remember blowing the… Oh, so you can’t carry on Shabbat. So, you can’t carry the shofar to the synagogue. So therefore, Yom Teruah is for the six days of the week when Yom Teruah falls out, right? On average, I guess six out of seven years. Not in today’s Rabbinical calendar, but in theory, six out of seven years you’ll have Yom Teruah on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth days of the week, and then one out of seven you’ll have it on Shabbat.
So, Yom Teruah is blow the shofar. Zikhron Teruah is just remember blowing the shofar on Shabbat. Well, obviously that’s not what it meant in its original context, because even the rabbis say the shofar was blown in the Temple on Shabbat. Number two, recite verses about God remembering things. So, there’s a prayer that Rabbinical Jews recite on Yom Teruah, and it has ten verses. For example, “And God remembered Noah.” Right? That’s one of the ten verses they recite.
And so, zikhron teruah refers to those ten verses. Well, again, even the rabbis say, “That isn’t literally what it means. It’s not the plain meaning of what it means,” but that is actually the two oldest interpretations we have.
And then a Karaite in the 9th century, Daniel al-Kumisi, he says, “The purpose is to blow the shofar, to remind Israel to repent.” Well, how does that remind us to repent? And it’s interesting; I’ve had people tell me, “You know, the shofar isn’t something that…” I’ve had a Christian tell me this. They said, “You know, the shofar isn’t a beautiful sound. It’s this shrill sound that that makes my skin crawl.” Yes, that’s the point. The shofar, you have to think of as the ancient air raid siren. When they would go out to war, the shofar would summon the soldiers for war. The shofar is meant for you to hear it and say “Danger, danger. I’d better respond. I’d better do something.”
The other day I was woken up at 4:53 in the morning by… throughout all of Texas there was what they call a blue alert that, you know, there was this dangerous person about. Well, it turns out he’s a four-hour drive from where I live in Texas. But, yeah, it was 4:53 in the morning. And that’s the response you’re supposed to have about the shofar. “Danger, Will Robinson, danger!”
So, that’s what he says in the 9th century. I don’t think he’s right. I don’t think that’s the purpose of zikhron. Or that might be the purpose of the shofar, but that’s not the meaning of zikhron. Number four is: blow the shofar so that God remembers us. I don’t think God needs help remembering us. Okay, that’s one of the interpretations.
Number five: blow the shofar to remember that you are free. And the idea there of this Rabbinical commentator Radak is that, on the Jubilee year, they would blow the shofar to announce to the slaves, “Hey, you’ve been set free.” And then, number six… but bear in mind, in each case here, they’re telling you what zikhron means, right? All those things might be true… well, maybe not one and two. All the other things might be true for the purpose of the shofar, but it’s not what zikhron means.
Number six: remember the blowing of the shofar, which frankly didn’t even make sense to me, but I brought it anyway. Exodus 3:15. Here’s what I think zikhron means. “And God said further to Moses…” Remember, Moshe says, “God, what name should I tell them?” Right? “There’s many gods in Egypt, many gods in Canaan. This deity has appeared to me in the burning bush. What name should I tell them?” So, God says, “Eheye asher eheye.” I have a teaching called, “The Great I Am Revealed Again.” That was actually… one of my first encounters with Lynell was when I taught that live in Houston, or near Houston, and we… actually this week, this past week, we revealed some exclusive video, behind the scenes video, when I stole her coffee from that teaching. Babe, what is that episode called? Oh, that’s called something about, um…
Nehemia: No, no, the one that we revealed the video is… oh, “Nasrallah and the Samson Option”. Guys, go listen to that; that’s an important teaching. “And God said further to Moshe, ‘Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: Yehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzchak, and the God of Yaakov has sent me to you. This is My name forever. This is My…’” And that’s usually translated something like memorial. Because remember, zekher is to remember. And it’s also to mention, but in this verse, indisputably it means “this is my mention for every generation”, because throughout the Tanakh, zekher, or zikhri is my zekher, zekher means the way you refer to someone, the way you mention them, right? Essentially, it’s a synonym for a name, is zekher.
Like, it talks about stamping out the zekher of Amalek, which is the name of Amalek. So, “This is My name…” And it’s interesting; it says, “To stamp out their name. Don’t forget.” Well, I thought I’m supposed to stamp out their memory. No, it’s the name zekher in that context, right? This is my name forever. This is my mention for every generation when we mention God. This is the same root as the word zikhron, as in zikhron teruah. It can mean, can refer to, God’s mention.
Exodus 20:24 or 21, in some versions… and notice I don’t say, “In the Hebrew it’s 24, and in English it’s 21.” No, actually, in some Hebrew versions it’s verse 21. That’s because there’s different ways to break up the Ten Commandments within the Hebrew itself, even within the same manuscript. So, he says, “You shall make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice upon it whole burnt offerings, and your peace offerings of your flocks and your cattle. In every place I cause My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.”
So, here God is saying, “I’m going to cause My name to be mentioned.” What does that mean; He causes His name to be mentioned? Well, we see that when Abraham built an altar, he called upon the name of Yehovah. That’s what people would do at an altar. So, the places God causes His name to be mentioned, in this case, is the places where the altars are built or where He authorizes an altar. And that’s the same word as zikhron; it’s “to cause the name to be mentioned”.
Exodus 23:13. Here it’s about mentioning the names of other deities. “Everything I tell you guard yourselves. You must not mention the name of other gods, nor shall they be heard upon your lips.” Same words; zikhron, to mention the name of a deity. Here are the other gods.
Now, some people take this verse very literally, which is fine if that’s how you interpret it, and they say, “We can’t even say the word panic, because it comes from the name of the deity Pan.” Well, I know that our prophet Jeremiah often mentions Baal, and I wouldn’t be able to read out loud the prophet Jeremiah based on that interpretation. The Torah itself mentions the names of other gods, about not worshiping them. So, what does this mean?
Joshua 23:7, I think, is the explanation. It says, “And do not mention,” again zekher, zikhron, zikhron teruah, “And do not mention the name of their gods.” And then it delineates what that means. “Do not swear and do not worship them, and do not bow down to them.” When people would make oaths in the ancient world, they would call upon the name of that god, and we’re told in Deuteronomy to swear in the name of Yehovah. And then in Leviticus we’re told, “Do not swear in His name falsely.” Right? So, you’d swear in a name, and you could swear in the name of another deity, and God’s telling you, “When it says do not mention the name of their gods, it means don’t swear in the names. Don’t worship them.” Meaning, worship is what we would call prayer. “And don’t bow down to them.”
So, that’s what it means; zikhron. Zikhron is to worship Yehovah by calling upon His name. Isaiah 48:1 says, “Listen to this, O house of Yaacov, house of Jacob, who swear by the name of Yehovah, and who mention the God of Israel.” What does it mean “you mention Him”? You call upon His name in prayer, in oaths, and bowing down in worship. And it says, “But they do it, but not in truth and in righteousness.” Right? So, they’re doing the wrong thing.
The JPS, the Jewish Publication Society has, “Who swear by the name of the Lord and invoke the God of Israel.” Which isn’t wrong. Right? “To mention” here is to call upon the name of Yehovah. That’s what zikhron means; to call upon the name of Yehovah. Isaiah 12:4: “You shall say on that day, ‘Give thanks to Yehovah, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the nations. Mention…’ And in the Hebrew, there’s like a semicolon; this is called the zakef gadol. It’s that little doohickey here of, like, a line and two dots. And what that means is, it’s a semicolon. Mention, comma, for His name is exalted. Mention what? So, hazkiru, in this context, is, mention the name of Yehovah.
And then we have Psalm 148:13: “Let them praise the name of Yehovah, for His name alone is exalted.” Here it adds the word alone; levado. But it’s the same as at the end of Isaiah 12:4. “His name is exalted.” And the Hebrew adds “alone” at the end of that. So, this is really interesting. So, the equivalent of “let them praise the name of Yehovah” in Psalm 148:13 is “mention”. Mention what? Mention that His name is amazing, that He’s amazing, by calling upon His name. Mention His name, shouting His name, calling upon His name.
Psalm 20:8, a famous verse. “These with chariots and those with horses. But we will mention the name of Yehovah our God.” What are you going to mention about Him? “It means we’re going to invoke the name of Yehovah.” You’ll ask those other nations, “How did you be such amazing fighters? Such amazing warriors? How did you defeat your enemies?” “Well, we had these amazing chariots. We have the greatest horses in the world.” And you ask Israel, and they say, “Yehovah. We call upon the name of Yehovah. That’s how we defeat our enemies. That’s how the hundreds of missiles are shot at us and not a single person is killed. More of their people are killed by their missiles than our people!”
Psalm 45:18, “I will mention Your name in every generation. Therefore, nations will confess or thank You forever.” And again, all these are zakhar, azkira. It’s from the root zikhron, the same word, Zayin-Kaf-Reish. Zikhron Teruah.
Oh yeah, Psalm 38:1 is really interesting. And then chapter 70 verse 1. They both have identical verses, even though the Psalms aren’t the same. They both begin, “Mizmor le’David,” “A psalm of David,” and then it says, “le’hazkir,” which means “to mention”. And I love it; the JPS says… I don’t even know how to translate this. I’m just going to write le’hazkir, and then a note. I’m going to write, “Meaning of Hebrew uncertain”.
King James has “to bring to remembrance”. To bring what to remembrance? Right? NIV just makes something up, just wild plucks something out of the air.
Nehemia: The NET2 says, “Written to get God’s attention.” So, that’s really interesting what NET has done. They’re going back to zikhron teruah, which is blowing the shofar, and they’re saying, “Zikhron meant, according to the medieval rabbis, some medieval rabbis, that you blow the shofar to get God’s attention.” And they’re reading that meaning now into Psalm 38:1 and 71, that le’hazkir is to blow the shofar to get God’s attention. That’s really cool.
NRSV has “for the memorial offering,” which… it doesn’t even make sense. That’s where the priest would take a handful of flour along with frankincense and throw it onto the altar to be burned. So, okay.
Psalm 38:1 says, “A Psalm of David, lehazkir.” And the next verse is, “Yehovah.” Right? So, the very next word is Yehovah. “Do not rebuke me in your wrath.” And you can say the whole Psalm is for the purpose of calling upon the name, for mentioning God’s name, but it makes a lot of sense that the very next word would be Yehovah.
Now, this is really cool, this next part. Pay attention here, guys. Psalm 70:2 is not Yehovah, the next word. It has Yehovah in the next sentence, but the next word is, “God to save me.” Which is a bit strange, because it sounds like something’s missing. “Yehovah, hasten to help me.” So, if we only had this verse, what we would have to say linguistically is that the word “hasten” has to be applied to both halves of the verse. Hasten God to save me, Yehovah hasten to help me. But it doesn’t actually say that, but okay, grammatically that still works.
When I was looking at this I said to Nelson, I said, “This is familiar. I know this verse from somewhere else, and I think it is supposed to be ‘Yehovah to save me’.” And he’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s…”
Oh… before we get to that. So, this is part of a section that we call today, the modern scholars, the Elohist Psalms. That’s chapters 42 to 83. And it’s really interesting, the Elohist Psalms, because there’s a tendency to prefer Elohim in these Psalms. And what do I mean by that? So, the Psalms were songs, and every time you sing a song, you don’t have to sing it the exact same way. If you look at a live performance of a modern song, you’ll hear that it might be slightly different from the way it was recorded in the studio, right? The singer is just moved by the experience, and they may change the words slightly.
So, in the Elohist Psalms we have this preference for Elohim. And we’ll often have parallels where the same exact phrase, or even entire sections, appears in a different section of Psalms outside the Elohist Psalms. And there, instead of Elohim, it has Yehovah, in the parallel. So, I said, “I know this is the Elohist Psalms, this must be Yehovah originally.” And Nelson pointed out that in Psalm 40:14, it says, “Desire Yehovah to save me,” “Yehovah, hasten to help me.” So, in other words, it says, “A Psalm of David le’hazkir.” The next word is God. But originally, when this was written by David, it was Yehovah, which is beautiful. Le’hazkir is to mention the name of Yehovah.
And what’s really interesting here is, remember I said something’s missing, the word hasten? Well, it doesn’t have hasten in Psalm 40:14, it has desire. And the word for desire in Hebrew is retzeh, which sounds very much like rutz. And rutz means run, right? So, there could be a play on words here. It says, “Desire Yehovah to save me,” but it sounds like, “Run, Yehovah, to save me, hasten, Yehovah, to help me.” It’s really cool.
But le’hazkir is to call upon the name of Yehovah, and really, the whole Psalm is calling upon Yehovah’s name. But the very next word is Yehovah.
I Chronicles 16:4 I think is the coolest verse in this whole study. And it’s talking about, they’re setting up the Temple, “And he placed before the Ark of Yehovah from among the Levites to minister, and to mention,” le’hazkir, the same word as zikhron teruah, same root, “and to give thanks and praise to Yehovah, the God of Israel.” To mention what? To mention the name of Yehovah. Zikhron is a technical term in ancient Hebrew which means to call upon the name of a deity, and in the context of Israel, call upon the name of Yehovah. So, that’s what zikhron teruah means in Leviticus 23:24.
And here’s what’s interesting about this holiday; you can ask any child in Israel, any Jewish child, “What’s the purpose of Passover?” “Exodus from Egypt.”
“What’s the purpose of Sukkot?” “Oh, well, that’s when we dwelt in booths in Egypt.”
“What’s the purpose of Shavuot?” “Well, that’s where we were given the Torah, or it’s the harvest festival.”
“What’s the purpose of Yom Teruah?” “Blow on the shofar.”
Okay. This reminds me of when I was in China. I was an English teacher, and there was something called the Mooncake Festival. And I asked my students, “What’s the mooncake festival?” “Oh, it’s when we eat mooncakes.” “Why do you eat mooncakes?” “Because it’s the Mooncake Festival.” “Yes, I understand that, but why are you eating the mooncakes?” “Because it’s the Mooncake Festival.” “Why is it the Mooncake Festival?” “Because we eat mooncakes.” “Why is it Rosh Hashanah?” “Well, because it’s the Jewish New Year.” Where’s that in the Tanakh? Nowhere.
Guys, I’m going to state the obvious here… maybe it’s not obvious. Where did they get the idea of Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah? By the way, in the Mishnah there’s four Jewish New Years. There’s a Jewish New Year for trees, there’s a Jewish New Year for kings, there’s a… right? There’s four New Years, and one of them is what they call Rosh Hashanah, which is what the Tanakh calls Yom Teruah or Zikhron Teruah. Where did that come from? Well, the rabbis openly say in the Talmud that the names of the months come from Babylon. The name of the seventh month… the Torah doesn’t have month names. It’s first month, second month, third month, fourth month, seventh month in the Torah, right? It says here “in the seventh month”, is called in Babylon Tashritu, which in Rabbinical Judaism was preserved as Tishrei. And tashritu, in ancient Akkadian, means beginning. Right? So, that’s where they got the idea. “Oh! This is the New Year because tashritu is beginning,” right? And it was celebrated as one of the New Years.
So, what is the purpose of Yom Teruah? It tells you right there. It’s hidden in plain sight if you know the meaning of the ancient Hebrew word. Zikhron means to utter the name of the deity, and our deity, our heavenly Father, is Yehovah. And look, guys, I would have said early in my ministry, you have to do this with shouting, because one of the meanings of teruah, one of the most common meanings is, how do you call upon Yehovah’s name? It’s the shouting teruah, the shouting zikron. Well, that’s with my lips. Well, not everybody can speak. Like, there’s people who physically can’t speak. How do they call upon Yehovah’s name? It could be summoning up Yehovah’s name in their heart, because it also means to remember. It’s a shouting teruah. You can shout with your heart. And you can do it with a shofar.
For years I would have said, “No, it has to be with your lips!” But you know, it has all four of those meanings. And it is ambiguous, and I think it’s deliberately ambiguous because it doesn’t say specifically. But when you blow the shofar, it’s not to remind God that I’m here. “Hey, God, pay attention to me!” That’s what Gwynnie Penguin’s always saying. “Pay attention to me!” No. The purpose of the shofar is, “This is our way of verbalizing the zikhron, the teruah, the calling upon Yehovah’s name.” So, when you hear the sound, this is what the Israelites heard at the revelation at Sinai. It says, “When the sound of the shofar grew long,” and then they heard, “Anokhi Yehovah,” “I am Yehovah.” So, think of those words, the name Yehovah, when I blow the shofar.
Nehemia: [Blowing shofar]
Nehemia: Now… and if you want to see a teruah with the maraca, look at Psalm 50, where it translates cymbals from the Greek. All right, so I would sing to you, but that might be torture for you all. So, I asked Lynell to sing a song, and she did something amazing. She actually wrote a song, literally in the last 24 hours. Less than 24 hours, actually. And it was based on Psalm 95:1-3. I’ll read it in Hebrew. Lekhu neranana la’Yehovah, naria le’tzur yish’enu. And naria is “let us teruah”, “let us shout”. Nekadma fanav be’toda be’zmirot naria lo. With songs we will shout to Him. Again, that’s the same root as teruah. We will teruah to Him. Ki el gadol Yehovah u’melekh gadol al kol Elohim. Amen. Would you sing that for us Lynell?
Lynell: Yeah. Throw the words up so everybody can sing with us.
Nehemia: All right, hold on.
Lynell: It’s just a chorus and just the first three verses of Psalm. And I’m going to use the maraca. And you guys, we don’t have any musical instruments in our house, which is very sad. We have the maraca. Alright.
Come, let us sing to Yehovah,
Shout to the rock of our salvation,
Turn to His face with thanksgiving,
With song we will shout to Him,
With singing Halleluyah, Halleluyah, Halleluyah,
Lynell: Halleluyah to Yehovah.
Lynell: Halleluyah. Today, to gather as a gathering, Father, we sing Halleluyah to Yehovah. Praise Your holy name, our great God.
Nehemia: Amen. Halleluyah! Wow. I did that in less than three hours. Wow!
Lynell: [Laughter] I’m so proud of you. You did really good. I love it. So, I was so shocked. Guys, let’s look at our poll. 50% of us… oops 50%. Let’s look at our poll. I’m going to publish it and show you… so that we… I said to Nehemia, “I thought that Yom Teruah was about the trumpets, like at Jericho,” and he said…
Nehemia: Yeah. What’s really cool about that is that it says they blew the shofarot, the shofars, and then the people shouted, right? And it’s that word teruah, a great shout. We actually… I think we did… oh, no, we didn’t cite that verse, but in my original version that was three hours long we had that verse. In Joshua, where they’re shouting, it’s a great teruah, they shout. And what did they shout? Maybe what they shouted is, “Yehovah!” and the walls came tumbling down.
Lynell: Isn’t that amazing? I had never considered that, you know, when they broke their pitchers and they made that great loud noise.
Nehemia: No, that’s in the story of Gideon, when they broke the pitchers.
Lynell: Sorry. [Laughter]
Nehemia: And there they did say the name; the sword of Yehovah and the sword of Gideon.
Nehemia: Oh, so let’s look at this. This is really interesting. You’ve collected data. I love data.
Lynell: Well, there’s 50%. You just go with the 50%.
Nehemia: Fifty percent said it was repentance.
Lynell: That’s Yom Kippur.
Nehemia: Can they see this now?
Nehemia: Thirty-two percent say it means blow the shofar. Fifty percent; proclaim Yehovah’s name. Yes! People are paying attention! Halleluyah. Forty-eight percent; make a loud noise. Which, I mean, look, that’s true. Oh, I see people have multiple answers, because it’s more than a hundred percent. This is like a Democratic…
Lynell: Well, think about it. Okay, well, think about it. I didn’t do the poll right.
Nehemia: More than a hundred percent.
Lynell: It is, it is to blow the shofar as well. You know, they do that as well as proclaim… I mean, we do more.
Nehemia: What’s the main purpose though?
Lynell: I know it was a trick question, I think, so, my fault.
Nehemia: All right, let’s celebrate. So, 5% said celebrate the Jewish New Year, which happens to be the only one that’s not in the top of all these ideas!
Nehemia: Because certainly you have repentance from blowing the shofar, right? There’s these beautiful metaphors with the watchman in Ezekiel, where, you know, God says to him, “You’re the watchman, and the purpose of the watchman is you stand on top of Mount Scopus,” which is where the… and it literally means… scopus is “the watchman’s hill”. And they would see the enemy coming, because they always came from the north, just because of the geography of Jerusalem, and they would blow the shofar to tell the people the enemy is coming. You’d better be prepared. Right? And in our worship of Yehovah, the way we’re prepared is, we repent.
Lynell: Can we answer a couple of questions, Nehemia?
Nehemia: Sure. We can try.
Lynell: All right. The first one I want to answer, just because it was the first question. Are you going to publish a good English translation of Hebrew Matthew?
Nehemia: That is one of the many things that I have planned.
Lynell: Okay, so there we go. And I think, Nehemia, you talked about Mount Sinai. Thomas wanted to know; is teruah to remind us of Mount Sinai? And I think that we’re really clear that teruah is to mention the name of Yehovah.
Nehemia: Right. But I think what he’s getting to is in, and I mentioned this, that in Exodus 19… so it talks about… so, they’re standing at the mountain… I’m just pulling this up here. Ah, verse 16. “And it came to pass in the third day when it was in the morning, and there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud upon the mountain, and the sound of the shofar was very strong. And the people shook who were in the camp.” Right? Meaning, they’re violently shaking in fear.
And then it says in verse 19, “Va’yehi kol ha’shofar holekh ve’chazek me’od.” “And it came to pass that the sound of the shofar continually grew strong. And Moshe would speak, and God would answer him with a voice.” And that’s where God says, right? “And God spoke all these things, saying, ‘I am Yehovah your God.’” That’s one of the things He spoke. So, what they heard when they heard the sound of the shofar continually growing long is… that sound of the shofar, when they heard the name Yehovah, and the actual words, the voice of Yehovah.
Lynell: Okay. And Anders had a question about Zechariah 9:14. “And the LORD shall appear over them, and His arrow shall go forth like lightning; and the Lord GOD shall sound the shofar, He shall go with the whirlwinds of the south.” Are we not to remember this day during Yom Teruah, that that day will come? There’s only two occasions when Hashem himself blows the shofar on Mount Sinai, and when He comes to save Israel and the Tabernacle among His people.
Nehemia: So, okay. That’s… Sorry, 14. Oh Zechariah 9… Where? Let me just pull that up here. You said it was Zechariah 9:14?
Nehemia: Yeah. So, let’s say this, right? So, when the Torah was given 3,500 years ago, were they reading the Book of Zechariah? So, maybe you could say, I would… you could say the opposite; that when Zechariah spoke this prophecy, it was building upon the metaphor of Yom Teruah. Right? And really, it’s building on the metaphor of Numbers 10, which is that when you go out to war, you blow a trumpet, right? So, it’s what you use to muster the soldiers in a war.
And when Gideon and his 300 men blew on the shofars, it was to terrify the Midianites, right? All of a sudden, you know, the… what they… What the Midianites knew is that each army unit, each formation, has its own shofar. And all of a sudden they hear 300 shofars, and they don’t know it’s 300 people. They think it’s 300 formations of soldiers. And they panic, right? So, Zechariah 9 is definitely building upon that world of ideas, of the metaphor of, you blow the shofar at Jericho, and you blow the shofar when you go out to war, and you blow the shofar as a warning to the enemy, and you blow the shofar to stir people to repentance. Right? It’s building on all those things.
Nehemia: We don’t want the tail to wag the dog, and to say, “When God gave Yom Teruah in Leviticus 23, He was thinking of Zechariah 9.” I don’t know what God was thinking. I know that the Israelites wouldn’t have understood that.
Lynell: Our friend Dan has a question.
Lynell: Dan. The command is to the children of Israel in the Torah. In your opinion, is the command to everyone on earth today, or just a subset of people? And if a subset, how is that determined?
Nehemia: That’s a great question. I love that question. And I don’t know how much time we have left, but I’ll answer standing on one leg. In the Book of Zechariah, it talks about the… about the nations of the world being punished for not celebrating Sukkot. This is, of course, in the end times, right? There’ll be this, you know, curse for not keeping Sukkot, in the end times. Now, does that apply today? That’s a whole separate question. But I would say that the Torah… Torah means instruction. It’s a teaching to teach us things we didn’t know. And some of the things we should have known and ignored, or we were educated out of. Right?
We live in a world today where good is evil and evil is good. Or people say of evil that it’s good. There was this really interesting, horrible TV series which I don’t admit that I watched, but it was called, The Good Place, where these people go to hell, and then they discover everyone’s in hell because they have a big carbon footprint. And I thought, “Oh, Yehovah, is the world that corrupt and perverted that they think that heating your home in the winter is evil, and therefore you’re going to go to hell?”
And the answer is, not only do they think that, there’s this thing they do in sales. I don’t know much about sales; my wife does. It’s called “assuming the close.” Is this assuming the close, babe? Right? I don’t know, but it’s what I think it means. It’s assuming the ending, which is, “Oh, you know, they went to hell because they were evil, because they, because they, you know, they had a heavy, a big carbon footprint.”
First of all, whether hell exists is a whole, separate discussion, right? It’s a place in Jerusalem, Gei Hinom. But the point is, the modern leftist view of what is good is not the Torah view, right? And so, we have to remember our morality. Right? So, we know what’s evil and what’s not, but now we’ve been brainwashed to think that what is completely neutral is evil, and even what’s good is evil, and what is evil is good. I mean, literally, the prophet Isaiah spoke about that. “Those who say of dark, light and light, dark.” We live in that time.
And, so, what was the original question? Oh! So, the purpose of the Torah is to teach us. And, if you hear that message that teaches you, it seems like a good idea to follow it, whether you’re required to keep Yom Teruah and God’s going to punish you if you’re not Jewish, or not an Israelite, let’s say. I will leave that for you to work out for yourself in fear and trembling with prayer and study before the Creator of the universe.
Lynell: Okay. Before we go, we will shout…
Nehemia: That’s a short answer.
Lynell: [Laughter] Before we go, we will shout to Yehovah together. We will do that together.
Nehemia: Can we unmute everybody and let everybody shout?
Lynell: I don’t know that I can do that. Let me see. Answer another question while we wait, then. Let’s see…
Nehemia: So, can you give me one of the questions?
Lynell: Yeah, there’s a really good question I saw here, about Yom Teruah. Oh! So, “I’ve read suggestions by people who believe it’s wrong or improper to observe or celebrate the Hebrew holidays until Yehovah restores the system based on Deuteronomy 12 and other verses. Can you point him to a refutation? Not to argue with him, but just a Scripture so that he can be assured.” I love that.
Nehemia: So, “point them to a Scripture that refutes them, but not to argue.” I think by definition that’s kind of arguing, isn’t it? So. Yeah. I mean, we’re told that these things are forever. And look, there’s parts of them we can’t do. What you can’t do you can’t do. Right? But these commandments we’re given are forever. And so forever to me, kind of means forever. So, yeah.
Lynell: It says forever, right?
Nehemia: You know, it talks about these things being a statute for all time, right? So… and the parts of it you can’t do, well, you’re just not capable of doing them.
Lynell: If you want to shout, guys, please raise your hand. I’m going to start unmuting people.
Nehemia: Well, let’s answer a few more. Do we have some more time for a few more questions?
Lynell: Yeah, but I just want… there’s 500 people.
Nehemia: I know we said it would be an hour… oh, okay.
Lynell: Yeah. So, I’m going to… There’s lots. Is the harpadzo preceded by the shout of the archangel? Is it the same as the sound of the trumpet?
Nehemia: Wait. Hold on, let me read you Leviticus 23 verse 41.
Nehemia: Or, let’s start earlier in Leviticus 23. Let me share my screen here. I’ve got my Accordance Bible software up here. So, here we have… so, Leviticus 23:21, “And you shall call in this very day, a mikra kodesh it shall be for you, you shall do no manner of laborious work.” Chukat olam be’khol moshvoteikhem le’doroteikhem. “It is an eternal statute in all your habitations, throughout all your generations.” What that really means is that it’s only in a specific geographical location and only in a specific time, right? No. It’s throughout all your habitations, in all your generations.
Leviticus 23:21. Kol melakha lo ta’asu. “Do not do any manner of work.” Chukat olam ledoroteikhem be’khol moshvoteikhem. “It is an eternal statute throughout your generations in all your habitations.” Or it said it the other way. Here it started moshvoteikhem then doroteikhem, here doroteikhem then moshvoteikhem. I think it means you shouldn’t do it… Wherever you live, and in every generation, you should observe these things.
Ve’chagotem oto chag le’Yehovah. “And you shall celebrate for them a chag to Yehovah.” Seven days in the year chukat olam le’doroteikhem. “An eternal statute throughout your generations.” Right? So, eternal statute. If you think eternal means only up to a certain point in history, you’re entitled to think that, right? That’s not for me to tell you.
So, here’s the interesting thing; the word eternal is the word olam. And olam literally means universe. And when it says something is le’olam, it literally means “for the universe”. It means “for the duration of the universe”, which might only be 6,000 years, right? We say forever, but technically it’s however long the universe lasts. It might be billions of years if you believe that, right? For as long as the universe continues to exist, you should be doing these statutes.
Lynell: Someone was going to, was going to…
Nehemia: Blow the shofar.
Lynell: Blow their shofar. I want to unmute everybody. We’ve got about four minutes. A lot of people are asking about the new year. Is there any biblical truth behind that, or is it all rabbinical tradition?
Nehemia: So, I have a study on my website. I think it’s called something like “How Yom Teruah became Rosh Hashanah”. There is no biblical… so, the phrase Rosh Hashanah does appear in the Book of Ezekiel, and I had this in my original three-hour version. But it doesn’t refer to Yom Teruah. It refers to something in the first month, right? It’s talking about something in what the rabbis called the month of Nisan. Right? And why is that? Because in the Tanakh, in the Torah, the first month is called ha’chodesh ha’rishon; the first month. So, there is an idea of a new year in the Tanakh, but it’s the first month, and it’s actually been said that the first commandment ever… You could argue that’s not correct, but if you want to be really technical, it’s the first commandment ever to Israel as a people, is Exodus 12:2. Let me read you that verse. And that is Rosh Hashanah. That is the new year, Exodus 12:2.
Lynell: I’m unmuting everybody, so be quiet guys, while he answers, and then go for it.
Nehemia: …it’s supposed to be the last thing we say. Oh, I’m typing in Hebrew instead of English. Exodus 12… So, first one: “Yehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: ha’chodesh ha’zeh la’khem rosh chodashim,” “This month is for you the head of months.” And that’s the word rosh, right? Rosh Hashanah, that’s rosh. There it is. Rishon hu lakhem le’chodshei hashana. “It is first for you for the months of the year.” And there we have the word shana. We have Rosh Hashana, right? Not together. They appear together in Ezekiel. But the head of the year, literally, because new year in Hebrew is “the head of the year.” The head of the year is the first day of the first month, or what the rabbis call Nisan, in the chodesh ha’aviv. That’s the head of the year in the Torah.
Now, look, the rabbis don’t deny this. Remember, they say there’s four new years’, right? Okay. If you want to have your other three, that’s fine. That’s not what the Torah says. Nowhere in the Tanakh does it say that. The only New Year in the Tanakh is the first day of the first Hebrew month. And by the way, in Rabbinical Judaism, they still refer to Tishrei as the seventh month. Right? So, they’re not denying that it’s the seventh month, they just say, “Well, but for this other purpose, it’s Rosh Hashanah.” Now, does the average child in Israel know that the year begins in Nissan? Probably not. Depends on their level of education.
Lynell: Okay. So, Nehemia, do you want to…
Nehemia: Let’s all shout and blow our shofars. I’ll start with blowing my shofar.
Lynell: Don’t blow it into the microphone. Blow it to the side.
Nehemia: Into the microphone, you said.
Everyone: Yehovah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Amen! God can restore your people, Yehovah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Halleluyah! Praise Yehovah! Halleluyah!
Nehemia: Lynell, would you end in a prayer?
Lynell: We are going to end in a prayer, and so, we’re going to let Nehemia pray.
Nehemia: Oh. I was going to ask you to pray, but okay.
Lynell: I, okay. I’m just going to mute. I will mute everybody back so that we can pray. Or you guys can mute yourselves so that we can. Yeah. Can you mute yourselves? You want me to pray? Is that it, babe?
Lynell: All right. Yehovah, thank you for this time of getting together.
Lynell: Father, I thank You that You have brought together a group that love You and want to know Your word. We want to know how to worship You. We want to know how to obey You. And so, Father, I pray, Yehovah, on this special day that You put aside to commemorate for us to shout Your name, I pray God, that You would hear us from heaven, and You would see our hearts and know how much we love You. Yehovah! Amen.
Nehemia: Amen. Halleluyah.
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VERSES MENTIONED
Numbers 29:1
Leviticus 23:24
Numbers 10:1-10
Ezra 3:11
Genesis 40:14
Exodus 3:15
Exodus 20:24 [or 20:21]
Exodus 23:13
Joshua 23:7
Isaiah 48:1
Isaiah 12:4
Psalm 148:13
Psalm 20:8
Psalm 45:18
Psalm 38:1-2; 70:1-2
“Elohist Psalms” (Psalms 42-83)
Psalm 40:14
1 Chronicles 16:4
Exodus 19:19
Psalm 150
Psalm 95:1-3
Joshua 6:20
Judges 7:20
Ezekiel 33
Exodus 19:16-20:2
Zechariah 9:14
Zechariah 14:16-19
Isaiah 5:20
Leviticus 23:21; 31; 41
Ezekiel 40:1
Exodus 12:1-2
BOOKS MENTIONED
YHWH’s Divine Images: A Cognitive Approach
by Daniel O. McClellan
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The post Hebrew Voices #225 – Yom Teruah: Now That You Mention It appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.
