Leviticus 23:23

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—The new festival about which regulations are given in Leviticus 23:24-32, is introduced by a separate formula, which describes the subject matter as a separate and distinct Divine communication.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:23-32 the blowing of trumpets represented the preaching of the gospel, by which men are called to repent of sin, and to accept the salvation of Christ, which was signified by the day of atonement. Also it invited to rejoice in God, and become strangers and pilgrims on earth, which was denoted by the feast of Tabernacles, observed in the same month. At the beginning of the year, they were called by this sound of trumpet to shake off spiritual drowsiness, to search and try their ways, and to amend them. The day of atonement was the ninth day after this; thus they were awakened to prepare for that day, by sincere and serious repentance, that it might indeed be to them a day of atonement. The humbling of our souls for sin, and the making our peace with God, is work that requires the whole man, and the closest application of mind. On that day God spake peace to his people, and to his saints; therefore they must lay aside all their wordly business, that they might the more clearly hear that voice of joy and gladness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The repetition of the Law (see the margin reference) is appropriately connected with the thanksgiving for the completed grain harvest.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Le 23:23-25. Feast of Trumpets.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... At the same time, in a continued discourse, concerning some other days, which were to be observed in a sacred manner:

saying; as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23–25. This has been called the Festival of the New Year. It is probable that the first day of the 7th month was associated with the reckoning of the commencement of a year (see further on Leviticus 25:9). There was evidently more than one mode of dating. In fact the Mishna (Tal. Bab. Rôsh Hashânâh, fol. 2a) gives four several months according to the purpose intended in each case. The old Hebrew year began in the autumn, as the Jewish civil year does now, while the Babylonian calendar made it commence in Nisan or March. If we consider the festival in the text to be a celebration of the New Year, it will be a survival of the old mode of reckoning. In Exodus 12 :2 P makes the year commence in spring, though this dating does not necessarily imply a Babylonian influence. Indications of a spring commencement in the times of the monarchy are found in 2 Samuel 11:1; 1 Kings 20:22; 1 Kings 20:26; 2 Chronicles 36:10, as referring to the time when kings go forth to war. See further HDB. Art. Time (I. Abrahams).

23–36. Three festivals, the Blowing of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles (P).

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 23-25 - In the seventh month, in the first day of the month. Only one of the monthly festivals is named in this chapter, because it is the only one on which a holy convocation was to be held. The first day of the seventh month we should expect to be holier than the first day of any other month, on account of the peculiar holiness of the seventh month, and because it was the beginning of the civil year. It is to be a sabbath; that is, a festival observed by rest, and a memorial of blowing of trumpets. The latter words should be rather rendered a memorial of a joyful noise. That these joyful sounds were made by blowing the cornet, we may well believe from the testimony of tradition, but the text of Holy Scripture does not state the fact, and the use of the word trumpets in place of "cornets" leads to a confusion. Every new moon, and among them that of the seventh month, was observed by the blowing of trumpets (Numbers 10:10), but the trumpets then blown differed in their use and shape from the cornet. The trumpet was a long-shaped, metal instrument, at first used to give the signal for marching, afterwards to serve as the sign of the arrival of the monthly festival; the cornet was an animal's horn, or, if not a real horn, an instrument formed in the shape of a horn, and it was used to express joyful emotions, answering somewhat to our modern bell-ringing in the West, or firing unloaded guns in the East. Besides the blowing of trumpets, special sacrifices were appointed for the first of each month, "two young bullocks, and one ram, seven lambs," with their meat and drink offerings, for a burnt offering, and "one kid of the goats" for a sin offering (Numbers 28:11-15). On New Year's Day, which, from its difference from the other new moons, was an annual as well as a monthly feast, the special offerings were "one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs," with their meat and drink offerings for a burnt offering, and "one kid of the goats" for a sin offering; and these were to be in addition to the offerings made on the first day of each month (Numbers 29:2-6). It became a custom for the Levites to chant at the morning sacrifice Psalm 81, and at the evening sacrifice Psalm 29. The great joyfulness of the day is shown by the account given of its observance in the Book of Nehemiah. It was on the first day of the seventh month that Ezra read the Book of the Law publicly to the people, and when "the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law," Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites said, "This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep.... Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved. And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them" (Nehemiah 8:9-12). Leviticus 23:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On the first day of the seventh month there was to be shabbathon, rest, i.e., a day of rest (see Exodus 16:23), a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation, the suspension of laborious work, and the offering of a firing for Jehovah, which are still more minutely described in the calendar of festal sacrifices in Numbers 29:2-6. תּרוּעה, a joyful noise, from רוּע to make a noise, is used in Leviticus 23:24 for שׁופר תּרוּעה, a blast of trumpets. On this day the shophar was to be blown, a blast of trumpets to be appointed for a memorial before Jehovah (Numbers 10:10), i.e., to call the congregation into remembrance before Jehovah, that He might turn towards it His favour and grace (see at Exodus 28:12, Exodus 28:29; Exodus 30:16); and from this the feast-day is called the day of the trumpet-blast (Numbers 19:1). Shophar, a trumpet, was a large horn which produced a dull, far-reaching tone. Buccina pastoralis est et cornu recurvo efficitur, unde et proprie hebraice sophar, graece κερατίνη appellatur (Jerome on Hos. Lev 5:8).

(Note: The word תּרוּעה is also used in Numbers 10:5-6 to denote the blowing with the silver trumpets; but there seems to be no ground for supposing these trumpets to be intended here, not only because of the analogy between the seventh day of the new moon as a jubilee day and the jubilee year (Leviticus 25:9-10), but also because the silver trumpets are assigned to a different purpose in Numbers 10:2-10, and their use is restricted to the blowing at the offering of the burnt-offerings on the feast-days and new moons. To this we have to add the Jewish tradition, which favours with perfect unanimity the practice of blowing with horns (the horns of animals).)

The seventh month of the year, like the seventh day of the week, was consecrated as a Sabbath or sabbatical month, by a holy convocation and the suspension of labour, which were to distinguish the first day of the seventh month from the beginning of the other months or the other new moon days throughout the year. For the whole month was sanctified in the first day, as the beginning or head of the month; and by the sabbatical observance of the commencement, the whole course of the month was raised to a Sabbath. This was enjoined, not merely because it was the seventh month, but because the seventh month was to secure to the congregation the complete atonement for all its sins, and the wiping away of all the uncleannesses which separated it from its God, viz., on the day of atonement, which fell within this month, and to bring it a foretaste of the blessedness of life in fellowship with the Lord, viz., in the feast of Tabernacles, which commenced five days afterwards. This significant character of the seventh month was indicated by the trumpet-blast, by which the congregation presented the memorial of itself loudly and strongly before Jehovah on the first day of the month, that He might bestow upon them the promised blessings of His grace, for the realization of His covenant. The trumpet-blast on this day was a prelude of the trumpet-blast with which the commencement of the year of jubilee was proclaimed to the whole nation, on the day of atonement of every seventh sabbatical year, that great year of grace under the old covenant (Leviticus 25:9); just as the seventh month in general formed the link between the weekly Sabbath and the sabbatical and jubilee years, and corresponded as a Sabbath month to the year of jubilee rather than the sabbatical year, which had its prelude in the weekly Sabbath-day.