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Article		April 12, 2017
The Seventh Trumpet

The seventh trumpet from Revelation is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:53, where it is called the "last" trumpet, and 1 Thessalonians 4:16, where it is just called "the" trumpet.

We might wonder that these are actually different trumpets because of the different names, but they are not. The apostles, being Jews, would have understood them to be the same thing. The seven trumpets occurred for them every year.

The Jewish year has more than one calendar. The months of each begin with a new moon so they remain the same but each calendar has its own New Year.

Beginning with the first day of the first month in one calendar, the priests blow a trumpet (shofar). On the first day of each following month the trumpets are blown again. At the beginning of the first month of the other calendar everyone blows a trumpet. The day is called Yom Teruah - the day of blowing or sounding.

That is the seventh and also the last trumpet. The remaining 5 months of the year do not begin with a trump blast. So there is no eighth trumpet.

The trumpet blasts are a call to repentance and a warning that the king is coming. The last blast announces the arrival of the king.

Although having only the Old Testament the Jews still had a full understanding of the meaning of the seventh trumpet.

• This is the day that Israel will be gathered.
• This is the coronation day of the King of kings.
• This is resurrection day.
• This is a day for judgment. Psalm 81:4
• This is a day to remember the fathers.
• This is a day to blow the shofar.
• This is the day that the world was created.

(http://www.betemunah.org/teruah.html#_Toc368233932)

Although this is a day of judgment, they understand it is not THE day of judgment. In fact Yom Teruah begins a 10 day period called the Days of Awe, which they correctly understand as the last opportunity for repentance.

All of this and the Day of Atonement that follows are a prophecy about the very last of the last days. No interpretation of Revelation is complete without including it.

• There will be equal periods of time between each of the trumpets of Revelation, though not likely months
• At the last trumpet the Messiah will appear in the sky, the dead in the Messiah will be raised, together with them the living believers in their transformed bodies are gathered to meet him in the air
• There will be a period of 10 days after the Messiah returns as a period of repentance
• After that comes the judgment of the righteous, more a declaration of innocence of those he has gathered to himself
• Shortly after that the Messiah sets up his kingdom on earth