On the road to Emmaus, Yeshua met with two of His disciples and, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:27). For our Torah studies this year, therefore, week by week we will seek to discover how all of Torah prepared the way for the coming Messiah.
12th September 2026 (1 Tishrei)
Rosh Hashanah (head of the year): Day 1, Genesis 21:1-34, Numbers 29:1-6. Day 2, Genesis 22:1-24,
Anyone familiar with modern-day Israel knows that many of the hills and valleys are largely unchanged from ancient times. It is not difficult to choose a quiet place in the countryside, away from the modern cities, and imagine a time long ago. It is Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the seventh biblical month of Tishrei. Rosh Hashanah coincides with the biblical injunction to make a loud noise, which is centred on blowing the ram’s horn – the shofar. This is called Yom T’ruah, the Feast of Trumpet blasts.
The scene is set for our imagination to take us to ancient Israel where the sound of the ram’s horn echoes over all the land, over the hills and down the valleys. It is a primitive sound which sends chills of expectation through one’s body, as it lingers as if borne by a spiritual power. The lingering sound calls us to stop and listen, leading to prayerful reflection. It brings realism to the coming days and the call to celebrate the Feasts of the seventh month, culminating in Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. The sound of the shofar draws us into a serious period of repentance for the ten days leading up to Yom Kippur.
We must be careful that the yearly cycle is not considered as forever moving round again. For thousands of years, this has been so. Pesach, celebrated in Nissan, the first month of the biblical year, has come and gone in every one of those years, moving forward to Shavuot and then eventually to Sukkot. This is the new beginning of the yearly cycle, typified by the restarting of the Torah readings from Genesis 1 – we end one cycle and begin another in a continuous circle of year following year.
To be locked into this cycle, as if forever the same, is not Hebraic. To be Hebraic is to live in the ever present purposes of God. As Rosh Hashanah begins with the sound of the shofar, we can rest in the eternal timelessness of God and simply live the expectancy that the shofar brings. The shofar is the means of arresting us so that we live out moment by moment the preparation for the awesome Day of Atonement, where we long to be sanctified in God’s presence, completely cleansed of all the spiritual grime we have drawn to ourselves through our life in this fallen existence.
The entire period of the Feast Days of the seventh month is a preparation for the one day, possibly soon, which is the fulfilment of God’s redemptive covenant purposes. When that day comes, our rehearsal through the Feasts will be made real. The yearly cycle will move into eternal reality. On that day, the shofar sounded on earth will be a shadow of the shofar sounded from Heaven. That shofar blast will bring us to the realisation that this special month on the biblical calendar points to the consummation of the ages, the return of Yeshua HaMashiach, to bring in the eternal Heavenly Kingdom.
Pesach was fulfilled in His sacrifice on the Cross and should now be celebrated in the light of this. Shavuot was fulfilled in the giving of the Holy Spirit, the promise of the New Covenant, and should be celebrated in the light of this. The Feasts of the seventh month will one day be fulfilled in the return of the Messiah. This is clearly understood when the veil is taken from our spiritual eyes, as it has already been for untold millions of people, and as it was for the Apostle Paul, who summed it up in this way:
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)
In the visions of John, recorded in the Book of Revelation, this last trumpet blast is put in even more awesome terms:
Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying:
“We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty,
The One who is and who was and who is to come,
Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.
The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come,
And the time of the dead, that they should be judged,
And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints,
And those who fear Your name, small and great,
And should destroy those who destroy the earth.” (Revelation 11:15-18)
Those who developed the traditions of Judaism prioritised the reading of Genesis 21 and 22 for the first two days of the month of Tishrei. The tension between Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, described in these two chapters, are ongoing in a world that will manifest warfare to the time of the Lord’s return. This will bring the seeking after Him to a climax on that awesome day of the last trumpet, when any remaining veils will finally be taken from all God’s elect when that which God said through Zechariah is fulfilled:
I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)
The ram in the thicket of Genesis 22 points precisely to Yeshua, the Lamb of God who came to take away our sins. This will be fully completed at the final fulfilment of Yom Kippur, on His return. The ram replaced Isaac as a sacrifice, allowing all his descendants to be born and to live as the nation of Israel: Yeshua, in His sacrifice, replaced those who live by faith in Him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
How appropriate that it is a ram’s horn that brings us to a stillness at each Rosh Hashanah! How inspired were those who chose the Bible readings to begin these Feast days of the seventh month!
Let’s not consider the celebrations this year as only part of a yearly cycle, but let the shofar bring an eternal stillness in anticipation of the soon fulfilment of what it pre-shadows.
