Numbers 10:1-10 - The Silver Trumpets

I. IT PRESENTS CERTAIN ASPECTS OF PRAYER WHICH CAN HARDLY BE TOO MUCH REMEMBERED . For one thing, it admonishes us that prayer ought to be an effectual fervent exercise ( James 5:16 ). A trumpet-tone is the opposite of a timid whisper. There is a clear determinate ring in the call of a silver trumpet. This is not meant to suggest that there ought to be loud and vehement speaking in prayer. But it does mean that we are to throw heart into our prayers and put forth our strength. The spirit of adoption cries, Abba Father (see 2 Chronicles 13:14 ). When we call on God we ought to stir ourselves up to take hold of him ( Isaiah 64:7 .) Moreover, the silver trumpet emits a ringing, joyous sound. In almost every instance in which the blowing of these trumpets is mentioned in Scripture, it is suggestive of gladness, hope, exultation. And ought not a note of gladness, hope, exultation to pervade our prayers? When we pray we are to use a certain holy boldness; we are to draw near; we are to speak in full assurance of faith. This, I confess, may be pressed too far. There was nothing of the trumpet-tone in the publican's prayer. There may be acceptable prayer in a sigh, in a cry of anguish, in the groaning of a prisoner. But it is not the will of God that his children's ordinary intercourse with him should be of that sort. They are to call on him with a gladsome confidence that he is able and ready to help them. And many of them do this. There are Christian people whose prayers are always rising into the ringing' tones of the silver trumpet. I have spoken first of the general design or spiritual intention of this ordinance of the silver trumpets.

Let us now note THE PARTICULARS :—

1 . It belonged to the priest's office ( Numbers 10:8 ). It is not to be confounded with the Levitical service of song, instituted long after by David.

2 . It served a variety of secular uses. Public assemblies were convened by the sounding of the trumpets, as they are convened among us by the ringing of bells ( Numbers 10:2 , Numbers 10:3 , Numbers 10:7 ). And they were the bugles by which military signals were given ( Numbers 10:4-6 ). That it was the priests who blew the trumpets on all such occasions reminds us that Israel was, in a special sense, "an holy nation;" and may also carry forward our minds to the time when "holiness to the Lord" will be written on the life of all Christian nations in all their relations.

3 . The blowing of the silver trumpets found place chiefly in the service of the sanctuary. The particulars are noted in Numbers 10:10 , and are of uncommon interest for the Christian reader.