Scripture Daily

Context No. 2113 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 10:8-13: in context

8“The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets. This shall be to you for a statute forever throughout your generations. 9When you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets. Then you will be remembered before the LORD your God, and you will be saved from your enemies. 10“Also in the day of your gladness, and in your set feasts, and in the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be to you for a memorial before your God. I am the LORD your God.” 11In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the covenant. 12The children of Israel went forward on their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud stayed in the wilderness of Paran. 13They first went forward according to the commandment of the LORD by Moses.

God instructs Israel about the silver trumpets and when to blow them. They were to be sounded in two very different circumstances. When you go to war against an adversary who oppresses you, God says, sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD and saved from your enemies. And also in the day of your gladness, at your feasts and the beginnings of your months, blow the trumpets over your offerings, as a memorial before your God. The trumpets brought both their distress and their joy before God, sounding to him in war and in gladness alike.

The two occasions for the trumpets are worth noticing: war and gladness, distress and joy. In war, Israel sounded the trumpets to be remembered before God and delivered; in gladness, they sounded them at their feasts as a memorial of joy before God. Both their troubles and their celebrations were brought before God with the trumpets. Their hardship was carried to him for help; their joy was lifted to him in thanksgiving. All of life, its distress and its gladness alike, was brought before God, sounded to him in both the hard times and the glad. This teaches us to bring the whole of life before God, both its troubles and its joys. We readily bring our distress to God; in trouble we cry out to him for help, sounding the alarm, as it were, when the adversary oppresses us. But we can forget to bring our joys before him, to sound the trumpet of gladness, to lift our celebrations and blessings to God in thanksgiving. Israel sounded the trumpets in both: the alarm of distress and the celebration of joy were alike brought before God. Our troubles and our joys are both to be carried to him, the one for help, the other in thanks. In everything, Paul says, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; both the petition of our need and the thanksgiving of our joy belong before him. This calls us to a fuller life before God. Do we bring only our troubles to him, crying out in distress but forgetting to lift our joys in thanksgiving? Or do we, like Israel with their trumpets, bring both, sounding to God in our hardship for help and in our gladness in thanks? I will bless the LORD at all times, the psalmist says; his praise will continually be in my mouth. All of life is to be brought before God: our distress carried to him for deliverance, and our joy lifted to him in thanksgiving. The trumpets sounded in war and in gladness alike; and we too are called to bring the whole of our lives before God, the hard and the glad, sounding to him in our troubles for help and in our joys in thanks, so that both our distress and our gladness are lived before his face.

Do I bring only my troubles before God, crying out in distress but forgetting to lift my joys to him in thanksgiving, and can Israel's trumpets, sounded both in war to be remembered and saved and in gladness as a memorial of joy before God, teach me to bring the whole of my life before him, the hard and the glad alike, carrying my distress to him for help and lifting my joys in thanks, so that all of life is lived before his face?

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