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The Sound of Victory
The Shofar Is Sounding!
There is something about the sound of a shofar that awakens something deep within us. As we approach the Feast of Trumpets and the Hebrew month of Tishrei, I have been thinking about why Scripture gives this ancient instrument such significance. Throughout the Bible, the shofar announces the presence of God, calls His people to attention, warns of danger, gathers His people, accompanies them into battle, proclaims freedom, announces kings and becomes an instrument of worship. But as I studied these different purposes, I began to see one message woven throughout them all: the King is coming.
The first time we hear the shofar in Scripture is at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20. Israel has just come out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea and experienced the deliverance of Yahweh. Now they are standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, and God is coming down to meet His people. There is thunder and lightning, a thick cloud covers the mountain, and then the sound of the shofar grows louder and louder. The shofar announces the presence of God and causes the people to stop and recognize that He is coming near.
That makes me think about how noisy our lives have become. There are so many things competing for our attention that sometimes we don’t even realize how distracted we have become. I love listening to podcasts and worship music when I walk my dog in the morning, but lately I have been leaving my AirPods at home and simply listening. I’ve realized how uncomfortable silence can be and how many thoughts are constantly racing through my mind when there isn’t something filling the space. It has made me ask myself, What is competing for my attention? What would it look like for me to become spiritually alert again?
The shofar seems to answer that question because it is a sound that calls us to listen.
The Shofar Is a Wake-Up Call
The shofar is not only a sound announcing God’s presence; it is also a wake-up call. Isaiah 58:1 says, “Lift up your voice like a trumpet,” and throughout Scripture the prophetic voice functions in much the same way. The prophet was called to get God’s people’s attention, expose what they didn’t want to see, warn them of what was coming and call them back to Yahweh.
That is what we see in the ministry of Jeremiah. He continually warned Israel about coming invasion and judgment, but the people refused to listen. His warning was meant to be an act of mercy because God was giving His people an opportunity to turn around before it was too late.
This is part of what makes Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets, so significant. It begins a season of examination and repentance, but repentance is not simply about feeling bad for what we have done. The Hebrew concept of teshuvah carries the idea of returning. The shofar is calling God’s people to return to His presence, return to their first love and return to the place where they can hear His voice.
Sometimes we need God to interrupt us because we have become so busy and distracted that we don’t even realize we have drifted. The shofar is almost like the Father walking into the room where His child is sleeping and waking them, not because they are in trouble, but because He wants to be with them. The shofar sounds, we wake up, we examine our hearts, and we return to God.
Bring the Fall Feasts Into Your Home
If you want to go deeper with your family into this season, I’ve created a Fall Feasts Guide for Families—an easy-to-follow ebook that walks you through the meaning and beauty of the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).
This guide is designed to help you not just learn about the feasts, but to experience them together as a family in a meaningful, Christ-centered way.
Grab the guide and step into the rhythm of God’s appointed times with intention and joy. Make sure you listen to this episode of the podcast to get your discount code for 40% off this guide!
A Sound of Mercy and Freedom
This movement of returning leads us toward Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which reveals another beautiful meaning behind the shofar. Once a year, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and offer blood for the sins of Israel, while another goat, the scapegoat, symbolically carried the sins of the people away from the community. When we look at this through the lens of Jesus, the picture becomes incredibly powerful because He is our atoning sacrifice. He took our sin, our shame and everything that separated us from God, and through Him we have been reconciled to Yahweh.
There is a way back because Jesus is the way.
The shofar also proclaimed the Year of Jubilee, when slaves were released, debts were forgiven, land was restored and liberty was proclaimed. The shofar was therefore not merely a frightening or ominous sound. It was a sound of mercy and freedom, announcing that captivity did not have the final word. Jesus came to proclaim liberty to the captives, and He is still restoring, redeeming and bringing people home today.
When the Shofar Becomes a Battle Cry
The shofar is also deeply connected to battle. Perhaps the most famous example is Jericho in Joshua 6, where seven priests carried seven shofars as Israel marched around the city for six days. On the seventh day, the shofars sounded, the people shouted and the walls came down. Israel didn’t win because they had the biggest army or the strongest weapons. They won because they trusted God and obeyed His instructions.
We see a similar picture in Judges 7 with Gideon, who faced an army of tens of thousands with only 300 men. Instead of giving Gideon conventional weapons, God instructed his men to carry shofars and jars with torches inside. When they blew the shofars and broke the jars, the light shone out and confusion fell over the enemy camp, giving Israel the victory.
Sometimes you need a sword for the battle, but sometimes all you need is a shofar. God may give you a strategy that makes no sense according to human wisdom, and our responsibility isn’t always to understand what He is doing. Sometimes it is simply to trust Him enough to obey.
The shofar was also used to gather God’s people. In Numbers 10, it called the tribes of Israel together, and in Nehemiah 4, the people rebuilding Jerusalem had to keep their ears open for the sound of the trumpet because they were rebuilding while surrounded by enemies. They had a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other, but they also had to listen.
There is a prophetic picture here for us because we are building, but we are also battling. We are raising families, working, serving, creating, building communities and advancing the Kingdom of God, but in the middle of all of it we have to keep our ears open for the sound of God.
The Sound That Announces the King
The shofar was also a sound of worship and celebration. When David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, the shofar sounded as the people celebrated the presence of Yahweh. Psalm 47 speaks of God ascending amid shouting and the sound of the shofar, Psalm 98 calls God’s people to shout for joy with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn, and Psalm 150 tells us to praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet.
The shofar was also used when kings were established. Solomon’s anointing as king was accompanied by the sound of the trumpet, as was the anointing of Jehu. The sound announced that a king had been established.
Can you imagine the early Church celebrating the Feast of Trumpets while knowing that Jesus is the one true King?
The shofar is an announcement of the King, but it is also a call to allegiance. We may not have a ring on our finger, but we have been given the Holy Spirit as a promise that Jesus is ours and that we belong to Him. It reminds me of the beautiful words from Song of Songs: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”
Yet it is so easy to become familiar with someone who is always there. The same thing can happen in our relationship with Jesus. Life gets busy, responsibilities pile up, and without intentionally cultivating our relationship with Him, we can slowly drift. This is another reason I have been leaving my AirPods at home. Jesus is more important than anything else competing for my attention, and the shofar reminds me of my allegiance to Him and calls me back to my first love.
The Warning Is Mercy
The shofar was also used to warn God’s people of approaching danger, and we see this prophetic imagery throughout Jeremiah, Joel, Amos, Ezekiel and Hosea. But the warning itself is an act of mercy because God warns His people because He wants them to turn around.
The goal isn’t distraction.
The goal is repentance.
The shofar is saying, Wake up. Turn around. Come home.
And if you are in a battle right now, the sound of the shofar also reminds you that God sees you, hears you and remembers you. You may feel surrounded or pressed on every side, but you are not fighting alone. You may not have an actual shofar, but you have a voice, and you can cry out to God.
The Final Trumpet Is Coming
All of this ultimately points us toward the return of Jesus. In Matthew 24, Jesus speaks about a loud trumpet call that will gather His people. First Corinthians 15 tells us that the last trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised and we will be transformed. First Thessalonians 4 speaks of the Lord descending from heaven with a shout and the trumpet of God, and Revelation points toward the seventh trumpet when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and His Messiah.
This is our hope: the King is coming.
We don’t know the day or the hour, because Jesus told us that we don’t know when He will return, but we know that He is coming back for His bride. So the question isn’t simply, “When is He coming?” The question is, “Will we be ready?”
Are our lamps still burning? Are we still watching? Are we still listening? Are we still devoted to Jesus the way we were when we first encountered Him?
We Are Carrying the Sound
When we bring all of this together, we begin to see that the shofar is far more than an ancient instrument. It is a call to wake up, a call to repentance, a sound of mercy, a proclamation of freedom, a battle cry, a call to gather, a sound of worship, an announcement of the King and a promise that He is coming.
But the shofar doesn’t simply carry a sound.
It carries a message.
And isn’t that what our lives are supposed to do?
Friend, you have a voice. You have a testimony. You have something to proclaim.
So as we enter the Hebrew month of Tishrei and hear the sound of the shofar, don’t simply hear it. Respond to it. Allow it to wake you up, call you back to the presence of God, expose the places where you have become distracted and fill you with courage for the battle.
I want to challenge you to proclaim Scripture out loud in your home this season. Read it with your children. Speak the Word of God over your family. Our family is currently going through Psalm 119, learning the Hebrew alphabet and reading the Scriptures together out loud, and what amazes me is that this wasn’t even something I planned. We simply arrived at Psalm 119 right before the Feast of Trumpets and the beginning of the Hebrew year 5787.
Psalm 119 is ultimately a declaration of the supremacy, beauty and sufficiency of God’s Word, and I believe that is a message we desperately need right now. The Bible was never meant to be a book that sits on a shelf while we pull it down for a few minutes in the morning and then put it away. The Word is living. It is alive.
So pick up your sword.
Open your mouth.
Proclaim His Word.
Sound your shofar.
The shofar is sounding, friend. The King is coming. And until that final trumpet sounds, may we faithfully live as His witnesses.
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Janell Kremer 
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