What Does Numbers 29:1 Mean?
And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you have a set-apart assembly; you do no serving labor, for it is a day of the shattering blast unto you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.THE KEY
The trumpet day is a day of teruah, a shared shout that calls the community out of ordinary work and into a set-apart threshold.
THE MEANING
The calendar becomes audible: a shared blast interrupts ordinary work and gathers you into a set-apart moment. Sacred time reaches you as sound and pause, not only as an idea. The gathering and the stopping of labor make room for the summons.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sacred day has to be earned through productive effort; here it is marked by stopping work and receiving a summons.
THE ROOT
תְּרוּעָה
teruʿah
GROWS FROM
רוע
To shout or raise a loud sound.
“a day of the shattering blast” in this verse is teruʿah. The verse calls this a day of teruʿah: a sound that publicly marks a threshold. The word can name a shout or an alarm blast, so the day’s summons is heard, shared, and impossible to mistake for ordinary quiet.
ALSO GROWS
hariʿu: Shout aloud; raise a cry.
הָרִיעוּ
This verbal form shows the sound as an act of calling out, not merely noise in the background.
teruʿah: A shout, alarm blast, or acclamation.
תְּרוּעָה
This noun names the sound that marks the day and summons the community together.
מִקְרָא
miqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call, summon, or proclaim.
“set-apart assembly” in this verse is miqra. A convocation is a gathering shaped by a call. Joined to קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, set-apart), the phrase names a set-apart summons: people stop their ordinary work and meet in response to it.
ALSO GROWS
qaraʾ: Call, summon, or proclaim.
קָרָא
The gathering begins with a call that reaches people beyond their private routines.
miqra: A called assembly or public reading.
מִקְרָא
The word for convocation carries the act of calling within the gathering itself.
THE PATTERN
A shared sound marks a threshold by calling people out of ordinary activity into encounter.
Speak to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath of ceasing, a remembrance of the blast, a set-apart assembly.And on the third day, in the morning, there were thunders and flashes, and a heavy cloud upon the mount, and the sound of the ram's horn was very strong, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.For the Lord himself, with a shout of command, with the voice of the chief messenger, and with the trumpet of God, will step down from heaven, and the dead in the Anointed One will rise first.THE THREAD
God rises with a shout; the LORD with the sound of a ram's horn.The Hebrew word for “shout” here is תְּרוּעָה (teruʿah), the same word that names the day in Numbers. One verse makes that sound the summons of a set-apart day; the other joins it to God’s ascent, revealing the blast as an announcement of movement.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us