The title of this article is from the last two lines of verse 4 of Hymn 288: “Behold, the mountain of the Lord”. It expresses a wonderful and hopeful outlook for the people of God when preparations for war will no longer be needed.
Today the trumpet and cornet are brass instruments used in brass bands, in some dance and jazz bands and in symphony orchestras. Other instruments of the same class include the trombone, french horn and tuba. The trumpet consists of a metal tube of constant bore for most of its length but widening into a bell. It has a cup-shaped mouthpiece. The modern trumpet has valves so that the length of the tube can be altered at the flick of a finger. This produces a greater variety of notes than was possible with early instruments that had no valves. Its sound is loud and penetrating and, because it is easy to carry, the trumpet has not only been used as an instrument of music but also to issue signals for both military and religious uses. Unlike other instruments, such as pipe and harp, in the Old Testament the trumpet is never described as being used for secular music-making.
In Hebrew there are two words for trumpet, one meaning a metal trumpet (“chatsotserah”) and the other a ram’s horn (“shophar”). In the Old Testament their uses overlap. Often they were used for the same purposes; thus, when the Jews translated their Bible into Greek (the Septuagint) they used one Greek word to represent both Hebrew words. In later times the Jews made a distinction between them, and the “shophar” came to occupy a prominent place in their worship.
In Numbers the silver trumpet — “Make thee two trumpets of silver” (Num. 10:2) — is specified for use at the monthly annual festivals. “Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the Lord your God” (Num. 10:10).
The shophar is mentioned for use at the same occasions as the silver trumpet. “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation” (Lev. 23:24) And in Psalm 81:3: “Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.”
The silver trumpet was used regularly for leading praise in the temple. “Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets: It came even to pass as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever; that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord” (2 Chron. 5:12,13).
The shophar was also used for leading praise in the temple (Psa. 150:3). When David brought the Ark to Zion, both the trumpet and the shophar were used. Both Solomon and Jehu were proclaimed king by the sound of the shophar, but when Joash became king the silver trumpet was blown.
If there is a difference between uses of the shophar and the silver trumpet, it is that the shophar is often used in calling man to worship and praise whereas the silver trumpet calls to God. For example, in warfare the shophar was a human signal; a call to arms: “But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered after him” (Judg. 6:34). Gideon’s three hundred men were equipped with shophars as well as torches and pitchers. The city watchman used a shophar to alert the people to danger. “For the builders, everyone had his sword girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me” (Neh. 4:18; cf. Ezek. 33:3,4 and Amos 3:6).
“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” (Num. 29:1). The shophar was blown on that day, calling the people to sacrifice. The plaintive, pleading and challenging sound of the shophar helped to prepare the minds of the worshippers for the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month. After the exile in Babylon, that day came to be understood both as a call to repentance and as a start of a New Year, and was named “Rosh Hashanah”. On this day the shophar was blown according to a well-defined series of notes. These were interspersed with scriptural verses celebrating God’s kingship, His remembrance of the covenant, and His guidance of the historical process from the revelation at Mount Sinai to the future day when the great shophar of universal redemption will sound: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem” (Isa. 27:13).
We too wait for the day of the great trumpet, not only for Israel’s redemption but also for the gathering of God’s elect and the resurrection of the dead: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51,52; see also Matt. 24:31).
By contrast, sounding the silver trumpet had a religious significance. It issued a cry to God to remember His people in danger and was thus equivalent to prayer: “And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies” (Num. 10:9; cf. 2 Chron. 13:12-14).
Bob Burr (Barnt Green, Birmingham, UK)
“The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the singers sang and the trumpeters played. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed” (2 Chron. 29:28).
“We make mistakes if we suppose that worship is a mere cloud, a foam of sentiment; it is work of all kinds, door-opening and lamp-lighting and floor-sweeping, cleansing, preparing… cry of thunderous eloquence, and hymn, sweet, gentle, tender; and prayer that beats against heaven like artillery — all these things and many more are included in the complex idea of worship. Let each man, therefore, do what he can in this matter, knowing that no one man works the whole ministry of worship, but that it is an act of cooperation and combination, one part playing with another part, and each part interrelating itself with each other, so as to constitute a sum total significant of unity, adaptation, music, and homage” (John Parker, Biblical Illustrator).
“Lone Mary comes at early morn”
Sis. Catherine Alexandra Morgan wrote the words for Hymn 251[new book].
Catherine Morgan was born in 1900, the youngest of three sisters. She had two younger brothers. It was her youngest brother, Andrew, who first became interested in Christadelphian teaching. Andrew was baptized in 1927, followed by his sister Margaret. Catherine took another year to be convinced and was baptized in 1928.
She was trained as a teacher and that led to the post of headmistress at a church school. Her conversion forced her resignation from this position, and she took up a teacher’s post in a local council school.
Within a few years of Catherine’s baptism she began teaching in the Isolation League Sunday School. Later her talents were also used in her ecclesial Sunday school. Bro. L.G. Sargent, another poet, described her as “a writer of graceful verse which always reflected the love of nature”. She produced stories, articles and verses illustrated with her own pen-and-ink drawings for The Christadelphian Children’s Magazine and later for The Path and youth magazines right up to her final fatal illness. From her pen flowed a number of articles published in The Christadelphian Magazine on a variety of topics that illustrated the spiritual qualities of her mind. Bro. Melva Purkis wrote, “Catherine had for all of us a message of light and loved to convey it in story, poem and prose which captivated us both by the simple beauty of her words and the graceful line of her sketches… She brought into any company a radiance which glowed from eyes which had beheld the vision of God and a life that had been lived in heavenly places in Christ.”
Her book Beside The Brook was a story of someone who found the truth. It was published in 1947 and became a favorite with children in the Christadelphian community. It was based in the countryside around her home.
Catherine Morgan wrote the words for three hymns in our current hymnbook:
The text for Hymn 185, “The Lord a gift of love foretold”, is based on the Lord’s words to his disciples about the coming comforter from the Gospel of John and the present comfort available from God.
Hymn 188 — “Angels o’er the sleeping earth” — is placed under the general category of Christ: His Birth in the hymnbook. This hymn presents scenes from Christ’s birth, his youth in Nazareth, his preaching, his death as the Lamb of God, and his future as Israel’s king.
Hymn 251 — “Lone Mary comes at early morn” — is under the category Christ: His Resurrection. This hymn presents scenes from the resurrection of Jesus — the visits by Mary and the disciples to the tomb, Jesus’ manifestation to two disciples (Luke 21), and the empowering outcome of the risen Lord’s visits to his followers.
[Quotes and information extracted from the pamphlet by the late Bro. Stuart Cowlishaw, Some Past Christadelphian Hymn Writers and Composers, 1991, page 17.]
Use of Instruments in Worship
Bro. Mike LeDuke was recently asked on the www.thisisyourbible.com website if it is appropriate and Biblical to use instruments to accompany singing in our worship. Here is Brother Mike’s reply.
I have only ever heard the Church of Christ say that musical instruments are forbidden in worship. However, I’ve been told the Old Order Amish and Mennonites, Plymouth Brethren, and some very conservative Baptist groups don’t use instruments. However, the Church of Christ makes it a point of doctrine, and one fellow from the Church of Christ with whom I spoke consigned all churches which used such instruments to the fires of hell.
Of course it is an argument from silence, as nowhere in the New Testament are musical instruments forbidden — while there is frequent mention of them in the Old Testament in relation to praise and worship. Indeed, in Psalm 33:2,3, for example, the use of instruments is positively commanded. The whole of Psalm 150 is a hymn of joy in praise of God on a variety of instruments including cymbals!
The Church of Christ has, from what I have been told, some wonderful four-part harmony a cappella singing in its services, but the New Testament is equally silent about that form of worship too. They also use a tuning fork or pitch pipe to start their singing. It could be argued that a tuning fork or pitch pipe is a form of musical instrument. This all seems somewhat inconsistent. The fact that the New Testament is silent about whether or not to use instruments in worship is not a compelling argument against their use. God was clearly pleased with musical worship involving instruments in the Old Testament.
Although there is no explicit approval of musical instruments in the New Testament (just as there is no explicit approval of four-part harmony or tuning forks), there is implicit approval. It is found in one of the key verses usually cited to support the case for a “no instruments” policy. Colossians 3:16 refers to “teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
The word “psalm” (Greek “psalmos”) in Colossians 3:16 means, according to Young, “a song of praise (on an instrument)”. Bullinger, in his critical lexicon and concordance, defines it: “a touching, twang, e.g. of a bowstring; of stringed instruments, a playing, music; in later usage, a song as accompanied by stringed instruments…” The very meaning of the word “psalm” in Colossians 3:16 is a complete refutation of the “no musical instrument” position.
“Psalmos” is also used in 1 Corinthians 14:26 and Ephesians 5:19. The psalms to which Paul refers in these two quotations are from the Hebrew Old Testament book of Psalms. The meaning of the Hebrew word for psalm, like its New Testament counterpart is, according to Strong’s Dictionary of Old Testament Words, “properly, instrumental music; by implication a poem set to notes.”
If a group doesn’t want to use instruments in their worship, that’s their choice and it isn’t wrong. If on the other hand they do wish to use instruments in their worship and praise, that is also a valid choice and, indeed, the choice with more solid scriptural precedent behind it.
2006 Manitoulin Youth Conference Cantata on CD
This cantata was presented at the Manitoulin Youth Conference in 2006. Its title is “In Him Was Life” — The Eight Signs of John.
The cost is $6 in Canada, and $5 in US per CD (plus postage if necessary). To obtain a copy of this or other Christadelphian cantatas, please contact:
Tim Styles
14774 Berwick
Livonia, MI 48154 USA
Email: timstyles@juno.com
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One