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Friend, Yom Teruah, the coronation of the King and the call of the bride!

Psalm 89:15 Blessed is the people who know the joyful sound (teruah): they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of Your countenance.

Today, many in Israel mark Rosh Hashanah as the Jewish New Year, yet the deeper meaning of Yom Teruah -- the Feast of Trumpets -- often lies hidden beneath the surface. Sweet traditions, festive meals, and greetings of "Shanah Tovah" fill the season, but the prophetic weight of this appointed time points far beyond cultural celebration. Yom Teruah is a divine rehearsal of the day when the Lord Himself will return in glory.

The Talmud teaches: “On Rosh Hashanah, recite before Me verses of kingship, so that you may crown Me as King over you.” Yet the great irony is that Israel, for the most part, has not yet recognized her Messiah. But Yeshua Himself declared that the day is coming when they will cry out, “Baruch Haba B’Shem Adonai” — “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:39), and acknowledge His true Kingship. On that day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Yeshua (Jesus) is Lord. Until then, we pray with longing and urgency for the salvation of Israel.

At the same time, the feast carried the imagery of a wedding, as if every shofar blast were the Bridegroom's cry: "Behold, I come for My bride!" The prophets foresaw this in Isaiah 27:13, where a great trumpet gathers God's scattered people home. For believers in Yeshua (Jesus), this imagery becomes intensely personal -- it is the call of the Bride, the Church, to rise and meet her Bridegroom.

The Hebrew word teruah (תרועה) itself is rich with meaning, encompassing a shout, an alarm, a cry of joy, and even a battle call -- a sound that holds together both judgment and celebration, both warning and wedding. Its connection to the shofar reaches back to Abraham on Mount Moriah, where God provided a ram caught in the thicket as a substitute for Isaac (Genesis 22). That ram, offered in Isaac's place, became etched into Jewish memory not only as a picture of sacrificial redemption but also as a prophetic sign, with its horns later linked to the sounding of the shofar in God's unfolding plan of salvation.

The rabbis taught that the ram Abraham offered in Isaac's place carried prophetic meaning in its two horns. The left horn, they said, was the one sounded at Mount Sinai when God gave the Torah, marking the covenant of the Law with Israel. The right horn, known as the shofar hagadol (the great shofar), was reserved for the future -- a trumpet blast that would herald the coming of the Messiah and the final redemption of God's people. This tradition, recorded in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (ch. 31), directly links the binding of Isaac, the giving of the Torah, and the ultimate hope of redemption together in one continuous thread of God's plan.

For believers in Yeshua, this rabbinic teaching resonates with powerful Messianic insight. The left horn at Sinai represents the first covenant of the Law, while the right horn points to the coming of the Messiah, when the great trumpet will sound to gather His people.

The New Testament affirms this mystery, declaring that at the "last trumpet" the dead will be raised imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:52) and that at the "trumpet of God" the Lord will descend, and His people will meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Thus, the shofar of Abraham's ram not only ties past covenant to future redemption but also foreshadows the day when the Bridegroom returns to claim His Bride.

Yom Teruah also ushers in the Ten Days of Awe, a solemn period of repentance leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Prophetically, this foreshadows the time between the gathering of the Bride and the return of the Messiah as Judge and King. It anticipates the great fulfillment of Revelation 11:15: "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever."

Friend, the Feast of Trumpets is both alarm and invitation. It awakens the Bride to be watchful, prepared, and adorned for her Bridegroom, while also sounding the trumpet of coronation that declares to the nations: the King is coming. Yom Teruah carries a dual message -- intimate yet majestic, bridal yet royal, tender yet triumphant. And even now, the cry of the shofar still echoes through the ages: Prepare, for the King is at the door!

Your family in the Lord with much agape love,

George, Baht Rivka, Elianna and Obadiah
George & Baht Rivka, Obi (Baltimore, Maryland), Elianna (Married living in Missouri)