THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPETS

Why do I begin a book about trumpets with a weeping woman? Because the trumpet of God is never noise for the sake of noise. Every trumpet in Scripture is blown over somebody's tears. The trumpet at Sinai was blown over a nation that had wept four hundred years in Egypt. The trumpet at Jericho was blown over a generation that had wept forty years in the wilderness. The last trumpet will be blown over every grave that the church has ever wept beside. The trumpet is God's answer to Rachel. It is heaven saying out loud, "Refrain thy voice from weeping — they shall come again."

So if you are opening this book with tears in your eyes, you are opening it in the right condition. Dry-eyed people rarely hear trumpets. But everyone who has wept toward heaven has an ear that heaven intends to fill with sound. Selah — and let me explain that word right away, because I will use it often. "Selah" is a Hebrew word from the Psalms. Nobody knows its full meaning for certain, but the best understanding is simple: pause, and weigh what you just read. Stop. Think. Lift it up. That is all I mean by it. When you see "Selah," do not rush past. The trumpet deserves a listening ear, not a running reader.

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK: THE THREE TONGUES OF THE TRUMPET

This series is trilingual. That is a big word for a simple practice: alongside the English text of Scripture, I will keep placing before you the same truth in the three great languages of the Bible — Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Let me tell you plainly why, so that no reader feels shut out.

Hebrew is the language of the Old Testament — the tongue of Moses, David, and the prophets. When the trumpet first sounds in your Bible, it sounds in Hebrew. Aramaic is the everyday language the Lord Jesus spoke in the streets of Galilee, and the language of the ancient Eastern church's Scriptures (the Peshitta). Greek is the language of the New Testament — the tongue in which Paul wrote "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised."

When I give you a word in these languages, I will always do three things: I will show you the word, I will spell out how to pronounce it in ordinary English letters, and I will tell you what it means in the plainest speech I can find. You do not need a seminary degree to read this book. If you can read a road sign, you can read this book. The languages are not here to impress you; they are here to let you hear the trumpet in stereo — the way heaven has always sounded it.

Here are the three master words of this entire series. Learn these three, and you have the key to all eight volumes:

Hebrew: שׁוֹפָר — shofar — the ram's horn trumpet, the wild, piercing horn of Sinai and Jericho; and חֲצֹצְרָה — chatsotserah — the silver trumpet of the sanctuary, hammered from one piece of silver, blown by the priests.

Greek: σάλπιγξ — salpinx — the trumpet; and σαλπίζω — salpizō — to sound the trumpet. This is the word in "the trumpet shall sound" and "the seventh angel sounded."

Aramaic: shipura (ܫܝܦܘܪܐ) — the trumpet, the word the Eastern church read in 1 Corinthians 15:52; and qarna (קַרְנָא) — the horn.

One trumpet. Three tongues. Eight books. Seven blasts. Let us begin.