Silver Trumpets

(Book of Numbers 10:1 - 10:10)
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Make two trumpets of beaten silver that can be used to summon the people to assembly and to signal the breaking of camp.  When both trumpets are blown that means the entire community should gather before you at the entrance to the Tabernacle.  If only one trumpet is blown that means only the leaders, the heads of Israel's clans, should convene.

"When a short blast of the trumpet is sounded, the tribes camped to the east of the Tabernacle are to set out.  At a second blast, the tribes encamped to the south are then to set out.  Such alarm blasts will be the signal to break camp; however, when the trumpet is sounded for assembly, it should be with a blast of different tone and duration, not the alarm blast.

"Only Aaron' descendants, the priests, are authorized to blow the trumpets.  This will be a permanent rule to be observed by you down through the generations.

"When have settled in your own land and march into battle against an enemy who is attacking you, sound the trumpets in alarm.  Then Jehovah your god will remember you and come to your aid.  You should also blow the trumpets on occasions of jubilation, during festivities, at the beginning of each month, and when you make burnt offerings and peace offerings so that it will remind you of your contract with your god.  Thus says Jehovah your god."

Note
1.  The trumpets referred to are not the familiar valved horn, a modern innovation, only 200 years old.  This trumpet is the hasoserah,  a straight, somewhat narrow tube about a foot and a half long and flared at the end, similar to other ancient trumpets that were developed about 1500 BC.  The two manners in which it could be sounded were, in Hebrew, the taqa' and the more strident teruw'ah used for alarms.  Most horns can be blown in these two styles.  It should be mentioned the hasoserah is different from the shofar, the ram's horn previously referred to in Leviticus.