Under the law, three feasts were held in the seventh month — the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth). The blowing of trumpets in Israel served to gather the people together. Prophetically it refers to that day in which God will gather His people back to the land of Israel: “He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect” (Matt. 24:31). It was also a memorial to God — “a memorial of blowing of trumpets” (Lev. 23:24) — accompanied by burnt offerings, a sweet savor to God, and a sin offering (Num. 29:1-6).
Obedience to the Word of God brings joy to God; it is that joy that gives us strength. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). This verse does not speak of our joy in God — though there will be joy and rejoicing: “Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart” (Jer. 15:16). When another derives pleasure from the things we do, it gives us encouragement and the strength to go on; how much more so when it is God. On the other hand, when we are disobedient, we are spiritually weak; Adam’s sin led him to hide from God. How important, at times such as this, that “we confess our sins” and God will be “faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
The people were clearly grieved by the things that they had heard from the law, but the Levites quieted them by saying, “Hold your peace, for the day is holy” (Neh. 9:11). Their grief was good — “grief according to God works repentance to salvation, never to be regretted” (2 Cor. 7:10 JND) — but this day was a holy assembly; it was a time to “make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob” (Psa. 81:1). Similarly, the Lord’s Supper is not a time for introspection but for the remembrance of the Lord, to show forth His death until He comes (1 Cor. 11:23-26). My salvation is not even in view, but rather, the Lord Jesus Christ and the perfectness of His person and work in the sight of God. It should bear the character of the burnt offering and not the the sin offering. We will never understand the magnitude of that work at Calvary by looking within ourselves; we can only begin to comprehend its greatness when we get a glimpse from God’s perspective.
The peoples’ weeping turned to joy, a joy that could not be contained, for “all the people went their way, to eat and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great rejoicing. For they had understood the words that were declared to them” (Neh. 8:13 JND). What an encouragement when there is spiritual comprehension and understanding.