Commandments · Positive commandments

To sound the trumpets over the offerings and in times of trouble

#100 Positive commandment Numbers 10:10

The cited verse

The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)

וּתְקַעְתֶּם בַּחֲצֹצְרֹת עַל עֹלֹתֵיכֶם וְעַל זִבְחֵי שַׁלְמֵיכֶם וְהָיוּ לָכֶם לְזִכָּרוֹן לִפְנֵי אֱלֹהֵיכֶם

In Maimonides’ words

How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.

היא שצונו לתקוע בחצוצרות במקדש עם הקרבת הקרבן מקרבני המועדות. והוא אמרו יתעלה וביום שמחתכם ובמועדיכם ותקעתם וגו'. ובבאור אמרו שמצוה זו בחצוצרות. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בספרי וראש השנה ותענית, וכן אנחנו מצווים לתקוע בחצוצרות בעתות הצורך והצרות כשנזעק לפני השם יתעלה, והוא אמרו וכי תבאו מלחמה בארצכם על הצר הצורר אתכם וגו'. (בהעלותך, הלכות תענית פ"א):

And that is that He commanded us to blow with trumpets in the Temple during the bringing of the holiday offerings. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "And on your joyous occasions and on your festivals [...], you shall blow, etc." (Numbers 10:10). In the explanation (Rosh Hashanah 26b), they said that this commandment (on public fasts) is with the trumpets. And the regulations of this commandment were already explained in the Sifrei, in Rosh Hashanah and in Taanit. And likewise are we commanded to blow with trumpets at times of need and of distress, when we yell out in front of God, may He be exalted. And that is His saying, "When you are at war in your land against an aggressor who attacks you, etc." (Numbers 10:9). (See Parashat Behaalotecha; Mishneh Torah, Fasts 1.)

Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.

Literary form: a ritual instruction

Applicability

How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.

  • Requires a standing Temple

Classical halakhic consequences

The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.

Imposed by a court

No court-imposed penalty is recorded.

At the hands of Heaven

No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.

Ritual remedy

No ritual remedy is recorded.

How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment

The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.

  • Orthodox Binding, with modification
  • Conservative Kept as an ethical principle
  • Reform Not binding
  • Reconstructionist Not binding
  • Karaite Not binding

24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.

How later traditions received this commandment

How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.

Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)

  • 1QM (War Scroll) cols. II-IX The catalog describes this reception as: expanded

Josephus

  • Ant. 3.291-294 The catalog describes this reception as: paraphrase

The New Testament

  • 1 Corinthians 14:8 The catalog describes this reception as: figurative analogy trumpet as image of intelligible signaling/proclamation
  • Revelation 8:2-9:14 reinterpreted it eschatological trumpet sequence drawing on cultic/martial trumpet imagery

Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks

One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.

This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.

No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.

Source & licence

The commentary, cross-references, reception, and modern-conflict analysis in this section are drawn from a public compilation of the 613 commandments, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The cited biblical text is rendered from GEBible’s own public-domain reading corpus. CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab). GEBible’s presentation of this material is offered under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 terms.