Commentaria in Numeros
Note: God commands them to be made of silver, both on account of …
Josephus describes the form of these trumpets, Antiquities book 3, chapter 11: “The tube,” he says, “was a pipe a little thicker, in length a little less than a cubit, whose mouth was open only as much as sufficed for blowing, and it ended at its extremity in a form like a little bell, as a trumpet.” Moreover it was for the priests to sound these trumpets, as is plain from verse 8.
Allegorically, Rupert takes the two trumpets to be the two comings of Christ, namely the first in the flesh, the second to judgment. For at the first Christ sounded: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” At the second he will sound: “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Hence others take by the trumpets threats, for example of hell; and promises, for example of heaven, which preachers ought continually to sound to the people, that by fear and hope of eternity they may strike and pierce the hearts of men. So did St. Chrysostom, St. Antoninus, St. Dominic, St. Vincent, and other greatest heralds, who had not ornate but effective sermons by which they converted men. For the greatest stupor of men, and among all the follies of the world the greatest, is that nearly all pursue perishable and temporal things with all zeal and effort, but neglect divine and eternal things, and scarcely think of them, though all their good, and eternal, depends on them. Hence St. Hilary says that “preachers ought to be sowers of eternity.”
Such a herald was St. Paul, who was, as St. Jerome says, “the trumpet of the Gospel, the thunder of the Gentiles, the roaring of a lion.” Hear him in the Areopagus: “God now declareth to all men that all should everywhere do penance, because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed, giving faith to all, by raising him from the dead”; and when he reasoned of justice and chastity and of the judgment to come, Felix trembled, etc. And in chapter 26:24, preaching the resurrection of the dead, he heard from Festus the governor: “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.” And Paul: “I am not mad,” he said, “most excellent Festus, but I speak words of truth.”
Such was St. Francis, whose constant sermon was: “Little labour, eternal pleasure; little pleasure, perpetual pain; the calling of many, the election of few, the retribution of all.”
Such a herald was St. John the Baptist: “Brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come?” etc. “Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Tropologically Cyril, book 5 On Adoration, page 97, takes by these two beaten trumpets the two kinds of preaching used in the Church: the first that which strengthens and enlarges faith; the second that which corrects morals. See his sermon, Matthew 3, which regards wholly this. Such was the voice of one crying in the desert, which broke rocks and stones, and drew from them waters of tears, with which he prepared them for the grace and justice of Christ.
Such a herald was Christ: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” Matthew 4; and in chapters 24 and 25 his whole sermon is of the consummation of the world, of the signs preceding the judgment, of the judgment, of eternal life to be given to the pious, and of hell to the impious.
Such was St. Peter: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and manifest day of the Lord come. Save yourselves from this perverse generation,” Acts 2:20 and 40.
Such were James and John, who were therefore called by Christ “Boanerges,” that is, “sons of thunder,” Mark 3. This voice, that is this thunder, the Psalmist describes, Psalm 28: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of majesty hath thundered: the voice of the Lord is in power; the voice of the Lord in magnificence: the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars: the voice of the Lord divideth the flame of fire: the voice of the Lord shaketh the desert: the voice of the Lord prepareth the stags”—that through the fear of thunder the womb being opened they may the more easily bring forth—“and in his temple all shall speak his glory.” For the preaching of the last ones, like thunder, moved the waters, that is many peoples, to penance and tears: it broke the cedars, that is the proud: it divided the fire, that is distributed charity and the fiery tongues at Pentecost: it shook the deserted regions of the Gentiles: it prepared the stags, that is the timid and slow to the bringing forth of virtues, by fear of the judgment of God: it brought on a deluge, both of baptism and of contrition, in which sins are drowned. So there explain St. Basil, Theodoret, Augustine, Didymus and Origen.
The trumpets are of silver on account of their splendour and highest sincerity. They are beaten, because it is necessary that those who preach the life to come should grow by the blows and beatings of present tribulations, says St. Gregory, Morals book 30, chapter 7. So also Procopius: One trumpet, he says, is doctrinal, the second moral.
Symbolically, in place of the Jewish trumpets the Church uses bells, which are larger, stronger, more sonorous and durable, and therefore signify the Gospel preaching resounding through the whole world, and to endure to the end of the world, when Judaism shall be shut up in one corner of Judea. So Amalarius, Bishop of Trier, in the year of Christ 820, book 3 On the Ecclesiastical Offices, chapter 1. Bells (campanae) are so called from the city of Nola in Campania, where the larger bells were first made. So Walafrid Strabo, book On Ecclesiastical Matters, chapter 5. The manifold uses of the bell the Poet has comprised in these verses:
I praise the true God; I call the people; I summon the assembly; I mourn the dead; I put pestilence to flight; I adorn feasts.
See Jodocus Coccius in the Catholic Treasury, part 2, book 3, article 6.
WHEN THE CAMP IS TO BE MOVED.—The Hebrew is, “and when the camp is to be moved”; hence in the Hebrew two offices of the trumpets seem to be signified here, namely first, to gather the assembly of the people; second, to move the camp. But our Interpreter took the word “and” not copulatively but expositively … that in orderly series each under his own standard, roused by its own blast, might move the camp.
Verse 4. IF THOU SOUND ONCE—that is, if thou sound with one trumpet, as the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint and Josephus have, who says and adds: Moses made two trumpets, of which by one the people were called to assembly, by the other the princes were roused to consult about the commonwealth; but when both sounded, the whole people was convoked. As, then, when both sounded the blast was double, and they could be said to sound twice, so when one sounded they are said to sound once. Finally, if they sounded with a broken, cut sound (which our Interpreter calls a howling), they moved the camp; otherwise the sound of these trumpets was plain and even. Whether, however, in the moving of the camp they sounded with one trumpet or two is not clear.
Verse 6. AND AFTER THIS MANNER SHALL THE REST DO—that is, as at the first blast of the trumpet the camp was moved, and Juda, Issachar and Zabulon, who were on the east of the tabernacle, set forward; at the second blast Ruben, Simeon and Gad, who were on the south of the tabernacle, set forward: so at the third blast Ephraim, Manasses and Benjamin, who were on the west, should move camp; at the fourth finally Dan, Aser and Nephthali, who were on the north, should move camp: this is plain from what was said in chapter 1.
WITH A BLAST (that is, with a broken sound) OF THE TRUMPETS—as is the broken howling of beasts.
Verse 9. IF YOU GO TO WAR, etc., YOU SHALL SOUND, etc., AND THERE SHALL BE A REMEMBRANCE OF YOU BEFORE THE LORD—as if to say: The Lord will remember you in battles, when you sound according to this his precept, to deliver you from your enemies, and give you victory.
Verse 10. IF AT ANY TIME YOU SHALL HAVE A BANQUET—a solemn and sacred one from peace-offering victims, or a banquet which follows a sacrifice and closes it, such as was at the consecration of kings, then you shall sound these trumpets. Likewise on the Calends, that is the new moon, namely the first day of the lunar month; for this day was a feast to the Jews.
THAT THEY MAY BE TO YOU FOR A REMEMBRANCE OF YOUR GOD—that God, being roused by these, or rather by your obedience, which you render by this blast, may remember you, that is think of you, graciously accept your sacrifices, and be present to you with his help, as those who remember are wont to do. For God is said to remember anthropopathically, not properly. In God, to whom all things are stable and present, there is no memory, but a seeing and beholding of all things, past and future as well as present.