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“When you arrive in your own land and go to war against your enemies who attack you, sound the alarm with the trumpets. Then the Lord your God will remember you and rescue you from your enemies.
Numbers 10:9 · New Living Translation
Parallel translations
  • WEB When you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets. Then you will be remembered before Yahweh your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.
  • KJV And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the LORD your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies.
  • BSB When you enter into battle in your land against an adversary who attacks you, sound short blasts on the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD your God and saved from your enemies.
  • NKJV “When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.
  • NASB And when you go to war in your land against the enemy who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, so that you will be thought of by the Lord your God, and be saved from your enemies.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

In war against an oppressor, Israel was to sound the alarm and be remembered and saved by God. The trumpets were a cry of faith for deliverance.

Overview

Blowing the alarm in battle was an act of dependence, calling on God to remember and rescue His people. It taught Israel that victory came not by their strength but by the Lord's intervention, foreshadowing the salvation God grants to those who call on Him in Christ.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 30

  • 1 Sam 10:18and he said to the children of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’
  • Judg 2:18When Yahweh raised up judges for them, then Yahweh was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it grieved Yahweh because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them.
  • Gen 8:1God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
  • Ps 106:4Remember me, Yahweh, with the favor that you show to your people. Visit me with your salvation,
  • Ps 106:42Their enemies also oppressed them. They were brought into subjection under their hand.
  • Num 31:6Moses sent them, one thousand of every tribe, to the war, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand.
  • 2 Chr 13:14When Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind them; and they cried to Yahweh, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.
  • Jer 4:21How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
  • Josh 6:5It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the city wall shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every man straight in front of him.”
  • Jer 4:5Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let us go into the fortified cities!’
  • Judg 10:12The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, oppressed you; and you cried to me, and I saved you out of their hand.
  • Isa 58:1“Cry aloud, don’t spare. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their disobedience, and to the house of Jacob their sins.
  • Judg 10:8They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years, they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.
  • Judg 6:34But Yahweh’s Spirit came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together to follow him.
  • Luke 1:70–74(as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old),
  • Amos 3:6Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and Yahweh hasn’t done it?
  • Ps 136:23Who remembered us in our low estate; for his loving kindness endures forever;
  • 1 Cor 14:8For if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, who would prepare himself for war?
  • Judg 3:27When he had come, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he led them.
  • Jer 6:17I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen!’
  • Judg 4:2–3Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
  • Judg 6:9I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land.
  • Isa 18:3All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the trumpet is blown, listen!
  • Jer 4:19My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
  • Ezek 7:14They have blown the trumpet, and have made all ready; but no one goes to the battle; for my wrath is on all its multitude.
  • Hos 5:8“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!
  • Jer 6:1“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks out from the north, and a great destruction.
  • Judg 7:16–21He divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put into the hands of all them trumpets, and empty pitchers, with torches within the pitchers.
  • Ezek 33:3–6if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
  • Zeph 1:16a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (2)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Numbers videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Numbers 10:9YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on NumbersMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.

How Numbers 10:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.