Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.
Ver. 2. Two trumpets of silver.] Signifying the voice of the law and gospel in the mouths of God's ministers, who must "lift up the voice like a trumpet," Isa 58:1 with fervour, zeal, and courage; a (1.) To gather the people, and assemble the elders; Joe 2:16 (2.) To put them upon their marchings and motions towards the heavenly Canaan; and here to blow an alarm -
“ Sic clames ut Stentora vincere possis - ”
as that famous Farellus did, when the friars, to drown his voice in the pulpit, rang their greatest bells, but he drowned them out; (3.) To get them upon their battlements, and there hence to blow an alarm likewise, upon the approach of spiritual enemies; taking the same liberty to cry down sin, that men take to commit it; b and to descry the devil's stratagems that are so destructive to men's souls. They must cast away the inverse trumpets of Furius Fulvius, which sounded a retreat when they should have sounded an alarm; they must faithfully show God's "people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins," Isa 58:1 yea, "all their transgressions in all their sins." Lev 16:21 Lastly, as the priests were to sound the silver trumpets at their solemn feasts, Psa 81:3 for a monument of spiritual gladness before the Lord; so must ministers of the gospel publish the glad tidings of the gospel; "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, her sin is pardoned"; Isa 40:2 make the people hear the joyful sound, that they may walk in the sense of God's presence, and in the light of his countenance; yea, "rejoice in his name all the day long." Psa 89:15-16
a Ad ravim usque vocem intendit, nec vinci se a strepitu ullo passus est. - Melch. Adam., 114.
b Suetonius ea libertate scripsit Imperatorum vitas qua ipsi vixerunt.