Psalm 81:3
Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
Blow up the trumpet in the new moon,.... Either in every new moon, or first day of the month, which was religiously observed by the Jews, 2 Kings 4:23 or rather the new moon, or first day of the seventh month, the month Tisri, which day was a memorial of blowing of trumpets, Leviticus 23:34, and so the Targum,
"blow the trumpet in the month of Tisri,''
when their new year began, and was typical of the year of the redeemed of the Lord, of the acceptable year of our God, of the famous new year, the Gospel dispensation, when old things passed away, and all things became new. The Jews say this blowing of trumpets was in commemoration of Isaac's deliverance, a ram being sacrificed for him, and therefore they sounded with trumpets made of rams' horns; or in remembrance of the trumpet blown at the giving of the law; though it rather was an emblem of the Gospel, and the ministry of it, by which sinners are aroused, awakened and quickened, and souls are charmed and allured, and filled with spiritual joy and gladness:
in the time appointed; so Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret the word of a set fixed time; see Proverbs 7:20, the word {a} used has the signification of covering; and the former of these understand it of the time just before the change of the moon, when it is covered, which falls in with the former phrase; and so the Targum,
"in the moon that is covered;''
though the Latin interpreter renders it,
"in the month which is covered with the days of our solemnities,''
there being many festivals in the month of Tisri; the blowing of trumpets on the first day of it, the atonement on the tenth, and the feast of tabernacles on the fifteenth. But De Dieu has made it appear, from the use of the word in the Syriac language, that it should be rendered "in the full moon", and so directs to the right understanding of the feast next mentioned;
on our solemn feast day, which must design a feast which was at the full of the moon; and so must be either the feast of the passover, which was on the fourteenth day of the month Nisan, and was a type of Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us, on which account we should keep the feast, Exodus 12:6, or else the feast of tabernacles, which was on the fifteenth of the month Tisri, kept in commemoration of the Israelites dwelling in booths, Leviticus 23:34 and which is called the feast, and the solemn feast, emphatically; see 1 Kings 8:2, and was typical of the state of God's people in this world, who dwell in the earthly houses of their tabernacles, and have no continuing city; and of the churches of Christ, which are the tabernacles in which God and his people dwell, and will abide in this form but for a time, and are moveable; and also of Christ's tabernacling in human nature, John 1:14.
{a} hokb "quum tegitur luna", Piscator; "ad verbum in obtectione", i. e. "eum obtegatur luna a sole", Amama.