The Sounds Of The Temple Are Returning To Jerusalem

For nearly two thousand years, these were sounds that belonged to the Bible.

The Temple was gone. The sacrifices had ceased. The priestly service ended. The silver trumpets associated with Israel's ancient worship became artifacts of another age.

But on Rosh Hashanah this year, something remarkable happened on the Temple Mount.

Hundreds of Jews ascended the mountain. Organized Jewish prayer continued there for hours. Worshippers openly carried prayer books and wore traditional prayer shawls.

Then the shofar sounded.

And beside it sounded two silver trumpets—recreating a combination of instruments associated with worship in ancient Jerusalem.

A Temple has not been rebuilt. Sacrifices have not resumed.

But increasingly, people are preparing as though they someday could.

The significance of the silver trumpets could easily be missed.

God commanded Moses in Numbers 10 to make two trumpets of hammered silver. They became associated with Israel's national life and worship, and Scripture specifically commanded their use during appointed festivals and over certain sacrifices.

For generations, Christians have read those passages as descriptions of Israel's ancient past.

Now the sound of silver trumpets has been heard again on the mountain where the Temple once stood.

Rabbi Josh Wander, who participated in the Rosh Hashanah gathering, believes this was the first time in thousands of years that the shofar and silver trumpets had sounded together on the Temple Mount.

It was not completely permitted. Police briefly detained those responsible for bringing the instruments onto the Mount, and Israeli authorities confirmed that administrative proceedings were opened. But according to Wander, worshippers were allowed to finish each round of blasts before police intervened.

Three rounds were completed.

That might sound like a small detail. Against the recent history of the Temple Mount, however, it illustrates an extraordinary transformation.

For years, Jews could be removed or detained for visibly praying there. Even carrying Jewish prayer books was heavily restricted. This Rosh Hashanah, a large group spent hours openly praying, some wearing prayer shawls and carrying approved prayer books.

Practices once considered almost unimaginable are gradually becoming possible.

And Temple-related practices are beginning to appear with them.

The trumpets are only one piece of a much larger story.

Jewish organizations dedicated to preparing for a future Temple have spent decades researching exactly how biblical Temple worship functioned.

Sacred vessels have been recreated. Priestly garments have been produced. The procedures surrounding sacrifices have been studied. Priests descended from the biblical priestly line have received instruction concerning Temple service.

These efforts are not about constructing a museum exhibit depicting ancient Judaism.

The stated objective of groups such as the Temple Institute is the eventual restoration of Temple worship.

That changes the significance of what is happening.

For centuries, Jews prayed for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple. Today, some Jews are moving beyond prayer and attempting to solve the practical problems that would arise if that opportunity ever came.

What vessels would be needed?

How would the priests serve?

How would sacrifices be performed?

How would biblical requirements concerning ritual purity be satisfied?

Increasingly, those questions are being treated not merely as matters of ancient history, but as preparations for a possible future.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this shift better than the extraordinary attention surrounding the red heifer.

Numbers 19 describes a purification ceremony involving an unblemished red cow. Its ashes were mixed with water and used to cleanse people from ritual impurity associated with contact with the dead.

To most people, it is one of the more obscure commandments in the Old Testament.

To Jews preparing for renewed Temple worship, it is anything but obscure.

They believe restoring biblical standards of purification is necessary before full Temple worship can resume. That is why enormous attention has been given to finding red heifers that could potentially meet the biblical requirements.

Practical preparations for the ceremony have also taken place.

Think about what that means.

People are not simply asking whether another Temple could someday stand in Jerusalem.

They are working through the details of how worship could actually begin.

There is another obstacle that would have seemed nearly insurmountable only a few decades ago: Israeli politics.

The Temple Mount is one of the most sensitive pieces of territory on earth. Any change there can reverberate throughout Israel, the Muslim world and the international community.

Yet before Rosh Hashanah, Israeli lawmakers Simcha Rothman and Shlomo Karai publicly called for Jews to be permitted to pray and sound the shofar on the Temple Mount. Rothman argued that preventing Jews from fulfilling the commandment at Judaism's holiest site infringed upon their ability to practice their faith.

Temple Mount activism that once existed largely on Israel's political fringes has increasingly entered mainstream political debate.

Activists are already looking toward the next step: expanding the Jewish religious practices permitted on the Mount during biblical festivals.

Nobody knows how far—or how quickly—this will go.

Enormous religious, political and security barriers remain. Any serious attempt to change the existing arrangements surrounding the Temple Mount could trigger an international crisis.

Yet something is clearly moving.

For Jews involved in these efforts, this is about restoring something lost nearly two thousand years ago.

For Christians who understand biblical prophecy, however, there is another reason to watch Jerusalem closely.

Several prophetic passages describe Temple worship operating again in the last days.

Daniel describes sacrifices being stopped. Jesus points His disciples toward Daniel's prophecy of the "abomination of desolation" standing in the holy place. Paul describes a future figure entering what he calls the Temple of God in 2 Thessalonians 2. Revelation 11 describes a Temple in Jerusalem being measured.

Christians disagree about precisely how and when these passages will be fulfilled. But generations of Bible prophecy teachers have expected that some form of Jewish Temple worship would eventually return to Jerusalem.

For much of Christian history, that required imagining a world that did not exist.

There was no Jewish state.

Then Israel was reborn.

Jerusalem was divided.

Then Israel gained control of the Old City and Temple Mount in 1967.

Jews were severely restricted from praying on the Mount.

Now Jewish prayer there is becoming increasingly open.

Temple worship existed primarily in history books.

Now vessels have been recreated, priestly service studied, purification requirements investigated and ancient practices rehearsed.

And now the shofar and silver trumpets have sounded together on the Temple Mount.

None of this means a Third Temple will be built tomorrow. There are still immense obstacles between today's preparations and an operating Temple.

But that may be precisely why these developments deserve attention.

Biblical prophecy does not require everything to happen at once. Before sacrifices can be stopped, sacrifices must exist. Before Temple worship can operate, the infrastructure, knowledge, religious desire and political circumstances allowing it must somehow emerge.

We may be watching pieces of that infrastructure gradually fall into place.

Religious Jews and prophecy-minded Christians ultimately expect very different things to happen on this mountain. Yet both understand something much of the world overlooks:

Jerusalem is not finished making biblical history.

For almost two thousand years, the sounds of the Temple belonged to the past.

Now, faintly but unmistakably, some of those sounds are returning.