StrongerBible

salpizō

σαλπίζω

GreekG4537“trumpet, sound a trumpet, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 6:21Co 15:52Rev 8:6Rev 8:7Rev 8:8Rev 8:10Rev 8:12Rev 8:13Rev 9:1Rev 9:13Rev 10:7Rev 11:15
Root family
Word studysal-PID-zoverb

What salpizō means

to sound a trumpet: to blow the signal blast that summons, warns, or announces that something is about to happen.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In the Bible a trumpet is a signalling device, not part of an orchestra. One blast could muster an army, warn a walled city, break off a battle, or open a festival day. This verb names that act and nothing more: the horn goes to the lips and the blast goes out. The instrument itself is a separate word (σάλπιγξ), and the man whose trade was blowing it is a third (σαλπιστής).

Ten of the twelve New Testament uses stand in Revelation, where seven angels blow in turn. Each blast is followed at once by a stroke of ruin on the earth, so the sound is never decoration. It is authorization: the signal has been given, and the next act begins. John counts the blasts the way an army would, and the last two are announced ahead of time so the reader hears them coming.

The two remaining uses pull in opposite directions from that same act. Paul leaves the player out of sight and simply says the trumpet will sound, and at that sound the dead are raised (1 Corinthians 15:52). Greek could use the verb this way, with no one named as the subject, much as we say "the bugle sounded" without asking who held it. Jesus uses it of a man making certain everyone notices his own generosity (Matthew 6:2), which lands very close to the English expression about blowing your own trumpet.

Nuances

1aan angel sounds a trumpet, and the blast sets loose the next stroke of God's judgment on the earth.
Rev 8:6Rev 8:7Rev 8:8Rev 8:10Rev 8:12Rev 8:13Rev 9:1Rev 9:13Rev 10:7Rev 11:15
1bthe trumpet sounds with nobody named as the player: the blast itself is the event, and here it calls the dead out of their graves.
1Co 15:52
1cto trumpet your own good deed, making sure other people notice what you have given.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyContested
Mat 6:2
Mat 6:2

Whether Matthew 6:2 reports an actual practice of sounding trumpets when alms were given, or uses the trumpet as a figure of speech for advertising one's own generosity.

  • majorityThe trumpet is figurative, or deliberately exaggerated. No source outside this verse attests trumpet blasts at the giving of alms, so the picture caricatures the ostentatious giver rather than describing synagogue procedure.; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1988), on Matthew 6:2; Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, 1995), on Matthew 6:2
  • minorityThe trumpet is literal. Trumpets were sounded in the synagogue on public fast days, occasions on which collections for the poor were taken, and the verse assumes that setting.; Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, vol. 1 (Munich, 1922), on Matthew 6:2

What scholars say about salpizō

σαλπίζω is formed from σάλπιγξ, the trumpet, and from Homer onward names the act of sounding that instrument. LSJ records both a personal construction and an impersonal one (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.17, ἐπεὶ ἐσάλπιγξε, "when the trumpet sounded"), and the latter is the construction Paul uses at 1 Cor 15:52 (σαλπίσει γάρ), where the subject is left unexpressed and English supplies "the trumpet". BDAG accordingly treats all the New Testament data under the single gloss "sound a trumpet", noting the absolute use in Revelation, where the seven angels blow in turn, alongside the impersonal future in 1 Corinthians. Gerhard Friedrich's TDNT article on σάλπιγξ, σαλπίζω and σαλπιστής surveys the instrument's signalling functions in the Greek world and in Israel (military muster, alarm, the proclamation of a festival or of a new reign) and connects the Revelation series to the Old Testament trumpet of theophany and of the Day of the LORD (Exod 19:16; Joel 2:1; Zeph 1:16); Beale develops that background for the trumpet cycle of Rev 8 to 11, reading it against the Exodus plagues and the trumpets of Jericho. In the Septuagint the verb regularly renders Hebrew תָּקַע and, in Chronicles, the verb חצר used of the priests' trumpets. On Matthew 6:2 the commentators divide over whether σαλπίσῃς points to an actual custom or is figurative: Davies and Allison, and Betz, judge it figurative for want of any external evidence, while Strack and Billerbeck adduce the trumpets of the public fast day; the disagreement concerns the referent in that one verse, not the meaning of the verb, on which the lexica are unanimous. Thiselton observes that Paul's "last trumpet" invokes the standard end-time signal without implying a numbered series of the kind Revelation supplies.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), s.v. σαλπίζωlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement, s.v. σαλπίζω, σάλπιγξlexicon
  • Gerhard Friedrich, "σάλπιγξ, σαλπίζω, σαλπιστής," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, 1971), 71-88dictionary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1988), on Matthew 6:2commentary
  • Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, 1995), on Matthew 6:2commentary
  • Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, vol. 1 (Munich, 1922), on Matthew 6:2commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, 1999), on Revelation 8:2-11:19commentary
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, 2000), on 1 Corinthians 15:52commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of σαλπίζω

aorist active indicative 3s

ἐσάλπισεν

Rev 8:7, Rev 8:8, Rev 8:10, Rev 8:12, Rev 9:1, Rev 9:13, Rev 11:15

present active infinitive

σαλπίζειν

Rev 8:13, Rev 10:7

aorist active subjunctive 2s

σαλπίσῃς

Mat 6:2

aorist active subjunctive 3p

σαλπίσωσιν

Rev 8:6

future active indicative 3s

σαλπίσει

1Co 15:52