Why is there silence in heaven for half an hour in Revelation 8:1?

Rev. 8:1. — “And when He opened the seventh Seal there was silence in the Heaven about half an hour.” The seven-sealed book, or scroll, seen in the open hand of Jehovah (5:1-2) has its Seals successively opened by the Lamb. Six of the seals were broken in chapter 6, and now, in the first verse of our chapter, He opens the final one, with the result that the book of God’s counsels respecting the earth lies open before us. The plans, the counsels of our God regarding the vast interests of earth, as also the means and manner by which these counsels will be effected, are no longer a secret. All are disclosed. But why is the seventh Seal separated from the preceding six? Naturally one would suppose that it would have concluded chapter 6. But instead a whole chapter (Rev. 7) comes in between the sixth and seventh Seals, a parenthetic interruption breaking the orderly sequence of events. The sixth Seal (Rev. 6:12-17) announced judgment of such an appalling character that in the universal terror which ensued the fears of men, from the king to the slave, supposed the general horror to be the great day of the wrath of the Lamb. But no, and so ere the seventh Seal is opened, which is preparatory to the infliction of yet further and severer judgments, the veil is drawn aside, and two great millennial companies from amongst Israel and the Gentiles are introduced into the scene, the result of an extensive work of grace carried on even while judgment is desolating the earth (Rev. 7).

“Silence in Heaven” does not mean that the songs and hallelujahs of the redeemed are silent. The silence must be interpreted in connection with the immediate subject on hand, which is judgment. But, inasmuch as the source of these judgments on earth is the throne set in Heaven, the silence is there. The course of judgment is arrested. There is a pause both as to the announcement and execution of further chastisements. The silence is of brief duration. “Half an hour” simply denotes an exceedingly brief period during which judicial action is suspended. The breaking of the seventh Seal is followed, not by judgment, but by an ominous silence. It is a calm before a storm, like a stillness in nature preceding a tempest. How long the awful suspense lasts we are not informed, but in the meantime we are called to witness an action of an entirely different character from anything which has yet passed before us, and one which fills up the interval of the half an hour, whatever may be the precise length of time thereby indicated.

(4) The seventh seal is now loosed, and there is silence in heaven about half an hour: evidently a brief pause only, and quite unsuited to indicate the commencement of eternity. One cannot say that it corresponds either, of necessity, to any pause in events upon earth, although this might follow such a pause in heaven, for heaven is in full government, as we have seen, of the affairs upon earth. There is a more important reference to which Bishop Newton (after Philo) calls attention — that while the sacrifices were made (2 Chron. 29:2528), the voices, and instruments, and trumpets sounded." "While the priest went into the temple to burn incense (Luke 1:9-10) all was silent, and the people prayed to themselves." Here we have immediately the prayers of the saints offered to God, with incense added to them by the angel-priest; and the prayers are answered in the sounding of the trumpets, which announce more distinctly than ever the judgments of God which are at hand upon a world that has rejected Christ, and still rejects His people. In this case the silence in heaven links the opening of the seal in a very direct way with that which follows; and it would be plain that we have not in the trumpets events which go on side by side with those that have already been before us in the seals, but a new and separate series of judgments: the catastrophe under the sixth seal being in this way still more distinctly seen as by no means the final break-up of earthly governments preparatory to the assumption of the throne on earth by Him to whom of right it belongs. On the other hand, all in the seals hitherto has been preparatory. They are the opening of the book, as on the face of it would be natural to say; and only at this point therefore is the book fully opened. The contents have yet to be made plain to us.

We have then, first of all, the opening of the seventh seal: "And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an. hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets." (vv. 1, 2.) Immediately upon the opening of the seventh seal there follows, not, as in the previous cases, the attendant judgment, but silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. Surely this expresses the solemnity of the crisis which has now arrived. It is, as it were, a divine pause before the infliction of the last and most awful judgments upon the habitable world. The seven angels which stood before God then appear, and to them are given seven trumpets. It will be remarked that the trumpets are developed out of the seventh seal.

We have then, first of all, the opening of the seventh seal: "And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an. hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets." (vv. 1, 2.) Immediately upon the opening of the seventh seal there follows, not, as in the previous cases, the attendant judgment, but silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. Surely this expresses the solemnity of the crisis which has now arrived. It is, as it were, a divine pause before the infliction of the last and most awful judgments upon the habitable world. The seven angels which stood before God then appear, and to them are given seven trumpets. It will be remarked that the trumpets are developed out of the seventh seal.

We are told that when he had opened the seventh seal, "there was silence in heaven about the space of half-an-hour." There have been many conjectures about what this "silence in heaven" can mean; but there has been no better thought suggested, perhaps, than that of all intelligences in heaven standing in solemn awe at the fact, that the Lord Himself was now about to go forth in flaming fiery vengeance, to judge the world in righteousness, and to put all enemies under His feet. We can understand "silence in heaven," I think, under such unparalleled circumstances.

The opening of the seventh seal is followed by silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. There is something intensely solemn in the thought of all heaven being hushed into silence under the awe-inspiring sense of events about to take place on earth.

The silence in heaven when the seventh seal is opened is indicative of the solemn things which are now to come. The scroll is now fully opened and there is an ominous hush as the seven angels prepare to sound their trumpets of judgment. John beholds these seven angels, but before they begin to sound "another angel" is seen standing at the altar. This angel is not a creature, but like the angel of Jehovah in the Old Testament, is our Lord Himself. He is seen as the Priest in behalf of the praying, suffering saints on earth. No angel can offer the prayers of the saints, but He, who is the one intercessor, alone can do that. And for what do they pray on earth? For mercy for those who persecute the remnant of Israel ? No! They pray for divine intervention, for the fire of judgment as Elijah did.

Revelation 8 begins with the opening of the Seventh Seal, and silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour. The silence betokens the special seriousness of the breaking of the seventh seal.

To me it is manifest that the seventh seal is followed by a short but solemn pause, which again is introductory to a new course of divine inflictions.* "And when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God; and to them were given seven trumpets." Now these judgments that come before us under the trumpets are of a somewhat different character from what we have seen in the seals. In the first place, the seals in general appear to have a larger extent, but the blows were not so severe. It is true we had in Rev. 6:8 a certain limitation (viz. the fourth part), used with regard to the extent of the blow then to be struck. But in the other instances there was no such restraint; whereas in most of the trumpets it is the third part, with some slight exceptions. The trumpets, then, may be less extensive in their range, but it will by and by appear that they are more intensely judicial than the seals.

*Strange as it may seem that so simple a matter should give rise to long doubt and interminable discussion, such is the fact. Perhaps the earliest interpretation on record, that of Victorinus (a martyr in Diocletian's persecution) applies the half-hour's silence to the beginning of eternal rest. And this remains the resource still of most who understand the seven seals to embrace the outline of events in providence, down to the second advent of the Lord, save that some would rather style the seventh seal a pause at His return. It is plain that the view rests mainly upon the assumption that the sixth seal introduced the day of the Lord, with its dependent sealing and palm-bearing visions representing the consummated glory of the blessed. Nobody can conceive that silence in heaven for half-an-hour would have been so viewed, unless the seal before had necessitated to their minds some such reference. And yet it is evidently unnatural; for if we had the rest, be it millennial or eternal, described fully in the close of Revelation 7, why did it need a fresh seal to inaugurate or continue it in the commencement of Revelation 8? And with what propriety, either as to time or character, is it conveyed in the seventh seal? This has led others to adopt the still stranger idea that the sixth seal closes the sequence of events, the seventh being merely indicative of a separation between this series and the parallel one of the trumpets. And the very curious circumstance is, that some who receive this anomalous arrangement have persuaded themselves that theirs is the only perfect clue to the order of the book, whereas it is nothing but hopeless confusion. That I may not be charged with injustice, let me give the following statement from Three Letters on the Prophecies, pp. 2, 3, by J. H. Frere, reprinted in 1859. "Every commentator who has hitherto written on the Apocalypse, by erroneously understanding the mention of the seventh seal having been opened, which occurs at Revelation 8:1, to be an introduction of the events of that seal, has committed the greatest possible chronological error: embracing in the midst of the seals, and therefore amidst the events of time, the eternal state of the glorified church, represented by the vision of the palm-bearing multitude before the throne, of the preceding chapter (Rev. 7:9-17): so that no chronological arrangement of the Apocalypse has as yet even been proposed, seeing that eternity has thus been universally introduced between the sixth and seventh seals. The Apocalypse, however, will be found really to consist of these chronological histories, viz., the seven seals, contained in Revelation 6 and 7, concluding with the vision of the eternal state; the seven trumpets, consisting of Revelation 8 to 10:7, concluding (like the prophecy of Daniel, Revelation 12:7) with the vision of Christ assuring His church, by the solemnity of an oath, that he regards their sufferings and sets bounds to their duration; and the little opened book (Rev. 10:8 to 14.) concluding with the great judgment of the treading of the wine-press of Armageddon." It is manifest that this unheard of and systematic disorder is due to the great primary error that Rev. 6:17 is a prophecy of the wrath of the Lamb, instead of being the predicted expression of men's apprehension at that early epoch of judgment. The seventh seal is rendered meaningless, the sixth seal being virtually made the seventh, and the contents of it and of the parenthetical Revelation 7 entirely misunderstood. Equally are the trumpets mistaken. They do not conclude with Christ's oath, any more than the preceding series concluded with the vision of the eternal state. Neither does the little open book conclude with Armageddon. Like the sealing and palm-bearing visions, it is a parenthesis revealed within the limits of the sixth trumpet, instead of following the seventh trumpet. The reader will, therefore, see the immense importance of steadily resisting the too common error as to the sixth seal, and will understand why I have run the risk of repeating its confutation too frequently.

At length comes the seventh Seal. This is important, because it guards us effectually against the idea that the sixth Seal goes down to the end, as many excellent men have imagined of old and in our day. But it is clearly incorrect. The seventh Seal is necessarily after the sixth. If there is an order in the others, we need not doubt that the seventh Seal introduces seven Trumpets which follow each other in succession like the Seals. These are described from Rev. 8 and onward, and, far more evidently than the Seals, are inflictions from God. "And when he opened the seventh seal, silence took place in the heaven about half an hour." There was a brief pause of solemn expectancy, the lull that precedes the storm about to blow, only held down by the four angels, as we were told in Rev. 7:1. "And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and seven trumpets were given to them." Heaven takes note of God's ways. The silence was there, not on earth. Signal judgments impended for all creation. How strange to fancy that silence for about half an hour in heaven could prefigure the millennial rest! Yet the error naturally flows from the hypothesis entertained by not a few worthy men that the seventh Seal points to the millennial rest, and that the Trumpets go back and concurrently lead us to the same conclusion. Is it too much to say that the idea is wholly imaginative and without one solid reason for it?