One of my seminary professors once referred to the book of Revelation as “a nutty book that provides a playground for nutty people.” It certainly is a strange book. One verse that always startles me is 8:1 “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.” It seems so odd. Chapters 5-7 build up to this moment with the opening of  six seals on a mysterious scroll. You expect something dramatic with the opening of the last seal, but there is silence.

Bruce Metzger comments in his book “Breaking the Code”: “It’s like the solemn hush before the bursting of a hurricane. The effect of the pause is to heighten the horror of the next series of judgements . . .” (p. 62). Many commentators have suggested that the silence was to allow heaven to hear the prayers of the saints which followed the opening of the seal (8:3-4).

The most intriguing explanation that I have found is that the silence is the preparation for the creation of the new heaven and earth that is to come at chapter 21. It parallels the silence before the first creation. Don’t look in Genesis for that silence. It is only mentioned in a later Jewish writing, 4 Ezra, which is only preserved in the Slavonic Bible and some versions of the Latin Vulgate. “The Spirit was blowing and the darkness and silence embraced everything” (2 Esdras 6:39).

I don’t know who’s right, but I’m intrigued to find that silence is part of God’s way of working.

Read Revelation 8:1-5 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne