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There was silence... half an hour. No one certainly knows what these words mean. Every one can see that they tell of a pause, an interval between the opening of the seventh seal and the sounding of the first of those trumpets of which this eighth chapter mainly speaks. It may be - as one great expositor suggests - that during that Lord's day in which St. John was in the Spirit, and during which he saw in stately procession the series of magnificent visions, or heard, one following the other, the varied voices which spoke - it may have been that for about half an hour of that thrice holy day no voice, whether from the throne, or from the living ones, or from the holy angels, or from the multitude of the redeemed, or from the distracted and despairing enemies of God, was heard. All was still, still as is often the half hour before the thunderstorm bursts. As before the rattling peal, and the lightning flash, and the tornado of rain and wind, there is a hush, the air all but motionless, no movement anywhere, not even the rustling of a leaf or the swaying of the corn, a solemn pause as if the elements were gathering up their strength preparatory to the rush and rage of the tempest that is so soon to break; so here, all that had preceded, the visions and voices of which the former chapters tell, so awful and soul subduing as many of them were, seem to have said to all the inhabitants of heaven, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." Angel and the four cherubim, martyred saint and redeemed multitude, - all are still. "There was silence in heaven." We venture not to affirm what exact events in the history of the Church, or of the world as it affected the Church, are pointed at by this silence; conjectures, several most ingenious and interesting, have been made by this interpreter and that, but who out of them all is right? or if any of them be so, who can say? The key to the complete unlocking of the symbols of this book seems either to have been host, or at any rate put aside for the present. But we can readily see that there was good reason for the silence spoken of. As the judgments of God went on, blow after blow falling upon the cruel enemies of the Church; as the righteous wrath of God arose and overwhelmed the persecutors of his people; - must not they who beheld all this have felt that in the presence of such manifestations of God speech and all utterance were out of place? What could they do but "be silent before the Lord, for he was raised up out of his holy habitation"? And besides this solemn awe, what wonder and amazement there must have been at the overthrow of their seemingly invincible toes! Think of the power of Rome only at this period. Her laws were administered from Britain to the Euphrates, from the Baltic to the equator. She was the incarnation of earthly power. And there would be also the silence of adoring, worshipful love. That amid all that wild fury of bloodshed and destruction God had known how to deliver and preserve his own. And there would be the silence of expectation, of eager intent, gazing forward to see what next would be revealed. As men hold their breath, and their hearts almost stand still, and their lips utter no word, in presence of some near anticipated terror, so here - there was silence like to that. And though we cannot explain it, yet is this silence in heaven very suggestive to us here on earth. Once and again, when our Lord marked some glaring fault in those about him, he would rebuke it by holding up the contrast which was presented in heaven. When, for example, the scribes and Pharisees murmured at his receiving sinners, our Lord told them that in heaven there was joy over one sinner repenting. And so amid the din and clatter of this noisy age, and men loving to have it so, it is well to be reminded that in heaven there became silence for a while. For that which had place in heaven has much need to have place here. We sing -

"In sacred silence of the mind,
My heaven, and there my God, I find." But it is to be questioned if many believe this. Therefore they seldom cease what Carlyle calls "that chaotic hubbub, in which their souls run to waste." "Out of silence," he adds, "comes thy strength. Speech is silvern, silence is golden; speech is human, silence is Divine." The absence of it causes much mischief. Therefore we plead for the following of the heavenly example here told of - for intervals of quiet, for times of silence, for seasons of meditation, reflection, thought. It is well there should be the "Selah" - the pause, which we so often are directed to in the psalms. Our Lord sets us the example. He was wont to secure such seasons by his retirement to mountains and groves, where all night he would commune with God. For lack of such silences moral fibre is weakened. If a locomotive is to do its work, it must cease its noisy letting off steam. Great talkers are rarely great doers. Words waste strength. How often our Lord strictly charged those whom he had healed not to go and talk about it! The temptation to do so would be great, but if yielded to all the spiritual blessing would be lost. Hence he so "straitly charged them." Little good - so the 'Pilgrim's Progress' tells us - was got out of the Mr. Talkative of whom the book tells. But silence stores up strength. And the Spirit's work is hindered. How often the birds, which our Saviour said snatched away the good seed which had been sown - how often they take the form of idle foolish talk, which, entered into at the very doors of the sanctuary, render hopeless all prospect of holy impression being retained or good purpose fulfilled! The Lord was wont to take people aside when he would bless them. It is so now. And when men would resist the Spirit they shun these silent seasons. The accusers of the woman taken in adultery could not endure the Lord's silence, his answering them not a word, and hence they heap their questions upon him, and demand an answer; for any answer would be less terrible than that dread silence. Would we grow in grace, such silences are essential. The habit of retreat, of quiet before God, must be cultivated. All growth is silent. Who hears the springing of the corn, the unfolding of the flower, the increase of the body in stature? And so is it with the growth of the soul. Like the noiseless building of Solomon's temple, of which Heber sings -

"No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung." And so in the building up of spiritual character, in growth in grace, silence, stillness, must be secured. Spiritual worship is silent in its essence, though not in expression. Submission is silent. "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it" (Psalm 39.). So was it with Aaron, "the saint of the Lord;" when in one awful judgment stroke he saw his two ungodly sons smitten dead, it is told that he uttered not a word. Knowledge of God demands silence. "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." We must be still would we know God to be God. He is not in the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the still small voice. O blessed silence, O grace and might of holy quietness, sweet stillness of the soul, in which the footfall of God is heard, and his voice speaks joy, and the angels of patience and hope visit us, and Faith renews her strength!

"Silent Spirit, dwell with me;
I myself would silent be." And to encourage us to seek these quiet hours, how often does God take us apart from the noise and rush, the everlasting din and bustle, of our common life! Seasons of sickness are designed to be such times of silent retreat, when we may "commune with" our "own heart upon our bed, and be still," and so have leisure to attend to the life within. Sabbaths, these days of the Lord in which we should be, as St. John was, "in the Spirit," are they not God's messengers to us, saying, "Rest; be silent from thy common speech, thy common work; meditate on things eternal; let there be pause in the activities of thy daily life; imitate as best thou canst the season of silence of the saints in heaven"? And the unseen world, the place of the departed, that intermediate condition in which till the resurrection the souls of believers rest, this also is merely another divinely given retreat for the soul - a going down into silence, as the psalm calls it. White robes are theirs (see Revelation 5.), which tell of the love of God to them, and that they are cleansed in the blood of Christ, and rest, quiet, calm, in the presence of the Lord. Sleep for all the bodily powers, but not for the soul. That - now that the once busy hands and feet are at rest, and the heart throbs no more, and the tongue utters no word, none, though often we here long

"For the touch of a vanished hand,
For the sound of a voice that is still" - that now lives unto God, where "he hath hid his beloved in his pavilion from the strife of tongues." There, the Martha-like activity over, we may, like Mary, sit at the Master's feet and share in that "good part," as here on earth was but rarely possibl

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Parallel Verses

KJV: And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

WEB: When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.