8 When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
There are several interpretations of the half-hour of silence in heaven. One is that it is introduced to prepare us for the terrible character of the judgments to follow (cf Habakkuk 2:20, 'Let all the earth keep silence before Him'). Another is that it was to allow the prayers of God's persecuted children on earth to be heard in heaven. Another is that it illustrates human experience, in that we feel so often that God is doing nothing in face of our distresses, and that our prayers and cries go unheeded, whereas there is in fact only a little pause between evil and His reaction to it (cf 6:11). Still more likely, however, seems to be the suggestion that this verse properly belongs to the end of chapter 7 as signifying the peace that comes after the travail and the tribulation. Ellicot suggests that with the 'seven seals' vision now brought to an end, the vision now faded from John's sight, and there is a brief intermission before the next is vouchsafed to him. This is not to say that there is no truth in alternative explanations; in- deed it would be presumptuous to claim that one was right and all others wrong, and Scrip- ture itself does not require us to say so. Nor does this open the door to irresponsible wresting of Scripture, and to making it mean anything we care to. The truth is like a precious stone with many facets, each of them making its significant contribution to the whole. It is only contradictory views and incompatible ideas that cannot be allowed to stand together. This is a distinction that should be observed more than it often is in the study of the prophetic Scrip- tures.