The silence period (seventh seal)--8:1-6. The disclosures of the seventh seal consist in the signals of the seven trumpets, announced in the order of events by the seven angels. The trumpets sounded the beginning of the end of Jerusalem, of the Jewish temple, of Judaism and of all that constituted the Jewish state. It signaled the end of the world of Mat 24:3; Matthew 24:14 --not the inhabited world, but the Jewish world. As the seven trumpets of Jericho, borne and blown by the seven priests, signaled the fall of the Canaanite city standing in the way of Israel’ s conquest (Joshua 6:13-21), so did the seven trumpets, sounded successively by the seven angels of Revelation, signal the fall of Jerusalem. They signaled the end of the once “ faithful city, turned harlot” (Isaiah 1:21); "the great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where also the Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8; Revelation 11:13). It was the end of the apostate Jerusalem which stood in the way of the conquest of the gospel; the Jerusalem that refused the “ testimony” which the martyrs under the altar of Rev 6:9 had “ held” ; the word of God which the same enthroned souls of Rev 20:4 had “ witnessed.” It was the Jerusalem of Gal 4:25-26, which was “ in bondage with her children.” The old Jerusalem was doomed to destruction before the advance of the “ Jerusalem above” of Galatians 4:26, and “ heavenly Jerusalem” of Hebrews 12;23, and the “ new Jerusalem” of Revelation 21:1 --the church of the new covenant, the “ holy city” and “ temple” of the Christ who was the Lamb of Revelation. When the angel opened this seventh seal, before the momentous announcements were heard, a dread and awful silence was recorded. “ There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."--8: 1. This scene was in Heaven: It was the place where all of these correlated visions were disclosed. The “ silence” here was accentuated by the contrast with the “ voices” in the six seals before it. It was the silence of dreadful suspense, fearful expectation, a calm before the storm. The silence period was for the space of half an hour: It was the symbol of pause, the sign of shortness of time. A similarity exists between this silence and the cessation of singers and trumpets in the cleansing of the temple by Hezekiah when the king and all the congregation “ bowed themselves and worshipped.” (2 Chronicles 29:1-36) The silence here followed in immediate succession the scene of chapter 7, where all the angels, elders and beings “ fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God.” The similarity between the cessation of the singers and the silence of the angels was impressive. The former was a cessation of reverent worship, after the “ singers sang” and the “ trumpeters sounded” at the altars of Hezekiah. The latter was a silence of waiting awe, after the voices of “ all the angels” in chapter 7 had ceased; it was a silence significant of what was about to occur in the final scene of the seventh seal.