As a talker and woman of words, it’s taken me several decades to appreciate the power and value of silence. God has known it all along. Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (ESV). We shouldn’t be surprised then that God entered a period of silence—400 years of silence, to be precise. God created both sound and silence. He knows the perfect timing for both.
What are the 400 Years of Silence?
God’s 400 years of silence occurred between the Old and the New Testaments. The final verses of the Old Testament concluding with the book written by the prophet Malachi read:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” (Malachi 4:5-6 ESV)
The first verse of the New Testament is found in Matthew’s gospel:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1 ESV)
But there were 400 years between these books with no recorded (written) prophecies or canonized Scriptures.
We refer to them as the 400 years of silence or the intertestamental period. Depending on your experience with silence, this can sound ominous or understandable but inevitably leads to other questions. Was God angry and giving humans “the silent treatment?” Was God allowing for a beat before the entry of His Son, like a dramatic pause in a great concerto? God doesn’t choose to explain Himself on this point. So, much of what we might understand about this time is conjecture based on knowing the character of God and how He works.
What Can We Observe with What We Know?
Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets. In his book, God tells a familiar story to His people. He loved them and desired a relationship with them that required their obedience. They refused to obey, and they demonstrated irreverence by abusing the Temple and offering Him less than their best. More than this, when God pointed out Israel’s sin, they argued back that God was unjust.
Malachi 3:17 may hold a key for the silence that followed. God says, “‘You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ By saying, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (ESV). God is tired of hearing their arguments, self-justifications, and excuses. He is weary of their words after centuries of going back and forth with His people.
Throughout the Old Testament, God and His people had an ongoing dialog. God told the Israelites exactly what they needed to do to please Him and maintain their relationship. The Israelites obeyed for a time, but eventually, they would start following false gods and committing other acts of disobedience. God would then send them hard times so that they would repent from their disobedience and return to Him. They obeyed for a time, but the cycle would begin again. Now, in the time of Malachi, not only were they not repenting when He pointed out their sin, but they accused Him of being the problem.
God’s relationship with the Israelites had reached a point familiar to anyone who has loved someone insisting on their own way. Whether our loved one is in the throes of addiction, rebelliously running from God, or trapped in a stronghold of some compelling sin, there comes a time when our words seem to be bouncing off granite walls. When the dialog is no longer productive. When it feels that we’re wasting our words. Usually, that’s a time to be silent, fall back to establish a healthy boundary, and allow our loved ones to experience the consequence of that sin. We continue to pray, love, and hope. We’re available the moment our loved one turns back, but we know we’ve reached a day when words have ceased to have an effect. Perhaps, this is the point God has reached with Israel. Perhaps. But again, this is conjecture based on what we can observe.
Do We Know Why Prophecy Stopped for 400 Years?
Malachi ends with God’s promise that He will send Elijah. The New Testament period begins with the appearance of John the Baptist.
When Jesus was speaking about John, he quoted Malachi 3:1 and then stated, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Matthew 11:13-14 ESV).
God was silent for 400 years, but when He spoke again, it was to prepare the way for His Son, who would be His “Word made flesh.” God spoke through the prophets throughout the Old Testament. But in Hebrews 1:1-2, it is written, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (ESV).
God doesn’t explain His silence, but the Old Testament prophecies were fully spoken with Malachi’s final words. What was left was their fulfillment. By some estimates, Jesus fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. God apparently said all He had to say to that point to lay the prophetic foundation for Jesus’ coming and His expectations of His people. Then, He didn’t speak for a time.
Some books collected in the Apocrypha were written during this intertestamental time. Many of these books give some historical information about the period. However, various Jewish sources (and later Christian councils) deemed these works not canonical with Scripture.
When Was Jesus Silent?
At the end of Malachi, the people of God were arguing back, challenging Him, and refusing to listen. This may be reason enough that He stopped speaking. Jesus was silent at times. From His silences, we might understand some of the reasons God doesn’t speak.
Jesus was silent for a long time when faced with the mob of angry men wanting Him to condemn the woman caught in adultery. It’s wise to be silent when people are clearly only interested in hearing one answer or when they are so full of anger or other emotions that they aren’t likely to hear us. Jesus remained silent for a long time until the enraged mob ran out of their own words, and He had their attention.
Jesus was also silent on the night He was betrayed. He stood before the council and heard multiple false accusations against him by men paid for their deceptive statements. The men didn’t even agree with each other and couldn’t get their lies straight. Jesus refused to respond (Mark 14:61). His silence was perhaps a statement that their trumped-up testimonies didn’t merit a response. Similarly, when the chief priests brought these accusations against Him in front of Pilate, Jesus did not answer. Again, as at the conclusion of Malachi, we see the people falsely accusing God to justify their own evil choices.
Perhaps, God was silent between testaments because people only wanted one answer, they were too angry to listen to him, or because He’d already provided answers and they hadn’t listened then. Perhaps He was making a statement that their accusations didn’t merit a response.
Many a wise human parent has gone silent when asked the same question repeatedly by an angry child who refuses to accept the answer they’ve already been given. Asked and answered. There is no more to say. We know God is a wise Father. People say there are no foolish questions, but there are wise questions. Jewish learning revolved around asking wise questions. Jesus, as a boy, was lauded for His thoughtful questions. Perhaps there was a famine of wise questions in the time between testaments, so God remained silent, letting all He had said in the centuries before stand for those truly seeking answers.
What Happened to the Israelites During the 400 Years of Silence?
While God was silent between testaments, that is not to say there was nothing of significance that happened in the lives of the Jewish people. Many historical events of that time fulfilled previous prophecies, especially the vision given to Daniel (Daniel 7 and 9) of a great statue that represented different kingdoms. Malachi prophesied during the Medo-Persian empire, followed by the Greek Empire and then the Roman empire. The Jews had been allowed to rebuild Jerusalem under the Persians. They lived as a people but still didn’t follow all God had instructed.
But, with the coming of the Greeks, the Greek language became a common language across people groups. Eventually, the Old Testament was translated into Greek (the Greek Septuagint). The Romans came next and conquered Israel by 63 BC. The Romans built roads throughout their empire. Both developments would aid the spread of the gospel following Christ’s death, resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit that gave birth to the church. So, this period of God’s silence was void of prophecy but not of the preparation for prophecies to be fulfilled. By the time John the Baptist began to prophesy, the people must have been hungry and thirsty for the voice of God.
The Purpose and Power of Silence
Time moves differently for God; we know this. One thousand years are as a day and a day as a thousand years with God (2 Peter 3:8). Four hundred years is so long to us. To God, it is likely only the length of a musical measure, space enough just for a rest.
We don’t think often enough about silence. God has woven silence into all of creation for many purposes. Silence provides calm and opportunity for reflection. Silence can be centering.
We expect silence in the aftermath of death and silence in the presence of power. We observe silence in reverent worship and silence when we have reached the end of our words because of pain or desperation.
Silence in a musical or dramatic presentation provides time for a breath and prepares the audience to know something important is about to follow. Reflection on all these purposes of silence in our lives can provide further insight into God’s silence during the intertestamental period.
There is another silence coming. During the last days, Revelation 8:1 says that when the Lamb opens the seventh seal, there is silence in Heaven for about half an hour. This silence precedes the completion of God’s unleashing of His judgments of those who defy Him on earth. It precedes the final chapter, where God rains destruction down upon the earth before the redeemed enjoy a new Heaven and new earth with Him.
We should listen when God speaks. But when He stops speaking, we should really pay attention. We must consider an opportunity to repent and prepare for what is to come next. We do well to reflect on the 400 years of silence and follow Jesus now before the next silence that is to come.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/David Greitzer
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