Chapter 6 portrays the opening of the first six of the seven seals. Chapter 7 is parenthetical in that it interrupts the opening of the seals to show that God has a true people who will be able to stand through the terrors that have been portrayed (see on ch. 6:17). Now the vision returns to the opening of the seals.

 In contrast with the spectacular events that follow the opening of the other seals, an awesome silence follows the opening of the seventh. This silence has been explained in at least two ways. Some hold that this silence in heaven, following upon the terrible events that take place on earth immediately preceding the second coming (ch. 6:14-16), is caused by the heavenly hosts’ having left the celestial courts to accompany Christ to the earth (see Matt. 25:31).

 Another view explains this silence in heaven to be a silence of awesome expectation (cf. references to silence in EW 15, 16; DA 693). Thus far the heavenly courts have been portrayed as filled with praise and song. Now all is quiet, in awesome expectancy of the things that are about to occur. So understood, this silence of the seventh seal forms a bridge between the opening of the seals and the blowing of the trumpets, for it implies that with the seventh seal the revelation is not complete—there is still more to be explained concerning God’s program of events in the great controversy with evil (see on v. 5).

 Some interpreters have understood this in terms of the prophetic time formula of a day representing a literal year (see on Dan. 7:25). On this basis “half an hour” would be equal to about one literal week (cf. EW 16). Others hold that there is no clear warrant in Scripture for taking as prophetic time any period less than a whole day, and so have preferred to understand “for the space of half an hour” as signifying simply a short period of unspecified length. Seventh-day Adventists have generally favored the first view.