The 400 Silent Years

Between the last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, and the opening of the Gospels lie roughly four hundred years in which no prophet spoke to Israel. They are called the silent years, but the silence was not absence. Through the rise and fall of empires, a common language, a Greek Bible, a cleansed temple, and a longing for the Messiah, God was preparing the world for the coming of his Son.

The story of the silence, page by page

What Are the 400 Silent Years?
The 400 silent years are the roughly four centuries between the last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, who wrote around 430 BC, and the opening of the New Testament in the ministry of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus.
The Persian and Greek Empires
When the silent years began, the Jews had returned from exile in Babylon and lived under the Persian Empire, which had allowed them to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.
Hellenization and the Septuagint
After Alexander, the whole eastern Mediterranean became a Greek-speaking world, a process called Hellenization.
The Maccabean Revolt and Hanukkah
In 167 BC the Seleucid king Antiochus the Fourth, who called himself Epiphanes, outlawed the worship of the God of Israel and defiled the temple in Jerusalem, setting up a pagan altar and sacrificing a pig on it.
The Jewish World of Jesus' Time
By the time of Jesus, the silent years had shaped a complex Jewish world.
How God Prepared the Way
The apostle Paul wrote that when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son.

The silence broke in Christ

The four hundred silent years were preparing the world for one person. When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son. Meet him, read the Word, pray, and gather with the family of God on The Living Bread. Free, with no ads, for all people.

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