Half-Hour Silence

Leaven is put out of every house for Hag HaMatzot, "seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread" (Exod 12:15; Lev 23:6-8), and the Prophets attach silence to the moment Yahuah rises to judge: "Yahuah is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him" (Hab 2:20; Zech 2:13). By the day-for-a-year rule (Num 14:34; Ezek 4:6) one prophetic hour is fifteen days, so half an hour comes to seven and a half: Pesach's half-day plus the seven days of Hag HaMatzot. The book reads Revelation 8:1 as the solemn pause before the removal of the leaven, the hush of a courtroom when the judge picks up his pen.