‘And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.'
The seven angels are the ones mentioned in Revelation 1:4 and Revelation 4:5. They have been waiting for this very moment. The blowing of the seven trumpets, like the opening of the seven seals of which they are a part, will cause God's purposes to go forward. Like the seven seals, the trumpets overlap with each other, so that the events described in one may occur while others are going on, although also to some extent consecutively. They announce publicly God's next actions. Just as the New Year was inaugurated with the blowing of trumpets and hope for the future (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1), and the year of Jubilee was inaugurated with trumpets which signalled release and freedom (Leviticus 25:8-10), so each of God's new actions is inaugurated in the same way. The seven trumpets were given to the angels by God, as the passive tense ‘were given' makes clear. Their being seven indicates the divine completeness of the judgments they cover.