PRELUDE TO THE MINISTRY OF JESUS
Intertestamental Period
from the ministry of Malachi (about 420 BC)
to the ministry of John the Baptist (about 27 AD)
about 450 years
God "silent" in the latter portion thereof
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertestamental_period
The intertestamental period is a term used to refer to a period of time between the writings of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament texts. Traditionally, it is considered to be a roughly four hundred year period, spanning the ministry of Malachi (c. 420 BC), the last of the Old Testament prophets, and the appearance of John the Baptist in the early 1st century AD, almost the same period as the Second Temple period.
Several of the deuterocanonical books, accepted as Scripture by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, were written during this time, so it is sometimes also referred to as the deuterocanonical period.