Revelation 6:9

τῶν ἐσφαγμένων. Clem. reads μεμαρτυρηκότων; Hipp[241] τῶν πεπελεκισμένων, as Revelation 20:4. אP 1 read τῶν�.

[241] St Hippolytus. The readings not given by Tischendorf are from the newly published 4th book of his commentary on Daniel.

διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ διὰ τὴν μαρτ. ἣν εἶχ. Hipp[242] reads διὰ τὸ ὄνομα Ἰησοῦ; Cyp[243] Primas[244] propter verbum Dei et martyrium suum.

[242] St Hippolytus. The readings not given by Tischendorf are from the newly published 4th book of his commentary on Daniel.
[243] St Cyprian as quoted by Haussleiter.
[244] Primasius, edited by Haussleiter.

9. This series of seven visions, like the other groups of seven throughout the book, is divided into two parts. We have seen (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 2:29) that the messages to the seven Churches were divided into a group of three and one of four: here the first four seals are marked off from the last three, and similarly the four trumpets of chap. 8 from the three that follow in chaps. 9–11.: perhaps also, though less clearly, the vials of chap. 16.

ὑποκάτω τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. The altar, first mentioned here, was part of the arrangements of the heavenly Temple: see on Revelation 4:6. Are we to understand that its position was that of the golden altar within the Holy Place (Exodus 30:1 sqq.)? is it in itself an altar of incense or of burnt offering? In Revelation 8:3 sqq. we find incense offered at a heavenly golden altar, and it is not distinguished from this: yet it may be thought that the image here is more suitable to the altar of sacrifice. For at the foot of it the blood of the victims was poured out (Exodus 29:12), and the blood, we are told repeatedly, is the life: then is it not meant that the lives or souls (the words are interchangeable, as Matthew 16:25 sqq.) of the martyrs are poured out at the foot of the heavenly altar, when they sacrifice their lives to God? Probably it is meant: but we are not to assume without evidence that the altar here is different from that in chap. 8. Admitting that the Israelite tabernacle and Temple were copies of a really subsisting heavenly archetype, it is not certain that they were exact copies in all respects: they might have to be modified to suit material conditions. Just as it was impossible to have a real sea (see on Revelation 4:6) in front of the earthly temple, so it may have been necessary to have on earth an inner and an outer Sanctuary, an altar before each, whereon to present the symbols of those things which in heaven are offered on one. This altar, like the golden altar of chap. 8, is ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου: the “sea” in the court of the earthly temple is doubtless copied from the “sea” in heaven; but the Temple proper does not seem yet to enter the vision; the Throne is set in the court and “the train” fills it—and the gaze of the Seer.

τὰς ψυχάς. The souls. There is undoubtedly a distinction throughout the N.T. between the words for “soul,” the mere principle of natural life, and “spirit,” the immortal and heavenly part of man: see especially 1 Corinthians 15:44 sqq. Yet it is probably an overstatement of this distinction to say that these are mere lost lives, crying to God for vengeance like Abel’s blood (Genesis 4:10), but different from the immortal souls, which have all their wants satisfied, and desire the salvation, not the punishment, of their murderers. They are the “lives” of the slain: their being under the altar is well illustrated by the ceremonial outpouring of the blood, and their cry for vengeance by that of the blood of Abel, but what follows in the next verse is surely addressed to the inmost souls of the saints, not to impersonal abstract “lives.”

τῶν ἐσφαγμένων. As the four former seals correspond to Matthew 24:6-8, so this to ibid. 9. In Enoch xl. 5, a voice (that of “him who presides over every suffering and every wound of the sons of men, the holy Raphael,” ib. 9) is heard “blessing the elect One, and the elect who are crucified on account of the Lord of spirits.” There is a passage more like this in sense in the same book, xlvii. 2, “In that day shall the holy ones assemble who dwell above the heavens, and with united voice petition, supplicate, praise, laud, and bless the name of the Lord of spirits, on account of the blood of the righteous which has been shed, that the prayer of the righteous may not be intermitted before the Lord of spirits; that for them He would execute judgement, and that His patience may not endure for ever.”

διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν. Revelation 1:9; Revelation 20:4.

ἣν εἶχον. Cf. Revelation 12:17, fin. where the word rendered “held” here in A. V[265] is more simply translated “have.” Some argue from the name of Jesus not being used here, as in the three places referred to, for describing their testimony, that these are Old Testament martyrs, like those in Hebrews 11. ad fin. But surely their blood was very amply avenged, and very speedily: of the three great persecutors, Jezebel and Antiochus perished miserably, and Manasseh suffered equal misery, though he repented in time to receive some alleviation of it. We have, however, a Jewish parallel to the thought of this passage in Enoch xxii. 5 sqq., where Enoch hears in heaven the accusing cry of the spirit (πνεῦμα—not, as in Genesis, the blood) of Abel.

[265] Authorised Version.