Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 6:10

Revelation 6:10. And they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? ‘They' cried (yet not the martyrs themselves but the blood which represents them) as the blood of Abel cried (Genesis 4:10). The cause of holiness and truth suffering in them was at stake; and only as they identify themselves with this great cause do they ‘cry.' They cried with a ‘great' voice in the earnestness of their cry. The cry is addressed to Him who is spoken of as ‘Master,' and by whom we are most probably to understand not Christ but God. There is much indeed that might lead us to think of the former, but the song of chap. Revelation 19:1 appears to determine in favour of the latter. Their confidence that God will deliver is confirmed by the thought of the attributes which distinguish Him. He is ‘the holy:' therefore He will the more surely punish wickedness. He is the ‘true,' that is, certainly not the truthful, which is never the meaning of the word here employed, but either the Being who alone has true and substantial existence, or the Master who completely corresponds with the idea of what a Master ought to be. Their cry is, How long will it be before the Judge arises to claim the victory as His own, and to punish His adversaries as they deserve? Those who are thus to be judged are then described as ‘they that dwell upon the earth;' and by the ‘earth' here, as almost always in the Apocalypse, is to be understood the ungodly earth: those that dwell on it are the ungodly. It may be observed that all the ungodly are included. This is allowed by the best commentators, and it supplies a strong argument in favour of what was said with regard to the number of those underneath the altar, there all the godly belonging to the time spoken of; here all the ungodly.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 6:10

Old Testament

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