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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 6:10, how long until you avenge our blood
The martyrs' cry borrows Psalm 79, which asks how long God will wait and prays for vengeance for the blood of his servants.
Revelation 6:10, in every translation this tool compares.
When people at a vigil sing an old protest song, they are joining a long line of protesters. Psalm 79 grieves over Jerusalem's dead. It asks God how long he will be angry, and prays that the nations will see him avenge his servants' blood. The martyrs under the altar pray the same prayer. They ask how long, and they ask God to avenge their blood on the earth's people.
The question how long (heos pote), and vengeance for the blood of God's servants. The Greek of Psalm 79:10 has he ekdikesis tou haimatos ton doulon sou; John has ekdikeis to haima hemon.
In the psalm the people speak for the dead. In John the dead speak for themselves. The psalm prays for the servants' blood; the martyrs say our blood. John adds a name for God, holy and true, and names the guilty: those who dwell on the earth, his usual term for unbelievers.
Beale reads the prayer as a plea for God's justice and good name, not personal revenge. He sees the answer come in stages. The saints must wait (6:11), the sixth seal shows the final judgment, and later the bowls and 19:2 say God has avenged their blood.
Not a call for Christians to take revenge. The saints hand the matter to God, and Beale contrasts their prayer with personal vengeance.
Beale says how long is the Greek Old Testament's usual question about when God will punish persecutors (Psalms 6:3; 13:1; 74:10; 79:5 and others; Daniel 8:13 and 12:6), and that will you not avenge our blood alludes to Psalm 79:10 in the Greek. In that psalm how long comes first (v. 5) and the bodies of the saints are given to the beasts of the earth (v. 2), the phrase used in 6:8. He thinks Deuteronomy 32 stands behind the psalm too. Keener cites Psalm 79:5, 10 among prayers for vindication; the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible lists Psalm 79:5; the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible cites Psalm 79:4-6, 10; the CSB Study Bible's cross-references give Psalm 79:10. Walton notes how long occurs about twenty times in the Psalms, usually in laments. The grade is drawn here: the wording is close and the context matches.
Beale and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible point to Psalm 79. The ESV Study Bible names Psalms 13:1 and 89:46 instead, and Keener and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible add Genesis 4:10, where Abel's blood cries out. Beale reads the prayer as about God's justice; the CSB Study Bible stresses the Lord's vengeance that begins with the bowls. MacArthur sets the cry in the fifth seal of a tribulation still to come. God answers in his own time, once the number of martyrs he has set is complete, and the sixth seal begins the day of the Lord.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 6:10
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 6:10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:10-11
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:9-11
- CSB Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:9-11 and cross-references at Revelation 6:10
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:10
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, on Psalm 79:5
- Septuagint, Psalm 79:2, 79:5 and 79:10, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 6:10
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 6:9, 6:11 and 6:12
