After these things I heard as a loud voice of a great multitude in the heaven, saying, Hallelujah the salvation and the glory and the power of our God
Two chapters of Revelation have just described the fall of Babylon, the corrupt system that ruined the earth. Earth's merchants and kings have wept over her. Chapter 19 now looks up. The same event that empties the earth of song fills heaven with it, and heaven's word for it appears nowhere else in the New Testament.
The opening phrase marks order, and the order matters. One writer explains why: the true bride cannot appear while a counterfeit holds her place.
It is clear that as long as Babylon was left unjudged, the true bride could not be brought out and shown in her beauty and crowning robes. She stays hidden in Heaven until the one who has seized her place on earth is destroyed and put out of sight. The harlot and the bride cannot exist side by side… Her presence on earth had always been the main thing blocking the display of the glory of God, and an offence to Heaven as well. Now, though, Babylon is wiped out completely. That makes room and opens the way for the Lord God to be openly acknowledged on His throne, and for the Lamb to take His bride — the two great subjects of praise.
The shout itself is a Hebrew word, and it has a long history in Israel's songs.
This beautiful Hebrew word appears four times in these songs of praise (vv. 1, 3, 4, 6), and nowhere else in the New Testament. It is a common word in the book of Psalms. It opens and closes each of the last five psalms — psalms which, taken together, express the praise Israel will bring in the millennial kingdom. Hallelujah means "Praise the Lord," or "Jah," a shortened form of Jehovah.
That note does not stay in heaven. One writer looks ahead to the day it spreads:
What a day that will be! Hallelujah will first echo through the whole of heaven (Rev. 19:1, 3-4, 6). Then earth will take up that joyful note, and everything that has breath will praise Him.
Where the ESV has "a great multitude," older translations read "much people" — and one writer sets earth's crowd beside heaven's.
Nothing marks God's hatred of counterfeits in the things of Christ more solemnly than this repeated joy over the judgment of the corrupt system. That system takes the name of the Lamb's wife while contradicting her character. Much people on earth think only of their own imagined interests, and they weep over her fall. "Much people in heaven," mindful of Christ's glory, give praise to God for avenging the blood of His servants and judging the corrupter of the world.
Three things are named, and each had been claimed by the system just destroyed.
Babylon had claimed that salvation was found only in her false system. She had taken glory and power to herself. As we read, "She has glorified herself," and said in her heart, "I sit a queen." Heaven, with one voice, ascribes "salvation," "glory," and "power" to God.
Each of the three words carries its own weight here:
The first of the three terms means deliverance. The second means God's moral glory in judgment. The third means His might shown in carrying out the judgment on the harlot. This praise is given to "our God."
Who makes up this crowd? One writer marks them off from the elders and from the church already taken up to heaven, and points to what they have been through:
In Revelation 19, for the first time, I find a reason for praise given by someone other than the elders — other than the body of saints, the church called up on high. Here it makes sense, because they praise God for judgments He has carried out, judgments in which they are avenged… They have suffered, and they are in the place to celebrate the avenging of the blood of God's servants.
Can a believer praise God when judgment falls? One writer answers by separating that day from this one.
However evil men may be in this day of salvation, it hardly suits a saint to shout "Hallelujah" when he sees judgment fall on anyone. But here we are looking at the day of judgment. We are to praise God's acts of judgment then as much as we praise His acts of grace now.
- Timing. The false woman must go before the true bride appears; heaven sings the moment God removes her.
- Word. "Hallelujah" means "Praise the Lord" — a Psalm word, found in the New Testament only in this chapter, and sounded four times.
- Reversal. Salvation, glory and power were exactly what Babylon claimed for herself; heaven hands all three back to God.
- Contrast. A great crowd on earth weeps over her fall; a great crowd in heaven praises God — one event, opposite hearts.
- Reach. The note starts in heaven and spreads to earth, until everything that breathes praises Him.
for true and righteous [are] his judgments; for he has judged the great harlot which corrupted the earth with her fornication, and has avenged the blood of his bondmen at her hand.
Heaven has just watched Babylon fall, and now a great crowd sings the reason: God's judgments are true and just. The verse brings two charges against the great prostitute — the great harlot in older translations — and raises the question of who she is and whose blood God is avenging.
This praise is aimed at God's judgments, not at His ways in general. The same word pair appears twice earlier in the book, and commentators note that the order changes with the subject in view.
The ground of their triumph is next stated. "For true and righteous are His judgments." In chapter 15:3 the harpers on the sea of glass sing "Righteous and true are Your ways"; while in Revelation 16:7 the altar says "True and righteous are Your judgments." In the first, God's ways are in view. In the second, and in our verse too, the subject is God's judgment on His enemies. Scripture teaches a basic truth, and we must hold it firmly: all God's dealings with His creatures are marked by truth and righteousness, in grace and in judgment alike. Now the judgment of the "great harlot" puts these essential attributes of God on open display. Her two great sins are named once again, and for the last time.
Calling a verdict "true and righteous" only means something if there is a standard it could fail. Human verdicts fail it.
Men's judgments are never fully true or righteous in themselves, because selfish motives can never be completely shut out of them. What men's judgments are not, God's judgments are. The great harlot had corrupted the earth, and heaven's pure and holy judgment had fallen upon her.
Commentators read this Babylon as a false church, not as the ancient city.
Babylon was the false church as long as the church was in question. When churches were no longer there, she became the final corrupter, and God's closing testimony of judgment on the world came out. There was an unclean form of open heathenism, in connection with the Jews in times past. Then it was the literal Babylon, of course; here it is symbolic.
The first charge is corrupting the earth. Scott says she morally blighted and ruined the whole scene, "where once the truth was known and God worshipped." Heaven's reaction to her fall is the opposite of earth's.
Nothing marks God's hatred of counterfeits in the things of Christ more strongly than this repeated joy over the judgment of the corrupt system. That system takes the name of the Lamb's wife while contradicting her character. Many people on earth are mourning her fall, thinking only of their own imagined interests. But "much people in heaven," mindful of Christ's glory, are praising God for avenging the blood of His servants and judging the corrupter of the world.
The second charge is blood. Earth mourns her fall, but heaven is called to rejoice.
Heaven does not share the mourning. There the call is to rejoice together with apostles and prophets, for this is God's answer to the cries of His oppressed people. In righteousness He avenges His beloved saints: He destroys without mercy this harlot who destroyed others.
Scott traces that cry back further than this book's martyrs. It is the cry "of the martyred band, from Abel downward."
Who is this crowd? Dennett rules out two groups before naming a third.
It is an interesting question who these are that, with "a great voice," raise this song of praise. They clearly form a group outside the twenty-four elders, and they are just as clearly not angels. So the conclusion is that they are those who were martyred on earth after the church was taken away, and who have been called up on high. They celebrate their God because of the character of His judgments. Those judgments are "true and righteous," as seen in the destruction of the great corrupter of the earth, and in avenging the blood of His servants at her hand.
- True — heaven praises God's judgments, not only His ways. Human verdicts always carry some selfish element. God's judgments never do.
- Righteous — truth and righteousness mark every dealing of God, in grace and in judgment. Her fall puts both on public display.
- Corrupted — the first charge is corrupting the earth. A counterfeit wore the name of Christ's bride and contradicted her character.
- Avenged — the second charge is blood. Here God answers the cry of the martyrs, a cry that reaches back to Abel.
- Divided — earth mourns Babylon and heaven sings over her. One event: loss on earth, and God's answer to His oppressed people in heaven.