And a second time they said, Hallelujah. And her smoke goes up to the ages of ages.
Babylon, the corrupt religious system that stole the name of Christ, has fallen. This verse holds two things at once: heaven's shout of joy, and smoke that never stops rising.
The cry is a Hebrew word carried straight into the New Testament from the Psalms.
"Hallelujah," they say. This beautiful Hebrew word appears four times in these celebrations of praise (vv. 1, 3, 4, 6), and nowhere else in the New Testament. It comes up often in the book of Psalms. It opens and closes each of the last five psalms. Taken together, those psalms express the praise Israel will bring in the Millennium. Hallelujah means "Praise Jehovah," or "Jah," a shortened form of Jehovah.
The repetition is not filler. It answers a long stretch of history in which God appeared to do nothing.
We also remember the persecutions. The false woman has shed the blood of millions of God's people, and God seemed not to step in at all. Seeing this, we might think that God has been indifferent to the evil of the world and the sorrows of His saints. But the day will come when everyone will see the truth. God's patience does not mean He is slow to keep His promise. It does not mean He has failed to see the sufferings of His people, or to hear their cries. In righteousness He will judge all the corruptions and avenge the blood of His servants. This intervention of God calls forth a second "Hallelujah" from the hosts of heaven.
Commentators differ over who this crowd is. One writer takes them as believers killed for their faith after the church left the earth.
So we conclude that they are the ones who were killed for their faith on earth after the church had been taken away, and were then called up on high… In the intensity of their joy, they repeat their Hallelujah.
Another writer keeps those martyrs apart from the elders and reaches a wider conclusion.
The various groups of martyrs — those of the coming crisis — stand apart from the elders. So we gather that the "great multitude" is all the saints then in Heaven.
The rising smoke is all that will be left of a system that looks impressive today.
And God will have a lasting witness to the overwhelming judgment of this false church, for we read, "The smoke from her goes up forever and ever" (v. 3). The Papal church looms large in the eyes of men today. But in the years to come, the only trace that she ever existed will be the smoke of her torment. Through the ages of the Millennium that smoke will bear witness to her doom, which can never be reversed, and to God's holy hatred of her corruptions.
How long is "forever and ever"? One writer answers by listing what else Scripture measures with the same words.
Notice the weight of the words "forever and ever." Every honest soul must admit they mean absolute eternity. Scripture speaks of three things in this absolute class. (1) The life of God (Rev. 4:9-10, etc.); (2) The smoke of Rev. 19:3; (3) The torment of Rev. 20:10. So God's eternity, the judgment He carries out in wrath, and the judgment felt by the one who suffers it are all eternal in the fullest sense.
One event brings tears on earth and joy in heaven. The difference lies in what the fallen system had pretended to be.
Nothing marks God's hatred of counterfeits in the things of Christ more solemnly than this repeated joy. Heaven rejoices over the judgment of a corrupt system that stole the name of the Lamb's wife while denying her character. Many people on earth think only of their own imagined interests, and they weep over her fall. But "a great multitude in heaven" thinks of Christ's glory, and gives praise to God for avenging the blood of His servants and judging the corrupter of the world.
So what does real love do in the face of a doom like this?
No true love can soften the terms of the divine judgment announced here. Real love will instead echo the call of mercy in the meantime: "Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues."
- Praise named. "Hallelujah" means "Praise Jehovah." It is a word from the Psalms, and this chapter is the only place it appears in the New Testament.
- Praise repeated. The second Hallelujah answers the long years when the false woman shed His people's blood and God seemed to do nothing.
- Praise shared. Commentators differ on the singers — martyrs of the coming crisis, or all the saints then in heaven.
- Praise permanent. The smoke is a lasting witness: the same phrase measures God's own life, His wrath, and the doom of those under it.
- Praise applied. No one may soften a judgment this final. Until it falls, the call still stands: "Come out of her, my people."
And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and did homage to God who sits upon the throne, saying, Amen, Hallelujah.
Heaven's answer to Babylon's fall narrows from a great crowd to a smaller circle: the elders and the living creatures fall down and say two Hebrew words. Who are they, why do they worship God and not Christ here, and why are the elders never seen after this?
Each group stands for something, and their order here is not the order used earlier in the book.
The elders stand for the redeemed and enthroned saints. The living creatures are the symbols of God's government in creation. Both "fell down and worshiped God." How profound the worship! How fitting the action! It is God, not Christ, Whom they honour. It is God Who has judged Babylon, so they give their worship to Him. Besides, Christ has not at this point taken up the government of the earth. God is the Judge of Babylon... In Revelation 5:8 the living ones come before the elders. Here the elders are named first, because they are more closely concerned in the judgment of the prostitute.
One of their two words comes straight from Israel's songbook.
"Hallelujah," they say. This beautiful Hebrew word occurs four times in these celebrations of praise (vv. 1, 3, 4, 6). It appears nowhere else in the New Testament. It appears often in the book of Psalms. It opens and closes each of the last five psalms. Taken together, those psalms express Israel's praise in the millennial kingdom. Hallelujah means "Praise Jehovah," or "Jah," a shortened form of Jehovah.
Their other word, "Amen," is agreement. Heaven signs its name to what God has done, and so it stands against what people on earth feel.
Heaven is of one mind, both in praising God and in rejoicing over the vengeance that has overtaken Babylon. That mind is in full communion with the mind of God — indeed, it is the expression of it. And that same mind, let it be said again, stands in direct opposition to the mind of man. God and all heaven rejoice over that which man considers his greatest disaster.
The larger company praises God for judging Babylon. The smaller circle has something else in view.
All heaven responds to the call to rejoice over the fall of Babylon. Then a more limited circle — the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures — take up the praise. They say nothing of the judgment of the great prostitute. It is true they add their "Amen" to all that God has done, but they are occupied with God Himself. So they fall down and worship God who sits on the throne, saying, "Amen; Hallelujah."
One writer connects the vanishing of the elders to the marriage of the Lamb.
Now we can see why the twenty-four elders are never seen again after the rejoicing over the fall of Babylon. They represented the redeemed. That group was made up partly of "the Church of the firstborn" — believers baptized into one body with Christ, His bride — and partly of the "just men made perfect," the saints of earlier ages. Until the marriage of the Lamb these formed one company. But now that His wife has made herself ready, they must separate.
The scene is still future, but one writer turns it on the reader today.
Heaven takes a remarkably deep interest in the fall and judgment of Christendom, or the apostate church... One day with the Lord is as a thousand years; but this terrible overthrow in judgment must come. May the Lord use this searching truth to separate us more to Himself! What an end of all human boasting! — the end of the period we live in, and so near! If we believe all this, it must separate us from all around to God Himself.
- Who — the elders stand for the redeemed, seated and crowned. The living creatures stand for God's government in creation. Here the elders come first, as the ones most closely concerned in the prostitute's judgment.
- Amen — heaven's signature on God's act. The same event that earth calls its worst disaster, heaven calls right.
- Hallelujah — "Praise Jehovah." It comes four times in this chapter and nowhere else in the New Testament. It opens and closes each of the last five psalms.
- Whom — not Christ, who has not yet taken up the government of the earth, but God on the throne, because God judged Babylon. They are taken up with Him, not with the ruin.
- Then silence — this is the elders' last appearance. Once the Lamb's wife has made herself ready, the one company they pictured must separate.