Apocalypse Revealed # 806
806. "And He has avenged the blood of His servants shed by her hand." This symbolizes a retribution for the injuries and violence done to the souls of worshipers of the Lord.
His avenging the blood of His servants shed by her hand symbolizes a retribution for the injuries and violence done to the souls of worshipers of the Lord, because His avenging symbolizes retribution. To shed blood means, symbolically, to do violence to the Lord's Divinity and to the Word (nos. 327, 684), in this case to worshipers of the Lord, who are meant by His servants. Roman Catholics inflicted injuries and violence on their souls by transferring Divine worship of the Lord to themselves and preventing their reading of the Word.
The Lord is said to have avenged or exacted retribution for the blood of His servants as though He did this to take revenge or punish; but still He does not act to take revenge or punish, just as He does not act out of anger or wrath, even though anger and wrath are occasionally attributed to Him in the Word (see nos. 525, 635, 658, 673 above).
Anger and revenge are attributed to the Lord when evil people are separated from the good and cast into hell, as happens at the time of a last judgment. That time is therefore called wrath and a day of wrath, and a day of vengeance. Not that the Lord is angry or vengeful, but that those people are angry at the Lord and filled with vengeance against Him. The case is like that of a criminal after sentence has been passed, who is angry at the law and filled with vengeance against the judge. For the law is not angry, nor is the judge taking revenge.
[2] Vengeance is meant in this sense in the following passages:
...the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. (Isaiah 63:4)
The reference there is to the Lord and the Last Judgment.
...the day of Jehovah's vengeance, the year of retribution for the case of Zion. (Isaiah 34:8)
Behold, your God will come for vengeance; for the retribution of God He will come, and He will save you. (Isaiah 35:4)
...these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. (Luke 21:22)
The reference there is to the culmination of the age, when the Last Judgment takes place.
The Spirit of the Lord Jehovih is upon Me... to proclaim the day Jehovah's good pleasure, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. (Isaiah 61:1-2)
Shall My soul not take vengeance... for this? (Jeremiah 5:9, 29)
I will take vengeance (on Babylon), and will not allow anyone to intercede. (Isaiah 47:3)
...His thought is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of Jehovah, vengeance for His temple. (Jeremiah 51:11, cf. 51:36)
Sing, O nations, His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and visit vengeance on His adversaries; He will purge His land, His people. (Deuteronomy 32:43)
Isaiah 34
1
Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear; the world, and everything that comes from it.
2
For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over for slaughter.
3
Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up; and the mountains will melt in their blood.
4
All of the army of the sky will be dissolved. The sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree.
5
For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment.
6
Yahweh's sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7
The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.
8
For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9
Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, And its land will become burning pitch.
10
It won't be quenched night nor day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever.
11
But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.
12
They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing.
13
Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.
14
The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow. Yes, the night creature shall settle there, and shall find herself a place of rest.
15
The arrow snake will make her nest there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate.
16
Search in the book of Yahweh, and read: not one of these will be missing. none will lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.
17
He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.
