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)
Deuteronomy 32
1
Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2
My doctrine shall drop as the rain. My speech shall condense as the dew, as the small rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb.
3
For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh. Ascribe greatness to our God!
4
The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice: a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he.
5
They have dealt corruptly with him, [they are] not his children, [it is] their blemish. [They are] a perverse and crooked generation.
6
Do you thus requite Yahweh, foolish people and unwise? Isn't he your father who has bought you? He has made you, and established you.
7
Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.
8
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
9
For Yahweh's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10
He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11
As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers.
12
Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him.
13
He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock;
14
Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. Of the blood of the grape you drank wine.
15
But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16
They moved him to jealousy with strange [gods]. They provoked him to anger with abominations.
17
They sacrificed to demons, [which were] no God, to gods that they didn't know, to new [gods] that came up of late, which your fathers didn't dread.
18
Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.
19
Yahweh saw [it], and abhorred [them], because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20
He said, "I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.
21
They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22
For a fire is kindled in my anger, Burns to the lowest Sheol, Devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23
"I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them.
24
[They shall be] wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust.
25
Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, The nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
26
I said, I would scatter them afar. I would make the memory of them to cease from among men;
27
were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, 'Our hand is exalted, Yahweh has not done all this.'"
28
For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.
29
Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30
How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up?
31
For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter.
33
Their wine is the poison of serpents, The cruel venom of asps.
34
"Isn't this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures?
35
Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides; for the day of their calamity is at hand. The things that are to come on them shall make haste."
36
For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that [their] power is gone, There is none [remaining], shut up or left at large.
37
He will say, "Where are their gods, The rock in which they took refuge;
38
Which ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection.
39
"See now that I, even I, am he, There is no god with me. I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.
40
For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever,
41
if I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me.
42
I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy."
43
Rejoice, you nations, [with] his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will render vengeance to his adversaries, And will make expiation for his land, for his people.
44
Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun.
45
Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel;
46
He said to them, "Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, [even] all the words of this law.
47
For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it."
48
Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying,
49
"Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession;
50
and die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people:
51
because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn't sanctify me in the midst of the children of Israel.
52
For you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel."
