Souls Under the Altar
Apocalyptic Dreams
He said to them, "Please listen to this dream which I have had." (Genesis 37:6)
Joseph had prophetic dreams about future events. The dreams were not true on a literal level. Neither did the dreams convey specifc information or details about the sequence of events that would bring about their fulfillment.
The dreams were not true on a literal level because they employed symbolic imagery to convey their message. That's how dreams work. They speak in the abstract spiritual language of images and symbols. Rarely does a dream accurately mirror real life. For example, in one dream, Joseph saw himself and his brothers as animated sheaves of wheat. In another dream, they were stars, and his father and mother were the sun and the moon. When the dreams were fulfilled, Joseph and his brothers did not turn into sheaves of wheat, nor did his family turn into astronomical bodies. That does not mean that the dreams were untrue. The symbolism of the dreams had to be considered, puzzled over, and interpreted. Even then, it was possible to understand the full meaning of the dream only after its fulfillment.
That's how Bible prophecy usually works, too. "If there is a prophet among you, 1, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream" (Numbers 12:6). A vision occurs in a type of altered conscious state in which a person sees images like hallucinations while remaining wide awake. A dream comes while a person sleeps (which is also an altered state of consciousness). Whether in a prophetic dream or a prophetic vision, the prophet sees scenes and images that symbolize people, places, and events. The prophet does not anticipate a literal fulfillment of the poetic and sometimes bizarre imagery, but he does anticipate some future events that will make the meaning of the dream clear.
In the second chapter of the book of Daniel, for example, King Nebuchadnezzar dreams about an enormous statue with a head of gold, chest of silver, waist of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of clay. The image is toppled by a large hurled stone that strikes its feet. Daniel explains that the dream was not about a literal statue. The statue represents the four idolatrous kingdoms of Israel's exiles: Babylon (head of gold), Medo-Persia (chest of silver), Greece (waist of bronze), and Rome (legs of iron). The feet of clay mixed with iron symbolize some internal division in the fourth kingdom—a vulnerability exploited by the stone that strikes the feet and topples the whole of it. The stone is not a literal stone; it's the future kingdom of heaven, which will replace the corrupt human kingdoms of the earth.
Jewish apocalyptic literature works the same way. It conveys dreams, visions, and revelations that heighten that type of hallucinatory imagery and dreamlike symbolism. It utilizes a wide bestiary of symbolic animals and mythical creatures. Apocalyptic imagery is never intended to be taken literally at face value. The bizarre creatures in the book of Revelation, such as the seven-headed dragon, the beast from the sea, the woman riding the beast, the locusts of Abaddon, the falling stars, the talking eagle, and so forth, need to be understood as elements of that same dreamlike genre.
The imagery of prophetic visions and apocalyptic revelations contains enough ambiguity to lend itself to several possible outcomes. There is no single fixed order of events. Biblical prophecy makes room for human agency, free choice, and the power of repentance. For example, what if Joseph's brothers had not betrayed him and sold him into Egypt? Is there some way that the story might have played out differently and yet fulfilled Joseph's dreams about his brothers? Yes. God is big enough to account for all the potential variables.
If biblical prophecy, dreams, and visions do not convey literal and detailed information about an unalterable, fixed, and deterministic sequence of future events, then it's not possible to confidently chart out the end times according to a specific schedule. If we treat Bible prophecy like an unalterable formula or pre-written script of future events, we have misunderstood the entire genre of divine revelation. The prophecies communicate a definite destination without telling us the exact route history must take to arrive at that destination. We know where we are going, but we don't know exactly how we will get there, and it's possible to take wrong turns along the way.
In the days of the apostles, this ambiguity was well understood. That's how Jewish eschatology works:
We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when 1 became a man, 1 did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. (I Corinthians 13:9-12)
End of Days on Pause
Now he had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, "Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." (Genesis 37:9)
Nonetheless, we should regard ourselves as the last generation before the coming of the Messiah. That's a matter of discipleship. The gospel message says, "The kingdom of heaven is near." Yeshua's first disciples took that message at face value. We should do so as well.
Besides that, we are further along the way toward the final destination than you might think. Yeshua told us not to wait for signs to indicate His arrival. He told us that, if we are paying attention, we should be able to discern the hour as easily as one can see a storm brewing in the sky. Pay attention!
When asked for a definitive sign that the kingdom is at hand, Yeshua said we should require no sign other than the sign of Jonah: a prophet with a warning about the coming day of wrath. The apostles understood His resurrection from the dead as evidence enough that the end is near. They interpreted His resurrection as the ultimate meaning of "the sign of Jonah." They understood it as a clear indication that the Day of the LORD was at hand.
Moreover, the generation of the apostles lived to see many of His predictions playing out in real time before their eyes. In Matthew 24, they asked Him for some definitive information that they could use to gauge the nearness of the hour. They asked when the Temple would be destroyed and what would be the sign of His coming and the end of the age (Matthew 24:1-3). He predicted wars, rumors of war, and natural disasters signifying the beginning of the birth pains before the Day of the LORD (Matthew 24:4-8). Those days of trial would escalate into a time of trouble for the Jewish people, characterized by baseless hatred, lawlessness, persecution, false prophecy, and false Messiahs. During that time, the gospel message would go out, proclaimed to the whole world-something that happened as the apostles went out to the nations (Matthew 24:9-14). A time of great tribulation, unmatched in severity, would commence, requiring the disciples to flee Judea, especially when they saw Jerusalem surrounded (Luke 21:20-21) or an idol in the holy place (Matthew 24:15-22). From the perspective of the apostolic generation, all of these events occurred within forty years of the death and resurrection of Yeshua. It's like He said, "This generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (Matthew 24:34).
However, you could argue that not everything He predicted took place. He also said that "immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken" (Matthew 24:29). Then the Son of Man will appear in the clouds. None of that has happened yet. The sun, moon, and stars are still doing business as usual. It's as if the apocalypse has been on pause since the destruction of Jerusalem and "the tribulation of those days."
Think of the end of days like an old vcr tape left paused with an image of the film you were watching frozen on the screen, waiting for someone to press the play button so that the story can resume. The image frozen on the screen is "the tribulation of those days." You can still see the smoke rising from the ruins of Jerusalem, the travails of the Jewish people in their conflicts with Rome, and the Roman-era persecution of Yeshua's disciples. According to Matthew 24, the next scene in the movie (once God hits the play button again), should be the darkening of the sun, the darkening of the moon, and the stars falling from the sky-whatever that means.
Joseph’s Blood-Stained Coat
So they took Joseph's tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood. (Genesis 37:31)
Joseph was sort of a martyr. His brothers wanted to kill him. They nearly did. They kidnapped him, stripped him of his princely coat, threw him into a pit, pulled him out of the pit, and sold him as a slave. The character of Joseph hints toward Yeshua, the Suffering Servant, rejected by His brothers, who ultimately becomes their salvation. His story marks off the way of the cross, and it illustrates the redemptive pattern of suffering that precedes glory.
"This finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly" (I Peter 2:19). Joseph bore up under his sorrows when he suffered unjustly, and Joseph did find favor with God. His forgiving spirit and unshakable confidence in the goodness of God (despite the injustices he endured) provide encouragement and guidance for everyone who must bear the cross of suffering. He told his brothers, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Genesis 50:20).
To cover their crimes against Joseph, his brothers dipped his torn coat in the blood of a slaughtered goat. They wanted to make the coat appear to be stained with his blood as if a lion, a bear, a leopard, or a wild boar had attacked and killed the boy. When Jacob saw it, he cried out, "It is my son's tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!" (Genesis 37:33).
Dipped in Blood
When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained. (Revelation 6:9)
The book of Revelation alludes to the story of the brothers dipping Joseph's robe in blood. As the Lamb breaks open the fifth seal on the scroll with seven seals, John sees the souls of the martyrs under the heavenly altar, crying out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" The souls are told to "rest for a little while longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also." Until then, each of the martyrs is given a white robe (Revelation 6:10-11).
Martyrs are added to their number as the souls under the altar wait "a little while longer" for the next seal on the scroll with seven seals to be broken. When the Lamb finally breaks the sixth seal, John sees how the host of martyrs has grown. During the interim between the fifth and sixth seals, the number of martyrs has swollen into "a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes" (Revelation 7:9). The innumerable multinational host is further identified as, "the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 7:14).
In Jewish thought, the body is called the garment of the soul. The martyrs pictured around the throne of glory have washed their robes in the blood of the Messiah by sharing in His suffering and death. That is to say, they have shed their bodies and dipped them in blood for the sake of His name. The Greek word dipped (bapto, Bántw) is the root for the common New Testament term translated as immersion or baptism. The martyrs who have "dipped" their robes in blood have been "baptized into His death" (Romans 6:3) by shedding their own bodies in martyrdom:
You shall be baptized with the baptism with which 1 am baptized. (Mark 10:39)
Under the Altar
I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain. (Revelation 6:9)
In the Bible's sacrificial system, the blood of the victims possesses atoning value because it represents the nefesh, that is, the life or soul of a living being:
For the [soull of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your [souls]; for it is the blood, by reason of the [soul], that makes atonement. (Leviticus 17:11)
In the sacrificial system, blood serves as the medium of exchange because it is a vector for the soul. The priesthood splashes the blood of the sacrifices against the sides of the altar to symbolize the soul entering the presence of God. The blood runs to the base of the altar, pooling under it. The priests sprinkle a small amount of the blood of the sin offerings toward the curtain in the Sanctuary and smear it on the horns of the incense altar, but they pour out the remainder of the blood under the altar of burnt offering:
All the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt oftering which is at the doorway of the tent of meeting. (Leviticus 4:7)
In light of these passages from Leviticus, the image of the souls under the altar in the book of Revelation becomes even more vivid. John sees the souls of the martyrs, symbolically represented as blood that has been poured out at the base of the heavenly altar.
Jewish theology believes that the suffering and the death of the righteous provide atonement. That theory of atonement also applies to the suffering of the martyrs. Their blood atones for those who remain. For example, the martyrs put to death by the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes in the days of the Maccabees were regarded as "a ransom for the sin of our nation, and through the blood of these righteous men, and through the atoning power of their death, God delivered Israel" (4 Maccabees 17:21). The idea is similar to the theology of atonement presented in the New Testament. Since the righteous do not suffer for their own sins, their suffering extends to atone for the sins of others. For the same reason, the synagogue liturgy for the Day of Atonement invokes the memory of the martyrs.
The sages taught that the souls of the righteous are poured out on the heavenly altar. The Bible teaches that the earthly altar wrought a limited atonement on earth with the blood of animals. The Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that the earthly altar functioned as a shadow and reflection of the true altar in heaven (Hebrews 8:5, 9:23, I0:1). On earth, the priesthood oftered the blood of bulls, goats, lambs, and doves as substitutes. The sages taught that, in heaven, the souls of the righteous appeal to God on behalf of the nation:
What [sacrifice] does the Great Angel Michael offer? Does it enter your mind that there are bulls or sheep there?! Rather, what does he offer? The souls of the righteous. (Ein laakov, Chagigah 12b)
This is the same theological impulse that informs apostolic beliefs about the atoning value of the death of Yeshua (Hebrews 7-12). That conviction undergirds the whole theological system of the New Testament. It's the basis for how the disciples arrived at the belief that the death of the Messiah could accomplish the forgiveness of one's sins. "For this finds favor (i.e., grace), if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly" (I Peter 2:19, see all of 2:19-24).
Why is the blood of the martyrs on the altar? The Messiah suffered as an example for His disciples to follow. "You have been called [as a disciple] for this purpose, since the Messiah also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps" (I Peter 2:21). His life was poured out like blood upon the altar. But the New Testament does not suggest that all other martyrdoms are thereafter rendered redundant (Colossians I:24). He calls His disciples to take up their crosses and follow after Him. "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher (Matthew 10:24-25).
The blood of the martyrs cries out like the blood of righteous Abel. It demands the fulfillment of God's covenant promises and the coming of His kingdom. In this sense, the blood of the martyrs joins the sacrificial witness of the altar, working atonement in the heavenly Sanctuary and hastening the day when God will set all things right:
In those days the prayers of the righteous and the blood of the innocent will rise up from the earth before the Lord of Spirits. And in those days, the holy ones who dwell in heaven will join together with one voice, praying and pleading on behalf of the blood of the righteous that has been shed-so that the prayers of the righteous may not be in vain before the Lord of Spirits, but that justice may be done for them, and that they will not have to suffer forever. (I Enoch 47:1-2)
The Day of Vengeance
They cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:10)
In Judaism, it is customary to accord specific honorifics to the deceased, similar to expressions like "May he rest in peace." For most individuals, we say, "Of blessed memory," or "May his memory be for a blessing." In the case of particularly righteous individuals, the phrase becomes more specific: "The memory of the righteous is for a blessing" (Proverbs 10:7). However, when referring to someone who has died as a martyr, the custom is to say, "May the LORD avenge his blood." If that seems inappropriate for disciples of Yeshua-who are instructed not to seek vengeance-consider the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar crying out to God: "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" The cry of the souls alludes to numerous passages from the Tanach, such as Deuteronomy 32:43, "He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance on His adversaries, and will atone for His land and His people":
Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let there be known among the nations in our sight, vengeance for the blood of Your servants which has been shed. (Psalm 79:10)
In the prophecies of Isaiah, the eschatological Day of the LORD is called "the day of vengeance" (Isaiah 34:8) when "your God will come with ven-geance" and "the recompense of God will come, but He will save you" (Isaiah 35:4). On that day, He will don arms and armor for war and "put on garments of vengeance for clothing" (Isaiah 59:17). Yeshua quoted one such passage from Isaiah to describe His messianic mission and the good-news message:
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our God. (Luke 4:18-19, cf. Isaiah 6I:1-2)
We have previously learned that the sages pointed to Isaiah 63 as evidence of the futility in trying to calculate the day and hour of the final redemption because "the day of vengeance" remains concealed in God's heart. In that passage, the LORD enters the land of Israel from the east like a blood-red sunrise because His garments are stained red with the blood of Edom (the enemies of His people):
Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments of glowing colors from Bozrah ... Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? "I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment. For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption has come. (Isaiah 63:1-4)
In eager anticipation of that blood-red day of divine justice, the souls beneath the altar cry out, "How long, O Lord?"
The Martyrs
The souls of the martyrs poured out at the base of the heavenly altar "had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained" (Revelations 6:9). It's the same reason the Emperor Domitian exiled John to the island of Patmos in the first place: "because of the word of God and the testimony of Yeshua" (Revelation 1:9).
The term "word of God" was not a generic reference to the Bible as it is used in English today. Instead, "word of God" was a biblical idiom for a message or revelation from God. In the New Testament, the term "word of God" usually refers to the gospel message proclaimed by Yeshua and His apostles: repentance in preparation for the Day of the LORD.
The term "testimony of Yeshua" refers to legal testimony (martyria, Maptupia) presented before a Roman tribunal. The word martyr (martys, Máptus) did not originally indicate a victim for the sake of conviction; the word originally meant a witness who testifies in a court of law. The semantic value of the word began to shift in the days of Nero, Domitian, and Trajan, when believers were brought before tribunals and compelled to testify.
In those days, if you were suspected of being a Christian, you might find yourself standing trial before a tribunal presided over by a Roman official resembling Pontius Pilate. The tribunal would pressure you to publicly renounce your allegiance to the Messiah and then prove your sincerity by blaspheming His name. Just to be sure you were not a secret Christian, the tribunal might ask you to verify your allegiance to the gods by worshiping an idol that they kept handy for the occasion.
As the hearing before such a tribunal commenced, they would ask, , "Are you a follower of the one called Christos?" At that point, you could deny your faith or offer your testimony as a true witness to the faith, "Yes, 1 am His disciple. I am a follower of Yeshua." The tribunal sentenced such witnesses for their crime. Important persons who confessed their faith were banished or relegated to remote islands, as John says, "Il] was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Yeshua" (Revelation I: 9). Roman citizens who testified about Yeshua were given the dignity of a beheading, as John says, "I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Yeshua and because of the word of God" (Revelation 20:4, cf. 13:10). Witnesses who testified for Yeshua without the protection of citizenship might be put to death by crucifixion or as fodder for gladiators or wild beasts in the arenas. That's how the meaning of the word martyr shifted from a witness in a court of law to someone who sacrifices his or her life for the sake of a religious conviction. A "faithful witness" refused to deny the name of Master even at the cost of his or her life (Revelation 2:13, cf. 3:14).
Wrath of the Dragon
So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Revelation 12:17)
The opening of the fifth seal corresponds with the specific point in time when the dragon (Rome) pivoted from a general persecution of the woman (Israel) to pursue "the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Yeshua." In other words, the Romans set aside a general persecution of the Jewish people after the Jewish Revolt in order to concentrate their efforts on one specific sect of the Jewish faith: the believers in Yeshua.
The believers referred to themselves as the sect of the Nazarenes, but the rest of the world referred to them as the Christians. Roman persecution of the Christians had already begun a few years before the Jewish Revolt, when Nero singled them out for mistreatment after the fire of Rome (64 CE). He needed a scapegoat to take the blame for the fire and to divert attention from himself. (He was probably responsible for burning the city.) The Christians were an easy target. They were already unpopular because they promoted monotheism among Gentiles, thus robbing the gods of their due worship. Nero arrested both Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome and put them to death by crucifixion and in the spectacles of Circus Neronis. Others he burned alive to light the gardens on Vatican Hill. Simon Peter died in that persecution, and Paul was beheaded not long after that. Two years later, the Roman legions marched against Judea and Galilee. During the war, just being Jewish was enough to get you killed. Rome forgot about the Christians for a while.
Around 95 cE, the Emperor Domitian was drafting a new set of anti-Jewish legislation for the purposes of raising tax revenue when he rediscovered the existence of the sect of the Christians. He immediately set aside his designs against the Jewish people and focused his efforts on the Christians. He found the idea of Gentile Christians particularly troubling. Roman historians described them as people who had "drifted into Jewish ways" and adopted Jewish superstitions. Domitian was very religious, loyal to the gods of Rome, and considered himself to be a god. He demanded that people address him as "my lord and my god." When the emperor learned that Christians encouraged Gentiles to abandon their allegiance to the Roman gods, he declared their sect an illegal superstition and began making arrests.
It's at that point in the story that Yeshua tears open the fifth seal on the scroll with seven seals. The fifth seal consists of the testimony of the martyrs who confess His name. At that point in the story, the dragon focuses attention on pursuing the disciples of Yeshua. John is arrested and relegated to Patmos as a "fellow partaker in the tribulation" (Revelation 1:9). The blood of the martyrs soaks the heavenly altar, and the souls beneath the altar cry out, "How long, O LORD?" This is the historical context for the book of Revelation.
The White Garment
There was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also. (Revelation 6:I1)
The cry of the souls under the altar seems to echo the sentiments of Psalm 6 in which David's soul prays for rescue from Sheol (i.e., from death) and inquires, "O LORD-how long?" until the day of salvation (Psalm 6:3-5). Having dipped (bapto, Bánt) their robes in the blood of the Lamb through their own martyrdoms, the souls of the martyrs are compensated with a token of the coming resurrection. In Jewish thought, the ritual of immersion (baptism) is compared to death and resurrection. Submersion under the water is likened to death; emerging from the water is likened to resur-rection. Having dipped their robes in blood to "become united with Him in the likeness of His death," they certainly "shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Romans 6:5).
Each one is given a white robe to symbolize the restored and resurrected body he or she will receive in the resurrection of the righteous. The white robe is not the resurrected body itself. It's a spiritual token to clothe the soul that indicates its status as destined for resurrection. The souls of the martyrs will be returned to life in holy and immortal bodies like that of the resurrected Yeshua.
The entire book of Revelation is best understood as an encouragement for those who face the threat of martyrdom for the sake of their faith. The book is not (as some wrongly teach) a description of how Christians will escape a terrible tribulation on earth. Escaping tribulation is the opposite of the book's message. The book of Revelation calls readers to persevere through persecution and tribulation. It summons believers to remain loyal to the Messiah despite the high cost of discipleship: suffering, persecution, and death. It does not promise us any escape; it promises resurrection.
Revelation offers martyrs the reward of the "first resurrection," that is to say, a share in the resurrection of the righteous (Revelation 20:5-6). That reward does not get doled out indiscriminately. According to the apocalypse, the martyrs attain the first resurrection because "they did not love their life even when faced with death" (Revelation 12:II).
Martyrdom and Resurrection
Jewish literature began closely associating the idea of martyrdom with the reward of resurrection in the Maccabean Era. In those days, Jews were threatened with death unless they renounced their allegiance to God and to the Torah. The pious chose to accept death rather than worship idols or break the Torah.
In 2 Maccabees 6, a respected elder and scribe of the people named Eleazar faces a test of his faith when the Seleucid authorities attempt to force him to eat pork in contradiction to the commandment of the Torah. Eleazar courageously refuses lest his example mislead others to also forsake the Torah and eat forbidden food. He says, "Even if for the present I should avoid the punishment of men, yet whether l live or die I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty" (2 Maccabees 6:26).
In 2 Maccabees 7, the faith of a mother and her seven sons is likewise tested when the family is arrested and tortured for refusing to eat swine's flesh under the same trial. One by one, the sons are brutally executed before the woman's eyes for refusing to capitulate. The mother, filled with unwavering faith, encourages each son to stand firm, reminding them that God, the Creator, will restore their lives in the resurrection: "[He] will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws" (2 Maccabees 7:23). Her children declare their hope in resurrection and affirm God's justice, even as they suffer. They say to their tormentors, "We are compelled to choose death at the hands of men and to cling to the hope God gives that he will raise us up. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!" (2 Maccabees 7:14).
In these texts, those who suffer martyrdom for the sake of keeping the commandments of God and the testimony of their faith anticipate being rewarded with resurrection. The book of Revelation alludes to those stories of the Maccabean martyrs when it refers to the disciples of Yeshua suffering under Domitian as those "who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Yeshua" (Revelation 12:17). Like the brave Maccabean martyrs, those suffering under Domitian's persecution could anticipate receiving the ultimate reward of the first resurrection-the resurrection of the righteous:
I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Yeshua and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Messiah for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)
A Little While
When the fifth seal is opened, the souls under the altar are told that they must wait a little while longer. Two more seals on the scroll with seven seals remain to be opened before their petition can be fulfilled. During that interim of "a little while," more disciples of Yeshua "were to be killed even as they had been." They are still waiting as more souls continue to be added to their number. So far, the "little while" has lasted nearly two thousand years.
That brings us up to date at the time of this writing (September 2025/Elul 5785). Two weeks ago, the Islamic State (1S1S) massacred one hundred Christians who were mourning at a funeral service in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last week, American conservative spokesman, Christian apologist, and Sabbath-keeper, Charlie Kirk, died from an assassin's bullet. Earlier this year (May 2025), Yaron Lischinsky and his fiancée, Sarah Lynn Milgrim, two Messianic Jews who worked for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, were gunned down by a pro-Palestinian activist. How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging their blood?
The nineteenth-century Messianic Jewish luminary, Rabbi Yechiel Tzvi Lichtenstein, believed that the sequence of the opening of the seven seals began in the first century with the destruction of the Temple and tribulation of those days. In his Hebrew commentary on the book of Revelation, he explained that the first five seals have already been opened, but we still wait for the sixth and seventh:
When we compare the words of Revelation 6-7 with the words of the Master in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, we can see that everything that John said from that point up until the opening of the sixth seal has already been fulfilled. With the opening of the second seal, peace passed from the earth; with the third, famine came upon the earth; with the fourth, death and the plague came to the world. And this corresponds to what the Master said (Matthew 24:7), that nation would rise against nation (that is, that peace would pass from the earth), and that there would be famine and plague and so on. All of this was fulfilled in those days. The Master also said, "They will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name (Matthew 24:9). This occurred with the opening of the fifth seal, when John saw the souls of those slain for the word of God. This has also been fulfilled.
However, what He says concerning the opening of the sixth seal-the sun becoming black as sackcloth, the moon turning to blood, and the stars falling to the earth, for the day of His wrath had come-is similar to what the Master says, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken" (Matthew 24:29). This has not yet been fulfilled. All of John's words from the opening of the sixth seal until the end have not yet come to pass. (Rabbi Yechiel Tzvi Lichtenstein, Commentary on the New Testament, Revelation 13:5)
Like the vcR tape of Matthew 24, the sequence of the seven seals has also been left paused in the middle of the story. Frozen on the screen, we see the last frame to play: the complaint of the first-century martyrs who cry out from beneath the heavenly altar, "How long, O Lord?" The souls of the martyrs are told to wait a little longer, until the full "number of their fellow servants and brethren" destined to be killed joins them (Revelation 6:I1). When God finally presses the play button and the tape resumes, the Lamb will break open the sixth seal on the scroll. A sign in the sky will appear - the same sign we await from Matthew 24- the sun and moon will darken, and the stars will fall from heaven:
I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. (Revelation 6:12-13)