<p>6:10 <i>And they cried with a great voice, saying: How long, O Master, the holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?</i>- Just as the Lord cried with a loud voice at His death (Mt. 27:46,50; Lk. 23:46). The suffering and even death experienced by the faithful during the tribulation will identify them with the crucifixion sufferings of their Lord. In Revelation, it is usually an Angel who &lsquo;cries with a loud voice&rsquo; (Rev. 5:2,12; 7:2,10; 8:13; 10:3; 11:12,15; 12:10; 14:2,7,9,15; 16:1,17; 18:2; 19:17- a very considerable theme). We have here another example of Revelation&rsquo;s theme that the believers on earth have their position reflected in Heaven, by Angels in the court of Heaven. Their representative Angels loudly proclaimed to the court of Heaven the injustice done. It was not so much they themselves who cried out, seeing that death is unconsciousness, but the witness of their lives their &lsquo;soul&rsquo;, the &lsquo;blood&rsquo; represented by their Angels before the throne of God in Heaven.</p><p>Rev. 6:10; 13:15; 14:9 describe the persecuted Christian remnant of the last days in the language of Daniel. The conclusion is that they (we?) will find strength to endure through the understanding of prophecy. Daniel's spirit of &quot;How long...?&quot; is so exactly reflective of the attitude of all God's children down the years that it is hard to deny that Daniel is being framed as the representative of all the saints. Indeed, these very words are quoted in Rev. 6:10 concerning the attitude of the slain saints of the last days.</p><p><i>&quot;</i>How long, O Lord&quot; is clearly alluding to Is. 6:11-13: &ldquo;Lord, how long? He answered, Until the cities are waste without inhabitant and houses without man and the land becomes utterly waste, and Yahweh has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed: as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stump remains when they are felled; so the holy seed is its stump&rdquo;. The context is the same- an utter desolation of the land by an &lsquo;Assyrian&rsquo; invader, resulting in the repentance of the remnant. This is the context of many other &lsquo;How long?&rsquo; laments in the prophets- the answer is &lsquo;Until Israel repent&rsquo; (Jer. 4:14 &ldquo;Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?&rdquo;; 4:21; 12:4; 23:26; 31:22 &ldquo;How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter?&rdquo;; Hos. 8:5 &ldquo;How long will it be until they are capable of purity?&rdquo;; Hab. 1:2). Particularly relevant is Zech. 1:12: &ldquo;How long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah&rdquo;. The significance is in the fact that the vision of four coloured horsemen is based upon Zechariah 1, and so the &ldquo;how long?&rsquo; theme continues the allusion. Again we note that the territory in view is Jerusalem and the land promised to Abraham. The answer of Dan. 12:6,7 to the question is more precise; effectively it is the same as the answers which said &lsquo;How long? Until Israel repent&rsquo;: &ldquo;How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever that it shall be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have made an end of breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished&rdquo;. Daniel&rsquo;s answer to &lsquo;How long?&rsquo; appears to be &lsquo;Until the three and a half year period is finished, and God&rsquo;s people have been thoroughly broken in pieces&rsquo;. For it seems it is only then that the necessary repentance will occur. Those interested in trying to work out a chronology of events might take note that these particular believers must be killed earlier in the tribulation period. The cry &lsquo;How long until justice?&rsquo; is answered by the news that three and a half years tribulation must pass, and more must yet be killed.</p><p>The &ldquo;holy and true&rdquo; Lord is defined earlier in Rev. 3:7 as the Lord Jesus. This is not the usual Greek word translated &ldquo;Lord&rsquo;. We have to think long and hard as to why a word with such negative connotation as <i>despotes</i> should be used about the Lord Jesus. Why not the more natural <i>kurios</i>? I suggest that the more tyrannical and draconian <i>despotes</i> is used exactly because a despot, the antichrist, is then reigning over the land, and has caused the death of these believers. But for them, their <i>despotes</i>, their Lord, is not him, but the true Christ. Hence they address Him as the &ldquo;holy and true&rdquo; <i>despotes</i>- hinting that there is a false one, one that is <i>not </i>holy, to whom they have refused allegiance.</p><p>&quot;Do You not judge&quot; perhaps needs the emphasis placed on &lsquo;You&rsquo;, seeing they have been judged by some human court and punished with death; see on 6:9 <i>Their testimony</i>. The same words for &quot;avenge our blood&quot; are found in Rev. 19:2- the blood of God&rsquo;s servants is avenged at the hands of the &ldquo;great whore&rdquo;. The horse riders of the seals are therefore part of the beast system dominated by the whore. The avenging of Israel&rsquo;s blood will be by God&rsquo;s &ldquo;sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates&rdquo; in the latter day of Yahweh&rsquo;s vengeance, the day of the Lord of Hosts (Jer. 46:10). This suggests again that the shedders of Israel&rsquo;s blood are those from the north country, Babylon / Assyria, who come from the Euphrates. And this is the current source of jihadist Islam.</p><p>Their call for vengeance means &lsquo;Avenge our blood on those men who shed it&rsquo;. To describe those men as &lsquo;earth dwellers&rsquo; seems somehow redundant and rather too obviously self-evident- unless there is some particular significance to being an earth dweller. We need to understand the &lsquo;earth&rsquo; here as specifically the land promised to Abraham, and not the whole planet. The significance of the murderers as being &lsquo;land dwellers&rsquo; is perhaps because these people have come over the Euphrates, the northern border of the land promised to Abraham, and they are invaders now dwelling in the land. The other NT references to dwelling in the earth / land are specifically about dwelling in the land promised to Abraham; Abraham moved into the land of Canaan, in which land the Israelites now dwelt (Acts 7:4); Abraham dwelt in the land of promise (Heb. 11:9). The earth / land dwellers are singled out for particular judgment because of how they have persecuted God&rsquo;s people (Rev. 8:13; 11:10; 12:12). It&rsquo;s as if being an earth dweller is a cause for judgment; this is far more understandable if we understand the term to refer to neighbouring invaders who are now dwelling in the land promised to Abraham in the last days. The earth dwellers are those who worship the beast and give power to him (Rev. 13:8,12,14; 17:2). The domain of the beast is the &lsquo;earth&rsquo; or land promised to Abraham, seeing it is based upon the fourth beast of Daniel 7, whom we have demonstrated to have this specific dominion. Rev. 14:6 draws a distinction between the earth dwellers and every nation, tongue and tribe- which would lend support to our definition of them as the invaders who now dwell in the land promised to Abraham in the last days.</p><p>Ez. 32:30, Rev. 6:10 and some other passages give the impression that the dead are somehow alive. And yet we know from an impregnable array of Bible passages that the dead are unconscious. These 'difficult passages' are surely giving us a window on God's timeless perspective. Apart from the death state, there are other examples of where future things are spoken of as having already happened (e.g. Ez. 39:29). God's future actions are simply spoken of as having already happened (e.g. Ez. 32:18). Living believers are called &quot;martyrs&quot; even before they are killed, because God foresees that they will be killed (Rev. 11:7).</p>