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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Revelation 6:9 - 6:9
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And when he had opened the fifth seal: this and the next seal’s opening, is not prefaced with any living creature calling to John to
come and see. We must consider:
1. The number of the beasts was but four, who all had had their courses.
2. Some have thought that it is, because here is no mention of any new persecution, but a consequent of the former.
3. But this vision was so plain, it needed no expositor.
I saw under the altar; still he speaks in the dialect of the Old Testament, where in the temple was the altar of burnt-offering and the altar of incense; the allusion here is judged to be to the latter.
The souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; from whence we may not conclude, that the souls of men and women when they die do sleep, as some dreamers have thought. These are said to be the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God, & c., for preaching the word, and their profession of the gospel, bearing a testimony to Christ and his truths. Mr. Mede thinks that under this seal is comprehended the ten bloody years of Dioclesian’s persecution, which of all others was most severe; paganism at that time (as dying things are wont) most struggling to keep itself alive. This tyrant is said, in the beginning of his reign, within thirty days to have slain seventeen thousand, and in Egypt alone, during his ten years, one hundred and forty-four thousand. He thinks that the souls of those which this wretch had slain throughout all his dominions, within his short period of ten years, were those principally which were showed John upon the opening of this seal.