Revelation 6:9

The scene changes from earth to heaven, which appears as a replica of the earthly temple with its altar of burnt offering. As the blood of sacrifices flowed at the base of the altar (Revelation 16:7), the blood representing the life, the symbolism is obvious. It was mediated by rabbinic ideas of the souls of the just (e.g., of Moses) resting under the divine throne of glory; cf. R. Akiba's saying, “quicumque sepelitur in terra Israel, perinde est ac si sepeliretur sub altari: quicumque autem sepelitur sub altari, perinde est ac si sepeliretur sub throno gloriae” (Pirke Aboth, 26). The omission of Ἰησοῦ after μ. may suggest that the phrase is intended to include not so much the heroic Jews who fell in the defence of their temple against Rome (Weyland) as pre-Christian Jewish martyrs (cf. Hebrews 11:39-40) who are raised to the level of the Christian church, and also those Jews who had been martyred for refusing to worship the emperor (cf. Revelation 7:9; Revelation 17:6, and Jos. B. J. vii. 10, 1). But the primary thought of the Christian prophet is for Rome's latest victims in the Neronic persecution and the recent enforcement of the cultus under Domitian. The general idea is derived from Zechariah 1:12; Psalms 79:10, and En. xxii. 5 (“and I saw the spirits of the children of men who were dead, and their voice penetrated to the heaven and complained,” from the first division of Sheol).