Revelation 6:10

How long...? — Better. Until when. O Master (the word is the correlative of “servant,” see Revelation 6:10) the Holy and True, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood from (on) those who dwell on the earth? By a dramatic figure the persecuted and slain ones are represented as crying for retribution on their oppressors. It is not the Christians themselves (Luke 23:34; and Acts 7:60) who cry for vengeance, any more than it was Abel himself who cried from the ground to God: it was the blood of Abel (Genesis 4:10), the earth disclosed her blood, and refused to cover her slain. The forgotten or ignored wrongs of generations come forth from oblivion and cry for vengeance. It is a poetical description, but it is not fiction. The righteous blood shed does fall upon the world in retribution: the laws of God avenge themselves, though the victims do not live to behold the reward of the ungodly. On the epithets Holy and True, see Notes on Revelation 3:7.