XIX.
THE CHORUS OF THE HEAVENLY MULTITUDE REJOICING OVER HER FALL.
(1-3) And after these things I heard... — Or, I heard, as it were, a mighty voice of a great multitude in the heaven, saying. The saints who were bidden in the last chapter to rejoice are now heard raising their songs as in one great voice of praise. The song is as follows: —
Alleluia!
The salvation, and the glory, and the power
Are our God’s,
Because true and righteous are His judgments,
Because He judged the great harlot, who corrupted the
earth in her fornication,
And avenged the blood of His servants out of her hand,
Alleluia.
This last “Alleluia” clearly belongs to the song or chorus. It is separated from the body of it by the descriptive words (Revelation 19:3), And again they said, Alleluia; or better, and a second time they have said. The Evangelist, as he writes, seems to hear once more the strains of the anthem: he writes down the words. and, as the final “Alleluia” bursts forth after a musical pause, he writes, “once more they have said Alleluia.” The word Alleluia occurs in this passage no less than four times (Revelation 19:1; Revelation 19:3-4; Revelation 19:6): it is nowhere else used in the New Testament; but it is familiar to us in the Psalms, as fifteen of them begin or end with “Praise ye the Lord,” or “Hallelujah;” and the genius of Handel has enshrined the word in imperishable music. The song here does not begin with ascribing “salvation, &c.,” to God, as the English version suggests: it rather affirms the fact: the salvation, &c., is God’s. It is the echo of the ancient utterance — “Salvation belongeth unto God.” It is the triumphant affirmation of the truth by which the Church and children of God had sustained their struggling petitions, as they closed the prayer which Christ Himself had taught them, saying, when too often it seemed to be otherwise, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.” So here they give a threefold praise: the salvation, and the glory, and the power are all God’s. The manifestation of His power is in the deliverance of His children from the evil, from the great harlot, and in the avenging the blood of His servants out of her hand, “forcing, as it were, out of her hand the price of their blood.”