IV: Tabernacle, Priesthood and Feasts

Souls Under the Altar

martyrs' lives deposited as evidence

Root
Lev 4:7 · nephesh (H5315)
Old Testament chain
  1. Gen 4:10
  2. Lev 4:7
  3. Lev 17:11
  4. Deut 32:43
  5. Ps 79:10
  6. Rev 6:9-10
New Testament
Rev 6:9-11; Rev 6:9; 1 Pet 4:17

The image begins with Abel, whose blood cried unto Yahuah from the ground (Gen 4:10). The Torah commanded the priest to pour out the blood "at the bottom of the altar" (Lev 4:7), "for the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Lev 17:11), and Moses' song promises that Yahuah "will avenge the blood of his servants" (Deut 32:43). In Revelation 6:9-11 the souls under the altar are life returned to Yahuah: these martyrs did not lose their lives, they deposited them, the prosecution's key evidence. The righteous are offered in faithfulness, the wicked later in judgment: one sanctifies, the other purges. The fifth seal speaks for martyrs across the age, not only a future tribulation company.

From The Courtroom of Heaven, pp. 27, 29, 49, 67, 90–93