Revelation - 18:5



5 for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Revelation 18:5.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
for her sins have been heaped on one another up to the heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteousnesses.
because her sins did follow, unto the heaven, and God did remember her unrighteousness.
For her sins are piled up to the sky, and God has called to mind her unrighteous deeds.
For her sins have gone up even to heaven, and God has taken note of her evil-doing.
For her sins have pierced through even to heaven, and the Lord has remembered her iniquities.
For her sins are heaped up to the heavens, and God has not forgotten her misdeeds.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

For her sins have reached unto heaven - So in Jeremiah 51:9, speaking of Babylon, it is said, "For her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies." The meaning is not that the sins of this mystical Babylon were like a mass or pile so high as to reach to heaven, but that it had become so prominent as to attract the attention of God. Compare Genesis 4:10, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." See also Genesis 18:20.
And God hath remembered her iniquities - He had seemed to forget them, or not to notice them, but now he acted as if they had come to his recollection. See the notes on Revelation 16:19.

Her sins have reached unto heaven - They are become so great and enormous that the long-suffering of God must give place to his justice.

For her sins have (a) reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
(a) He uses a word which signifies the following of sins one after another, and rising one of another in such sort, that they grow at length to such a heap, that they come up even to heaven.

For her sins have reached unto heaven,.... Or "have followed unto heaven"; one after another, in one age after another, until they have been as it were heaped up together, and have reached the heavens; the phrase denotes the multitude of them, God's knowledge and notice of them, and the cry of them to him; see Genesis 18:20 the Alexandrian copy and Complutensian edition read, "have cleaved", or "glued", and so the Syriac and Arabic versions seem to have read; her sins were as it were soldered together, and stuck fast to her, and being joined and linked together, made a long chain, and reached to heaven, and cleaved to that, and cried for vengeance:
and God hath remembered her iniquities; and is about to punish her for them; for as forgiveness of sin is signified by a non-remembrance of it, so punishment of sin by a remembrance of it, and of the persons that commit it; see Revelation 16:19.

her sins--as a great heap.
reached--Greek, "reached so far as to come into close contact with, and to cleave unto."

Even to heaven - An expression which implies the highest guilt.

*More commentary available at chapter level.


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