Revelation 18:5

5 For her sins have reached unto the heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

Revelation 18:5 Meaning and Commentary

Revelation 18:5

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 ) ( Jonah 1:2 ) 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 ) .

Revelation 18:5 In-Context

3 For all the Gentiles have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the power of her delicacies.

4 And I heard another voice from the heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye not be partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

5 For her sins have reached unto the heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

6 Reward her even as she rewarded you and pay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has given thee to drink, give her double.

7 As much as she has glorified herself and lived deliciously, give her that much torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.