Revelation 18:5

5 For her sins are piled up as high as heaven, 1 and God remembers her wicked ways.

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 nations have drunk her wine - the strong wine of her immoral lust. The kings of the earth practiced sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the world grew rich from her unrestrained lust."
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out, my people! Come out from her! You must not take part in her sins; you must not share in her punishment!
5 For her sins are piled up as high as heaven, and God remembers her wicked ways.
6 Treat her exactly as she has treated you; pay her back double for all she has done. Fill her cup with a drink twice as strong as the drink she prepared for you.
7 Give her as much suffering and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. For she keeps telling herself: "Here I sit, a queen! I am no widow, I will never know grief!'

Cross References 1

  • 1. 18.5Genesis 18.20, 21;Jeremiah 51.9.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.