“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.”
My Notes
What Does Revelation 11:18 Mean?
Revelation 11:18 compresses the entire final judgment into a single verse with seven actions: "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth."
The verse is structured as a divine response to human anger: orgisthēsan ta ethnē — the nations raged. Kai ēlthen hē orgē sou — and Your wrath arrived. The nations' anger is answered by God's anger. The match is deliberate: you raged, now I rage. Except God's rage is the one that settles things permanently.
The judgment serves both justice and reward. Three groups receive reward: servants the prophets (doulois tois prophētais), saints (hagiois), and those who fear God's name (tois phoboumenois to onoma sou) — both small and great (tous mikrous kai tous megalous). The scope of reward crosses every human category. Nobody is too small to be rewarded. Nobody is too great to need it.
The final action — diaphtheirai tous diaphtheirontas tēn gēn — "destroy them which destroy the earth" — uses the same verb for both. Those who destroy will be destroyed. The punishment matches the crime lexically. The earth-destroyers receive earth-destroyer treatment. The verb diaphtheirō means to corrupt thoroughly, to ruin completely. Those who ruined the earth will be thoroughly ruined themselves.
Reflection Questions
- 1.The reward includes the 'small' alongside the 'great.' Does that change how you value your own faithful obscurity?
- 2.The nations raged and God's wrath matched it. Does divine anger feel proportional to human anger, or does it unsettle you?
- 3.'Destroy them which destroy the earth' — same verb for crime and punishment. Where do you see earth-destroying behavior that you long to see judged?
- 4.Every thread of history is tied off in this verse. Does the comprehensiveness of the final settlement bring you relief or anxiety?
Devotional
The nations raged. God's wrath arrived. And in a single verse, all of history reaches its final settlement.
Seven actions compressed into one sentence: the nations' anger acknowledged, God's wrath executed, the dead judged, the prophets rewarded, the saints rewarded, the God-fearers rewarded, and the earth-destroyers destroyed. That's every thread of human history tied off in a single announcement. Nothing is left unresolved. Nothing escapes the accounting.
The reward list is the part that should make the faithful weep with relief: servants, prophets, saints, those who fear God's name — small and great. Small and great. The person who served God in complete obscurity receives reward alongside the person whose name everyone knows. The prophet who was ignored. The saint who was invisible. The God-fearer whose life never made a headline. They're all on the list. And the list doesn't rank by visibility. It ranks by faithfulness.
"Destroy them which destroy the earth" — the poetic justice of the final verse is devastating. The verb for destruction is used for both the crime and the punishment. You destroyed? You'll be destroyed. The same word. The same kind. The ruination you inflicted on creation returns to you with divine precision.
If you've watched the earth being destroyed — by greed, by violence, by exploitation, by systems that consume what God created — this verse says: the destroyers have an appointment. And the appointment uses the same verb they've been applying to the planet. The destruction they practiced will be practiced on them. And the prophets, the saints, the small-and-great God-fearers who watched the destruction with grief? They get rewarded while the destroyers get the same treatment they gave.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And the nations were angry,.... See Psa 99:1, which the Septuagint render, the "Lord reigns, let the nations be angry".…
And the nations were angry - Were enraged against thee. This they had shown by their opposition to his laws; by…
The nations were angry - Were enraged against thy Gospel, and determined to destroy it.
Thy wrath is come - The time to…
We have here the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet, which is ushered in by the usual warning and demand of…
destroy them which destroy The verb used twice over is ambiguous, and perhaps has a meaning that we should express…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture