Revelation 6:9
New Testament
9 Now when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been violently killed because of the word of God and because of the testimony they had given. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Master, holy and true, before you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Each of them was given a long white robe, and they were told to rest for a little longer, until the full number was reached of both their fellow servants and their brothers who were going to be killed just as they had been.
Date: 92-96 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Shabbat 152b
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
The Holy One, Blessed be He, also acts in this way. With regard to the bodies of the righteous, which are likened to the royal garments that are well kept, it states: “He enters into peace, they rest on their beds each one that walks in his uprightness” (Isaiah 57:2). And with regard to their souls, it states: “And the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord your God” (I Samuel 25:29). And conversely, with regard to the bodies of the wicked, it states: “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21), and with regard to their souls, it states: “And the souls of your enemies He shall sling out in the hollow of a sling” (I Samuel 25:29). It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer says: The souls of the righteous are stored beneath the Throne of Glory, as it is stated: “And the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life” (I Samuel 25:29). And the souls of the wicked are continuously tied up, and one angel stands at one end of the world and another angel stands at the other end of the world and they sling the souls of the wicked back and forth to one another, as it is stated: “And the souls of your enemies He shall sling out in the hollow of a sling” (I Samuel 25:29).
Date: 450-550 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Compare the following passage, in which the souls of the righteous are stored ‘under the Throne of Glory’ as opposed to those of the wicked ... (b. Shabbat 152b; Compare Avot DeRabbi Natan, A) ... The heavenly throne depicted in Ezekiel 1:26 and elsewhere in the Bible features prominently in Second Temple Jewish literature as part of a more general description of the heavenly Temple, mentioned explicitly in Isaiah 6:1. Thus God’s heavenly throne is depicted in 1 Enoch 14:9-23 and in the Enoch ‘Similitudes’ (1 Enoch 39-41). A ‘heavenly city’, denoting the heavenly Jerusalem, is mentioned in Fourth Ezra 7:26 (‘the hidden city’); it appears as the New Jerusalem descended from heaven in Revelation 3:12 and 21:2, and in that book a heavenly altar is also mentioned (6:9 and 8:3). The same theme occurs in both early and late rabbinic literature ..."
Mandel, Paul
The Sacrifice of the Souls of the Righteous upon the Heavenly Altar: Transformations of Apocalyptic Traditions in Medieval Ashkenaz
(pp. 49-72) Liverpool University Press, 2018
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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