Revelation 19:1

It is clear that as long as Babylon was left unjudged, the true bride could not be brought out and shown in her beauty and crowning robes. She stays hidden in Heaven until the one who has seized her place on earth is destroyed and put out of sight. The harlot and the bride cannot exist side by side… Her presence on earth had always been the main thing blocking the display of the glory of God, and an offence to Heaven as well. Now, though, Babylon is wiped out completely. That makes room and opens the way for the Lord God to be openly acknowledged on His throne, and for the Lamb to take His bride — the two great subjects of praise.

This beautiful Hebrew word appears four times in these songs of praise (vv. 1, 3, 4, 6), and nowhere else in the New Testament. It is a common word in the book of Psalms. It opens and closes each of the last five psalms — psalms which, taken together, express the praise Israel will bring in the millennial kingdom. Hallelujah means "Praise the Lord," or "Jah," a shortened form of Jehovah.

What a day that will be! Hallelujah will first echo through the whole of heaven (Rev. 19:1, 3-4, 6). Then earth will take up that joyful note, and everything that has breath will praise Him.

Nothing marks God's hatred of counterfeits in the things of Christ more solemnly than this repeated joy over the judgment of the corrupt system. That system takes the name of the Lamb's wife while contradicting her character. Much people on earth think only of their own imagined interests, and they weep over her fall. "Much people in heaven," mindful of Christ's glory, give praise to God for avenging the blood of His servants and judging the corrupter of the world.

Babylon had claimed that salvation was found only in her false system. She had taken glory and power to herself. As we read, "She has glorified herself," and said in her heart, "I sit a queen." Heaven, with one voice, ascribes "salvation," "glory," and "power" to God.

The first of the three terms means deliverance. The second means God's moral glory in judgment. The third means His might shown in carrying out the judgment on the harlot. This praise is given to "our God."

In Revelation 19, for the first time, I find a reason for praise given by someone other than the elders — other than the body of saints, the church called up on high. Here it makes sense, because they praise God for judgments He has carried out, judgments in which they are avenged… They have suffered, and they are in the place to celebrate the avenging of the blood of God's servants.

However evil men may be in this day of salvation, it hardly suits a saint to shout "Hallelujah" when he sees judgment fall on anyone. But here we are looking at the day of judgment. We are to praise God's acts of judgment then as much as we praise His acts of grace now.