The twenty-four elders state that God’s response was, “Your wrath came.” The arrival of God’s wrath is well known from passages of Scripture that speak of the day of the Lord (Ezekiel 7:19; Zephaniah 1:18; Zephaniah 2:2f); it is a day of judgment for the wrongdoer. Psalm 2:1–12 mentions that the Lord not only holds rebellious nations in derision but adds that he speaks to them “in his wrath” (Psalm 2:5).
18 The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”