Babylon the Great: The Great city
For these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”; that is, since we are so weak in ourselves, that we cannot stand a moment; John 15:5; Ps. 103:14. and besides this, since our mortal enemies, the devil, 1 Pet. 5:8; Eph. 6:12. the world, John 15:19. and our own flesh, Rom. 7:23; Gal. 5:17. cease not to assault us, do thou therefore preserve and strengthen us by the power of thy Holy Spirit, that we may not be overcome in this spiritual warfare, Matt. 26:41; Mark 13:33. but constantly and strenuously may resist our foes, till at last we obtain a complete victory. 1 Thess. 3:13; 1 Thess. 5:23 (Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997).)
… the mysteries of sin … They know not the mystery to come, nor do they understand the things of the past. They know not that which shall befall them, nor do they save their soul from the mystery to come.
And this shall be the sign for you that these things shall come to pass.
When the breed of iniquity is shut up, wickedness shall then be banished by righteousness as darkness is banished by the light. As smoke clears and is no more, so shall wickedness perish for ever and righteousness be revealed like a sun governing the world. All who cleave to the mysteries of sin shall be no more; knowledge shall fill the world and folly shall exist no longer.
This word shall surely come to pass; this prophecy is true. And by this may it be known to you that it shall not be taken back.
Do not all the peoples loathe iniquity? And yet it is spread by them all. Does not the fame of truth issue from the mouth of all the nations? Yet is there a lip or tongue which holds to it? Which nation likes to be oppressed by another stronger than itself, or likes its wealth to be wickedly seized? And yet which nation has not oppressed another, and where is there a people which has not seized [another]’s wealth?
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 272.
It is precisely humanity’s complete dishonesty and the nations’ struggles with one another that bear witness to the imminent dawning of the End of Days.
Although God had granted human beings the wisdom to distinguish between good and evil, truth and falsehood, human beings had failed to heed that wisdom. They did not realize what would ultimately happen to them in the future, because they did not properly grasp the significance of past events.
Therefore, God was now announcing that the End of Days was about to dawn, when all the wicked and evil itself would be eliminated and cease forever, and when knowledge of God would fill the earth. How would one know that the End of Days was really at hand? God would send unmistakable signs; the hypocrisy of all the nations would reveal itself—although all nations would denounce evil, they themselves would commit it against their neighbors. This last notion is reminiscent of rabbinic teachings that on the eve of the messianic era, “impudence will be abundant” (M. Sotah 9:15).
Lawrence H. Schiffman and Chaim Potok, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994), 208.
the name “Gog” in Ezek. 38–39 may reflect a personification of spiritual darkness if it derives from the Sumerian word gûg (“darkness”), though this is uncertain. the Septuagint text of Amos 7:1 mentions Gog as the king of the locust invasion described in that chapter. Locust imagery for invading armies is familiar in the Old Testament, but Rev. 9 connects that language with demonic entities from the abyss.
This is significant not only since the abyss (a Greek term, abyssos) is connected to the Underworld/Sheol, but also because the original offending sons of God of Gen 6 (cf. 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; 1 Enoch 6–11) were imprisoned in such a place. Rev. 9 may therefore describe their release at the end of days to participate in a climactic confrontation with God and Jesus.
This matrix of ideas may be designed to tell us that the Gog invasion does not describe an earthly enemy but a supernatural, demonic enemy. But as we have seen, both reality planes are frequently connected in the biblical epic. the Nephilim giants are described as “lawless ones” (anomōn) in 1 Enoch 7:6, using the same Greek lemma used to describe the antichrist figure in 2 Thess. 2:8.
Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015). Ezekiel 38-39 Part 1 and Part 2
“I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, Isa. 42:6
Then he shall confirm a covenant Is. 42:6 with many Matt. 26:28 for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.” Dan.9:27
Through the preaching of the Gospel he kept his promise—first to the Jews, and afterward to the Gentiles. Christ fulfilled this through his death and resurrection. This means that Jerusalem and the Sanctuary would be completely destroyed because of their rebellion against God and their idolatry; or, as some read it, the plagues will be so great that all will be astonished by them. (Geneva Bible: Notes, vol. 1 (Geneva: Rovland Hall, 1560), 363.)
for a covenant of the people—the medium of the covenant, originally made between God and Abraham. “Messiah is given by the Father to be the mediator of a better covenant” (Heb. 8:6) than the Law (see Isa.49:8; Jer. 31:33; 1:5). So the abstract, “peace,” for peace-maker (Mic. 5:5; Eph. 2:14). the people—Israel: as Isa. 49:8, compared with Isa.42:6, proves (Luke 2:32). To open the blind eyes—spiritually (Isa.42:16, 18, 19; Isa. 35:5; John 9:39). to bring out the prisoners from the prison—(Isa. 61:1, 2.) and them that sit in darkness—opposed to “light” (Isa.42:6; Eph. 5:8; 1 Pet. 2:9).
A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments: Job–Isaiah, vol. III (London; Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, & Company, Limited, n.d.), 695.
For I will not be so bold as to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, Romans 15:18–21
“Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand. Isa.52:15”
Forasmuch as the false apostles had, after a sort, persuaded the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord was nigh at hand, and therewith the redemption of the Church; Paul instructed them to look for this horrible desolation first, and therefore rather to arm themselves with patience than to give them over unto rest and quietness: for as yet there was a hindrance, to wit, that the Gospel must first be preached throughout all. (Geneva Bible: Notes, vol. 2 (Geneva: Rovland Hall, 1560), 96)
It is not easy to conceive of the preaching of the gospel to all the nations as falling within the lifetime of that generation. It is true (Rom. 1:13; 10:18; 15:19–24; Colossians 1:6; 1 Timothy 3:16; 2 Timothy 4:17) might be quoted in support of such a view. In the statement of Jesus, however, it is definitely predicted that the preaching of the gospel to all the nations not only must happen before the end, but that it straightway precedes the end: “Then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14). To distinguish between the preaching of the gospel to all the nations and the completion of the gentile mission, as Zahn proposes, is artificial. As over against these objections, however, it must be admitted that the grouping of all these later phenomena before the end proper avoids the difficulty arising from “immediately” in Matthew 24:29 and from “in those days” in Mark 13:24.
Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001), 33.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end-συντέλεια is not yet. Matthew 24:6. (note συντέλεια-the last part of a process, close, conclusion, esp. of the last things, the final act in the cosmic drama)
And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end-τέλος will come. Matthew 24:14 (note τέλος-a point of time marking completion of a duration, completion, close, end.)
(William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 974,998)
But history is full of such troubled periods; the disciples must not get things out of perspective, or be panicked into imagining that “the end” is imminent. It is not spelled out here what that “end” (telos) is, [pace Davies & Allison, 3.340, who assert with no supporting evidence that “’The end’ means ‘the end of the age’ (Matt.24:3),” even though the Greek word used in Matt.24:3 is not the same as here] but the same term will occur in Mat.24:14, where it leads into a description of the coming siege of Jerusalem. It seems probable therefore that the word has the same reference here, and that Mat.24:14 is a deliberate pick-up from this pronouncement: “it is not yet the end … but then the end will come.”
The question which Jesus is here answering was about when the temple would be destroyed, and that is the “end” most naturally understood here.
[Note that the word used is τέλος, not συντέλεια which in Matt.24:3b denotes the “end” of the age.] It is coming soon, and Mat.24:34 will spell out how soon, but that does not mean that it is imminent as soon as war is on the horizon.
R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 903.
They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” Lk. 19:44
But in the mysteries of His understanding, and in His glorious wisdom, God has ordained an end for injustice, and at the time of the visitation He will destroy it for ever. Then truth, which has wallowed in the ways of wickedness during the dominion of injustice until the appointed time of judgement, shall arise in the world for ever. God will then purify every deed of man with His truth; He will refine for Himself the human frame by rooting out all spirit of injustice from the bounds of his flesh.
He will cleanse him of all wicked deeds with the spirit of holiness; like purifying waters He will shed upon him the spirit of truth (to cleanse him) of all abomination and injustice. And he shall be plunged into the spirit of purification that he may instruct the upright in the knowledge of the Most High and teach the wisdom of the sons of heaven to the perfect of way. For God has chosen them for an everlasting Covenant and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs. There shall be no more lies and all the works of injustice shall be put to shame.
Until now the spirits of truth and injustice struggle in the hearts of men and they walk in both wisdom and folly.
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 74–75. 1QS Col. iv
These are they who judge the stars of heaven,
and raise their hands against the Most High,
and tread upon the earth and dwell on it.
All their deeds manifest unrighteousness,
and their power (rests) upon their wealth.
Their faith is in the gods they have made with their hands,
and they deny the name of the Lord of Spirits.
And they persecute the houses of his congregation,
and the faithful who depend on the name of the Lord of Spirits.” 1 Enoch 46.7–8 cp. Dan. 8:10, Rev. 12:4
George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 60.
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 1 Thess.4:14
The “recollection of the creed” in 1 Thess.4:14 presupposes that the Thessalonians believed that Christ’s dying and rising was the basis for the Christians’ hope for the resurrection of the dead. But instead of quoting the expectation of the resurrection in the second part of the formula, Paul alters the sentence: “God will lead through Jesus those who have died with him,” that is, Paul replaces the traditional reference to the resurrection by a statement about God leading the dead with him (namely, Jesus). His concerns here are the concerns of the community in Thessalonike: will those who have died be united with us at the Parousia? That this question was raised by the Christians in Thessalonike demonstrates that they had very well understood Paul’s message and the aim of his missionary work, namely the founding of communities who are united in their expectation of the arrival of the Lord.
Paul’s personal role is closely related to this event, because his task is fulfilled and his reward certain if the community is indeed found prepared when the Lord arrives.
And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. Rom.6:13
That the existence of the community had thus been freed from such concerns does not imply that Paul no longer expected the day of the Lord, the raising of the dead, and the coming of the Lord. On the contrary, one could argue that the expectation of the nearness of these events was even intensified in the later writings of Paul. Using the same terms employed in 1 Thess. 5:1–11 (time, to arise from sleep, salvation, night, day, to put on the weapons of light), Rom 13:11–14 even radicalizes the expectation of the nearness: For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. (Rom 13:11). Neither 1 Thessalonians nor Romans was written by someone who was worried about the “delay of the Parousia.”
But both letters base the existence of the community of believers on the statement that they already belong to the “day” in their present existence.
Helmut Koester, Paul & His World: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 60,66.
It is easy to understand how the erroneous opinion of the Thessalonians should have ‘troubled and shaken’ their minds. It was calculated to produce panic and disorder. History tells us that a general belief prevailed in Europe towards the close of the tenth century that the year 1000 would witness the coming of Christ, the day of judgment, and the end of the world.
As the time drew near, a general panic seized the minds of men. Many abandoned their homes and their families, and repaired to the Holy Land; others made over their lands to the Church, or permitted them to lie uncultivated, and the whole course of ordinary life was violently disturbed and deranged. A similar delusion, though on a smaller scale, prevailed in some parts of the United States in the year 1843, causing great consternation among multitudes, and driving many persons out of their senses.
Facts like these show the wisdom which ‘hid the day and the hour’ of the Son of man’s coming, so that, while all might be watchful, none should be thrown into agitation.
James Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 177–178.
Apocalyptic fervor no doubt inspired the movement behind the Jewish war of A.D. 66–70, which was supported by the Pharisees. Josephus tells us of a series of messianic movements that attempted to overthrow the Roman occupation (cf. also Theudas and Judas the Galilean in Acts 5:36–37). The Zealots, the Sicarii, and the Qumran community are inexplicable without this apocalyptic fervor, and The War Scroll testifies to the (Essene) preparedness for the final eschatological battle against “the children of darkness.”
Because it was this apocalyptic stimulant that according to the fathers of Jamnia had been responsible for the war and the destruction of Jerusalem, they purged and/or softened the apocalyptic element from the Mishna (A.D. 180) and became exceedingly cautious about apocalyptic speculation. Louis Ginsburg gives a good example of the new sobriety of the rabbis after the war: “If thou hast a sapling in thy hands and thou art told: Behold, the Messiah has come, plant thy sapling and then go to meet him” (R. Johanan ben Zakkai).
J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 137–138.
And in like manner Moses, knowing beforehand that the people would reject and disown the true Savior of the world, and take part with error, and choose an earthly king, and set the heavenly King at nought, says:
“Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? In the day of vengeance I will recompense (them), and in the time when their foot shall slide.”
Deut. 32:34,35. They did slide, therefore, in all things, as they were found to be in harmony with the truth in nothing: neither as concerns the law, because they became transgressors; nor as concerns the prophets, because they cut off even the prophets themselves; nor as concerns the voice of the Gospels, because they crucified the Savior Himself; nor in believing the apostles, because they persecuted them. At all times they showed themselves enemies and betrayers of the truth, and were found to be haters of God, and not lovers of Him; and such they shall be then when they find opportunity: for, rousing themselves against the servants of God, they will seek to obtain vengeance by the hand of a mortal man.
Hippolytus of Rome, “Treatise on Christ and Antichrist,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. D. F. Salmond, vol. 5, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 216.
The False Church: Babylon is called “the great city” in the Book of Revelation (Rev.16:19; 18:10, 16, 18, 19, 21), or simply “Babylon the Great” (Rev.14:8; 16:19; 18:2). This city-name identifies the mystery woman, the harlot. She is called “Babylon the Great” (Rev.17:5), “the great city that rules over the kings of the earth” (Rev.17:18). References to harlot Babylon in these terms in Rev 14:8 and Rev.16:19 before her formal introduction and the full account of her career in Revelation. 17 are not altogether abrupt; highly important preparation is provided in Rev. 11:8. Indeed, the proper interpretation of the harlot Babylon, the great city, is established by the identification of the great city in Revelation. 11 with the erstwhile “holy city” of Jerusalem (Rev.11:2), where the two witnesses are slain and “where also their Lord was crucified” (Rev.11:8). The great city is then the covenant institution in a state of apostasy.
Clearly identifying the harlot city Babylon as an apostate form of the covenant community is the elaborate contrastive parallelism observable between the two central female figures, between the harlot Babylon and the bride, the wife of the Lamb. The latter, like the harlot, is identified as a city, not, however, the old, unfaithful Jerusalem but the holy city, New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2, 9, 10), city of the great King (cf. Ps 48:2; Matt 5:35). Each woman has a spectacular portraiture: the true and pure one adorned with the radiance of heavenly glory (Rev 12:1; 21:11ff.) and bright linen, the righteousness of saints (Rev 19:8), an image of Christ (cf. Rev 1:13ff.); the other draped with the glittering trappings of a whore, a likeness of the beast (Rev 17:3, 4), itself a likeness of draconic Satan (Rev 12:3).
Each woman is a mother: the one is delivered of the messianic son (Rev 12:5), with reference also being made to the rest of her offspring, those who hold to the testimony of Jesus (Rev 12:17), a virgin company not defiled with women (Rev 14:4); the other is “the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth” (Rev 17:5). The holy woman and her offspring are persecuted unto martyrdom (Rev 12:11, 17), The harlot is their persecutor, drunk with their blood (Rev 17:6); in Babylon is found the blood of prophets and saints (Rev 18:24; cf. 18:20; 19:2), a mark of its continuity with the old Jerusalem (cf. Matt 21:35–39; 23:31–35; Acts 7:52; Rev 11:8).
Of other such antithetical pairings that might be cited we note just one more, the association of the two women with the wilderness. The mother of the son who is caught up to God’s throne flees into the wilderness for refuge from the dragon and his beast-agent (Rev 12:13, 14; 13:1–7). Then—strange sequel—there in the wilderness John sees a woman, the harlot Babylon, sitting on the satanic beast (Rev 17:3). The impression given is that the harlot is a corrupted derivative from the holy woman who had fled into the wilderness, a devolution out of the true covenant community, a false church.
Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 194–195.
Beyond the fall of Israel in 70 A.D. (Zech. 5:1–4) lies the era of the woman Wickedness in the land of Shinar (Zech. 5:5–11), moving towards another, final fall of this harlot-corrupter of the earth. Execution of this final anathema on the mother of harlots signals the hour of fulfillment for the “Marana tha” prayer of mother Zion. Cf. 1 Cor 16:22. On Zion as mother, cf., e.g., Isa 66:7, 8, and see the extended context of this passage for Isaiah’s recurring depiction of the city Jerusalem as a woman.
Turning on the harlot with hatred, the beast and the ten horns make her desolate and burn her with fire (Rev 17:16). Jer. 4:30 and context contain a close parallel, which, significantly, concerns the apostate covenant community. The prophet indicts Judah as a whore, dressed in crimson and gold, courting the nations and their gods (cf. Jer. 2:17, 18). In the day of God’s judgment her lovers despise her and seek her life.
Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 199,200
Those who feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple cling to ash heaps. For the chastisement of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, though no hand was laid on it. Lamentations 4:5
‘Shinar’. This place name evokes memories of Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom was ‘Babel’ (in Hebrew Babel and Babylon are spelled the same: בבל, bbl) ‘in the land of Shinar’, from which he went on to build Nineveh in Assyria (Gen. 10:8-11). Genesis. 11 also presents the attempt to build a tower into heaven ‘in the land of Shinar’ (Gen. 11:2). Shinar thus comes to be associated with rebellion against God: it is the land of the seed of the serpent, where God’s enemies dwell.
The phrasing of Genesis 15:16 and Daniel 8:23 does not match at the lexical level, but at the conceptual level the ideas communicated are synonymous.(The reference to ‘the transgression that makes desolate’ in Dan. 8:13 may be relevant here as well.)
The same can be said about the second such statement Gabriel makes to Daniel in Daniel 9:24, when he says, ‘Seventy weeks are decreed … to finish the transgression’. The idea that transgression has a full measure that will be fulfilled before the end will come seems to have informed the thinking of both Jesus, who told the brood of vipers (i.e. seed of the serpent) to ‘fill up … the measure of your fathers’ (Matt. 23:32), and Paul, who said that the enemies of the gospel ‘always … fill up the measure of their sins’ (1 Thess. 2:16).
James M. Hamilton Jr., With the Clouds of Heaven: The Book of Daniel in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson, vol. 32, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL; England: Apollos; InterVarsity Press, 2015), 48,52.
“Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev.12:17,). That warfare continues and increases through the ages (the final three-and-a-half-years or 1,260 days) until the end. On that understanding, Revelation 13:5–8 portrays a growing power of opposition in a process over time (the beast was “given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them,” Rev.13:7). That prosecution of war over time against the saints culminates in a brief period of victory for the beast/Antichrist:
“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast” (Rev.13:8).
[Apparently the “spirit of the Antichrist” (1 John 4:3) reaches its apex or incarnation in the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:3) or “beast” at the end. This is consistent with a symbolic understanding of the beast] The dragon’s rage against the woman of Revelation. 12 now leads concordantly to the topic of the “whore of Babylon” and “Babylon the Great” with which she is associated.
Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament), vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 261–262.
The symbolism remains symbolic, however, and just as no one knows the day or hour of the Lord’s return, so also no one can stake an unquestionable claim to identifying Babylon the Great as a cultural-religious entity on the geopolitical horizon.
Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine, and so the nations went mad. Jeremiah 51:7
The view that Babylon is a worldwide imperial system, by analogy with historical Babylon, has also long been held. Cf. Leon Morris, Revelation, TNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 198. Similarly, the imperially clad whore who sits upon the beast (the Antichrist) shows a global imperium, as noted by George Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 223: “That she was seated upon many waters reflects her relationship to the nations of the earth; that she is seated upon the scarlet beast reflects her relationship to the Antichrist.” For the “many waters” as symbolic of international imperium, cf. Isaiah 8:7–8; 23:10; Jeremiah 46:7; 47:2; and Ezekiel 29:10. A broader understanding of the Babylon idea through history is also possible; cf. Simon J. Kistemaker, Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 466:
“To focus on Rome of apostolic times is too restrictive. The name Babylon applies to the lasting conflict between Satan’s henchmen and the people of God.”
Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament), vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 262–264.
And he said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the whore is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. Revelation 17:15
Before we discuss the whore of Babylon, it is appropriate to understand the identity of Babylon because it is symbolically the cult city of Antichrist, or the beast. We spoke of “a global ruler and his world system symbolized by the ‘city of chaos’ in the Old Testament (Isa. 24:10) and ‘Babylon the Great’ (Rev. 17:5) in the New Testament” and observed “that world ruler has been traditionally called Antichrist.” The global city symbol of satanic human enterprise against God can also be identified with apostate Jerusalem, symbolically the apostate church, home to the temple of apostasy upon which the “Desolator” of Daniel 9:27 brings his eschatological judgment.
As such, the city of chaos/Babylon has taken over the identity of Jerusalem the temple city and become a temple city counterpoised to God (a false way to heaven). These distortions counterfeit the true and heavenly Jerusalem where the Lord dwells with his people and is himself the inclusive temple and dwelling of the redeemed—all those who are found in Christ. Agreeably, the whore of Babylon can be a spiritual home and cult-city aspect of the dragon’s Antichrist kingdom. So John records: “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:18).
Although she is involved with the world, her rule is spiritual—a domination of demonic torah that leads the world astray.
[Other significant affinities of ecclesiastical Rome with the prostitute Babylon are its Mariolatry and its neo-Judaizing distortion of the gospel of grace. Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001).]
Like the idea of antichrist, the idea of a counterfeit covenant community has found iterations at several points in human history, both in the history of Israel and the history of the church. It has included groups and leaders of groups who claimed authenticity as the people of God. (Cf. Numbers. 16; Jeremiah. 20; Revelation 2:9; 3:9.)
Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament), vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 267–268.
And their dead body shall be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8
The question of greatest importance and difficulty which we have here to deal with is, What city is signified by the woman sitting on the scarlet beast, and designated ‘Babylon the great’?
By the great majority of interpreters it has been, and is, received as an undoubted and almost self-evident proposition that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is, and can be, no other than Rome, the empress of the world in the days of St. John, and since his time the seat and center of the most corrupt form of Christianity and the most overshadowing spiritual despotism that the world has ever seen. That there is much to favor this opinion may be inferred from the fact of its general acceptance. It may even be thought to be placed beyond question by the apparent identification of the harlot in the vision, as the ‘city of the seven hills,’ and ‘the great city which reigned over the kings of the earth.’
It will seem presumptuous as well as hazardous to challenge a decision which has been pronounced by such high authority, and which has ruled so long among Protestant theologians and commentators, and he who ventures to do so enters the lists at a great disadvantage. Nevertheless, in the interests of truth, and with all reverence and loyalty to the teaching of the divine Word, it may not only be permitted, but may even be imperative, to show cause why the popular interpretation of this symbol should be rejected as untenable and untrue.
It deserves particular attention that in the Apocalypse there are two cities, and only two, that are brought prominently and by name into view by symbolic representation. Each is the antithesis of the other. The one is the embodiment of all that is good and holy, the other the embodiment of all that is evil and accursed. To know either, is to know the other. These two contrasted cities are the new Jerusalem and Babylon the great.
There can be no room for doubt as to what is signified by the new Jerusalem: it is the city of God, the heavenly habitation, the inheritance of the saints in light. But what, then, is the proper antithesis to the new Jerusalem? Surely, it can be no other than the old Jerusalem. In fact, this antithesis between the old Jerusalem and the new is drawn out for us so distinctly by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, that he puts into our hand a key to the interpretation of this symbol in the Apocalypse.
The apostle contrasts the Jerusalem ‘which now is’ with the Jerusalem which was to be: the Jerusalem which is in bondage with the Jerusalem which is free: the Jerusalem which is beneath with the Jerusalem which is above (Gal. 4:25, 26). We have a similar antithesis in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where ‘the city which hath the foundations’ is contrasted with the ‘not-continuing city; the city ‘whose builder is God’ with the city of human creation; ‘the city of the living God,’ or the ‘heavenly Jerusalem,’ with the earthly Jerusalem (Heb. 11:10, 16; 12:22). In like manner we have the antithesis between these two cities distinctly and broadly presented to us in the Apocalypse, the one being the harlot, the other the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
The real and proper antithesis, therefore, to the new Jerusalem is the old Jerusalem: and since the city contrasted with the new Jerusalem is also designated Babylon, we conclude that Babylon is the symbolic name of the wicked and doomed city, the old Jerusalem, whose judgment is here predicted.
If it be objected that other symbolic names have already been appropriated by the old Jerusalem,—that she is designated ‘Sodom and Egypt,’—that is no reason why she may not be also styled Babylon. If she passes under one pseudonym, why not under another, provided it be descriptive of her character? All these names, Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, are alike suggestive of evil and of ungodliness, and proper designations of the wicked city whose doom was to be like theirs.
It deserves notice that there is a title which, in the Apocalypse, is applied to one particular city par excellence. It is the title ‘that great city’. It is clear that it is always the same city which is so designated, unless another be expressly specified. Now, the city in which the witnesses are slain is expressly called by this title, ‘that great city;’ and the names Sodom and Egypt are applied to it; and it is furthermore particularly identified as the city ‘where also our Lord was crucified’ (Rev.11:8). There can be no reasonable doubt that this refers to ancient Jerusalem. If, then, ‘the great city’ of Rev. 11:8 means ancient Jerusalem, it follows that ‘the great city’ of Rev.14:8, styled also Babylon, and ‘the great city’ of Rev.16:19, must equally signify Jerusalem. By parity of reasoning, ‘that great city’ in Rev. 17:18, and elsewhere, must refer also to Jerusalem.
But a weightier argument, and one that may be considered decisive against Rome being the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and at the same time proving the identity between Jerusalem and Babylon, is that which is derived from the name and character of the woman in the vision. We have seen that the woman represents a city; a city styled ‘the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified’ (Rev.11:8). This woman or city is also styled a harlot, ‘that great harlot,’ ‘the mother of harlots and abominations of the land.’ Rev.17:5,6
Now, this is an appellation familiar and well known in the Old Testament, and one that is utterly inappropriate and inapplicable to Rome. Rome was a heathen city, and consequently incapable of that great and damning sin which was possible, and, alas, actual, for Jerusalem.
Rome was not capable of violating the covenant of her God, of being false to her divine Husband, for she never was the married wife of Jehovah.
This was the crowning guilt of Jerusalem alone among all the nations of the earth, and it is the sin for which all through her history she is arraigned and condemned. It is impossible to read the graphic description of the great harlot in the Apocalypse without instantly being reminded of the original in the Old Testament prophets.
All through their testimony this is the sin, and this is the name, which they hurl against Jerusalem. We hear Isaiah exclaiming, ‘How is the faithful city become an harlot!’ (Isa. 1:21.) ‘Thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them’ (Isa. 57:8).
Still more emphatically does the prophet Jeremiah stigmatize Jerusalem with this reproachful epithet, ‘Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord: I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals;’—but, ‘upon every high hill and under every green tree thou lay down, playing the harlot’ (Jer. 2:2, 20). ‘Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers;’ ‘thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness;’ ‘thou have a whore’s forehead, thou refuses to be ashamed.’ ‘She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.’ ‘Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.’ ‘Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord’ (Jer. 3:1, 2, 3, 6, 14, 20).
Though you clothe yourself with crimson, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you will make yourself fair. Your lovers will despise you; they will seek your life. (Jer. 4:30). What right has My beloved in My house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many?’ (Jer. 11:15.) ‘I have seen thy adulteries, and thy neighing, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean? How much longer shall it be?’ (Jer. 13:27.)
One more argument for the identity of Jerusalem with the apocalyptic Babylon, and one which we consider conclusive, is to be found in the character ascribed to the city as the persecutor and murderer of the prophets and saints:
‘I beheld the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus’ (Rev. 17:6);
‘And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain in the land’ (Rev. 18:24); “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her!” (Rev. 18:20).
Who can fail to recognize in this description the distinctive characteristics of the Jerusalem of ‘that generation’? Who is it that kills the prophets, and stones them that are sent unto her? Jerusalem. What is the city out of which it cannot be that a prophet should perish—that enjoys an infamous monopoly of murdering the messengers of God? Jerusalem. The blood of saints and of prophets is the immemorial stain upon Jerusalem; the brand of the murderer stamped upon her brow; and the generation that crucified Christ is described by Him as
‘the children of them that killed the prophets,’ and so ‘filled up the measure of their fathers’ (Matt. 23:30–32).
James Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 486–497.
Luke 21:32 ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη-this generation. This cannot well mean anything but the generation living when these words were spoken: (Lk.7:31, 11:29–32, 50, 51, 17:25; Mt. 11:16), etc. The reference, therefore, is to the destruction of Jerusalem regarded as the type of the end of the world. To make ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη-this generation mean the Jewish race, or the generation contemporaneous with the beginning of the signs, is not satisfactory. See on Lk.9:27, where, as here, the coming of the Kingdom of God seems to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke, International Critical Commentary (London: T&T Clark International, 1896), 485.
In Revelation, the Holy City was engaged in warfare with its demonic challenger Babylon, a warfare, we note, that took place both on earth and in heaven. But here is a point that must be stressed: both foes were represented within the city of Jerusalem, which as the place of crucifixion was the site of the greatest blasphemy and idolatry as well as of redemption (Rev. 11:8), the Lord having redeemed his city from every tribe and tongue and nation.
In John’s day the visible battleground was neither the topographical Rome nor the topographical Judea. The battleground was the churches of Asia. Nevertheless, even in Asia the ultimate conflict was between Jerusalem and Babylon. By their faithful witness Christians revealed the presence of the messianic city that comes down out of heaven from God.
The two opposing cities met in the heart of every Christian and in the inner struggle of every church.
For them the problem of choosing the holy city over its satanic enemy was simply the dilemma of obedient loyalty or treacherous idolatry. That is to say, the gospel story of Jesus in Jerusalem had become a powerful paradigm that included the gospel witness of the Christian prophet in Pergamum. Rev. 2:12–13
Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament, ed. C. Clifton Black, John T. Carroll, and Beverly Roberts Gaventa, The New Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 95.
How superstitiously did the Jews doat upon the outward temple, Jer. 7:4, and on the ark, 1 Sam. 4:3, and yet regarded not true piety and purity of heart; no, nor their own souls, which were the ‘temples of the Holy Ghost.’
Thus many, that carry the names of Christians, are more addicted to go and visit the ruins of that temple at Jerusalem which was made with hands, than to associate themselves with the true church of God, or to fit themselves for the heavenly place made without hands. How are most men even in God’s worship more taken with external matters, which are inventions of men and things made by men, than with spirit and truth, notwithstanding ‘the Father seeks such to worship him,’ John 4:23.
This also may not unfitly be applied to other things; for what care do men and women take to adorn their bodies, their houses, and other things, and in the meanwhile neglect their souls. Oh pray that you may approve things that are excellent, Phil. 1:10, duly distinguishing the things that differ, and ‘choose that good part which shall not be taken away,’ Luke 10:42.
William Gouge, A Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews, vol. 2, Nichol’s Series of Commentaries (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; J. Nisbet & Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 274.
The spiritual government is that by which Christ rules inwardly in the conscience by his Word and Spirit, the realm of grace; the temporal government (weltliche Regimente) is that by which Christ governs all external human affairs by law, in which he works not directly and immediately, but through the larvae, “masks,” of earthly governors and institutions. Only the elect experience the former; the latter they share in common with the unregenerate. (W. Bradford Littlejohn, The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed (The Davenant Trust, 2017), 15.)
By paying attention to the chronologies of Jeremiah and Daniel, for instance, Jordan noticed that Jeremiah’s exhortation to the people of Jerusalem to submit to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 29) occurred after Daniel was already a leading adviser to the Babylonian king (Dan. 2). That sheds a completely new light on Jeremiah’s program:
Surrender to Nebuchadnezzar is not a leap into the dark but an act of confidence in Yahweh who has placed Daniel, as He had placed Joseph, to prepare a place for His people.
Peter J. Leithart, “Introduction,” in The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift in Honor of James B. Jordan, ed. Peter J. Leithart and John Barach (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), xxvi.
The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, told me to command them to tell their kings that the LORD had said: “By my great power and strength I created the world, human beings, and all the animals that live on the earth; and I give it to anyone I choose.
I am the one who has placed all these nations under the power of my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, and I have made even the wild animals serve him. All nations will serve him, and they will serve his son and his grandson until the time comes for his own nation to fall. Then his nation will serve powerful nations and great kings.
“But if any nation or kingdom will not submit to his rule, then I will punish that nation by war, starvation, and disease until I have let Nebuchadnezzar destroy it completely. Do not listen to your prophets or to those who claim they can predict the future, either by dreams or by calling up the spirits of the dead or by magic.
They all tell you not to submit to the king of Babylonia. They are deceiving you and will cause you to be taken far away from your country. I will drive you out, and you will be destroyed. But if any nation submits to the king of Babylonia and serves him, then I will let it stay on in its own land, to farm it and live there. I, the LORD, have spoken.” Jer. 27:4–11. GNT
Christians will take an interest in what government is doing. We strike a balance between becoming too comfortable with the ways of the world, as Lot did (Gen. 19:1), and becoming isolationists who withdraw from the world (cf. the movement of monasticism).
We are in the world but not of the world (cf. Jn. 17:14, 16). Jeremiah told the exiles in Babylon to take an interest in the affairs of their land of captivity. He wrote, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:7).(Lyle W. Lange, God So Loved the World: A Study of Christian Doctrine (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 2005), 652.)
On the other hand, the warnings of judgment can escalate until they result in a different kind of narrative, where pagan empire reaches its arrogant height and is finally overthrown by the one true God in an act of judgment which will, ipso facto-automatically, bring his own people not only into freedom at last after their exile, but into their own long-promised world sovereignty.
This results in a very different message from the command to settle down and seek the welfare of Babylon. Instead, in a diverse range of texts, the people are commanded to leave Babylon in a hurry and to avoid contracting uncleanness as they do so (Isa. 48:20; 52:11; cf. Zech. 2:6–13; Rev. 18:4.) N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol. 4, Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 1274–1275.
Dr. G. K. Beale expounds on Revelation 18, illustrating the importance of obeying God's command to leave behind earthly comfort and security. Pointing out how Babylon in Revelation represents the world's sin and self-reliance, Beale urges believers to detach from the fleeting materialism of "Babylon" and place their trust solely in Christ.What agreement does Christ have with Beliar-the devil; Satan? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, (Isa. 52:11; Rev. 18:4) and I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”(Isa. 43:6; Hos. 1:10) 2 Cor. 6:15–18
The exhortation to separate from Babylon’s ways is patterned after the repeated exhortations of Isaiah and Jeremiah, especially that of Jer. 51:45: “Come forth from her midst, my people” (cf. Gen. 12:1; 19:15; Isa. 48:20; 52:11; Jer. 50:8; 51:6).
That the exhortation of Rev.18:4 also strongly echoes that in Isa. 52:11 is evident from the immediately following phrase in the Isaiah text: “do not touch the unclean,” which refers to the idols of Babylon. The exhortation in Jeremiah also includes separating from idol worship (see Jer. 51:44, 47, 52).
The reason that Babylon will be punished with such “plagues” is that “her sins have reached up to heaven.” Again, appeal is made to Jer. 51: “For her [Babylon’s] judgment has reached to heaven, it is lifted up to the skies” (Jer. 51:9 [note also an echo of Gen. 18:20; 19:13]). This foreshadows the judgment of the worldwide system, Babylon the Great. In some passages of the OT and early Judaism the expression becomes an idiom for an extreme degree of corporate sin (cf. Ezra 9:6; Jon. 1:2; 1 Esdras 8:75; 4 Ezra 11:43).
G. K. Beale and Sean M McDonough, “Revelation,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic; Apollos, 2007), 1140.
For the Jews after the ascension of our Savior, in addition to their crime against him, had been devising as many plots as they could against his apostles. First Stephen was stoned to death by them, Acts 7:8 and after him James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John, was beheaded, Acts 12:2 and finally James, the first that had obtained the episcopal seat in Jerusalem after the ascension of our Savior, died in the manner already described. But the rest of the apostles, who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to their destruction, and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all nations to preach the Gospel, relying upon the power of Christ, who had said to them, “Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in my name.” Matt. 28:19
But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. (Pella was a town situated beyond the Jordan, in the north of Perea, within the dominions of Herod Agrippa II. The surrounding population was chiefly Gentile. Epiphanius also records this flight of the Christians to Pella.) And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.
But the number of calamities which everywhere fell upon the nation at that time, the extreme misfortunes to which the inhabitants of Judea were especially subjected, the thousands of men, as well as women and children, that perished by the sword, by famine, and by other forms of death innumerable,—all these things, as well as the many great sieges which were carried on against the cities of Judea, and the excessive sufferings endured by those that fled to Jerusalem itself, as to a city of perfect safety, and finally the general course of the whole war, as well as its particular occurrences in detail, and how at last the abomination of desolation, proclaimed by the prophets, Dan. 9:27 stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, the temple which was now awaiting its total and final destruction by fire,—all these things any one that wishes may find accurately described in the history written by Josephus.
Eusebius of Caesaria, “The Church History of Eusebius,” in Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. 1, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 138.
Furthermore, in 2 Corinthians 6:14ff. we find the same eschatological themes as is found following Revelation. 17: the call to come out from among them (2 Cor. 6:17; cf. Rev. 18:4); the promise that God would be their God (2 Cor. 6:18; cf. Rev. 21:7); and God’s promise to live with them (2 Cor. 6:16; cf. Rev. 21:3). This shows clearly Paul’s familiarity with and use of the same terms found in Revelation and which I have argued are the correct sphere for interpreting the meaning of the harlot in 1 Corinthians. 6.
There is yet another section of Paul’s writings that might be related to John’s vision of the eschatological harlot. In 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul, writing about the ultimate manifestation of evil before Christ’s return, says:
For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 2 Thess. 2:7
In verse 7 Paul mentions ‘the secret power of lawlessness’. It is this term, used in such an unusual way, that may be further evidence that we are rightly discerning Paul’s mind. What is this mystery of iniquity? It would seem to be linked with the title in Revelation 17:5, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great’, and if it is, it would be a reference to the manifestation of the secret principle of evil.
Tom Holland, Contours of Pauline Theology: A Radical New Survey of the Influences on Paul’s Biblical Writings (Scotland, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2004), 133–134.
Babylon the great/the great city is the highest achievement of humanity, but it must fall as the city of God descends. for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. Lk 21:22 ; Ex. 9:13-14; Jeremiah 51:6
Come out of her, my people,so that you do not take part in her sins
and so that you do not share in her plagues, Rev. 18:4.
“Fallen, fallen Babylon the great” (Rev.18:2) is the leading announcement of the entire passage, and it restates Isa. 21:9, originally an announcement of Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon. Those who remain in the city, who were not slaughtered in the great harvest, are commanded to leave (Rev.18:4), repeating a command of Jeremiah to the exiles. Both Jeremiah and the heavenly voice of Revelation. 18 buttress their exhortation with warnings about the coming of the Lord’s recompense, using the image of a cup of wrath:
Flee from the midst of Babylon,And each of you save his life
Do not be destroyed in her punishment
For this is Yahweh’s time of vengeance;
He is going to render recompense to her.
Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of Yahweh
Intoxicating all the earth
The nations have drunk of her wine;
Therefore the nations are going mad. (Jer. 51:6–7; cf. 51:45)
Babylon the harlot evokes not only neo-Babylon but the original Babel, left unfinished on the plains of Shinar. She is Sodom, also Egypt, also Tyre the great city of trade (see below). As the “great city,” she is Nineveh, described as “the great city” four times in Jonah, a phrase used virtually nowhere else in the prophets (Jon. 1:2, 3:1, 3; 4:11; cf. Jer. 22:8)
All this fits neatly with biblical accounts of the fall of Gentile cities, yet I have argued throughout this commentary that the setting of the Apocalypse is pre- AD 70 and that the focal point of John’s visions is the end of the old covenant order, most dramatically and visibly evident in the fall of Jerusalem to Roman armies led by Vespasian and Titus.
In fact, the strongest evidence for this identification of the great city is in chapter Rev. 18, the discovery in Babylon of “the blood of the prophets and saints and of all who have been slain on the land” (Rev.18:24). That is closely parallel to Jesus’s statement about Jerusalem in Matt. 23:34–35:
“upon you may fall all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.”
Jerusalem is the city that has killed prophets, and will continue to kill them until the cup of martyr blood is filled to overflowing (Matt. 23:32; 1 Thess. 2:16). If Revelation. 18 alludes to Jesus’ prediction, it seems likely that it refers to the same city.
In how many different cities, after all, can we find the blood of all who have been slain? Jesus’s statement in Matthew. 23 makes it clear that Jerusalem is charged with all the blood of the righteous; Jerusalem, not Rome, is unmasked as the apocalyptic city of man. cf. (Dt. 32:35. Isa. 34:8. 63:4. Jer. 5:29. Hos. 9:7.)
Christ will forever separate the two “cities” within mankind, glorifying the city of God (Rev. 21), the heavenly Jerusalem, and ruining the city of man, the demonic and worldly Babylon (Rev.18:1–8). The world acts as a spiritual prostitute in its idolatrous, violent, and perverse self-exaltation (Rev.17:1–6).
But the parallels are numerous and compelling. Revelation. 18 speaks of the blood of the prophets, as does Matt. 23:34. Revelation speaks of blood being found in a city, and Matthew. 23 is a prophecy about Jerusalem. Both passages speak of the blood of “all” being charged to a particular city.
That Matthew speaks of blood being “charged” and Revelation of blood being “found” makes sense given the different times: Jesus speaks prophetically about coming events, the accounting of blood to the city that we have already seen in Revelation. 16; Revelation. 18 speaks of the uncovering of the city’s bloodthirstiness after the city has fallen.
The blood of the witnesses is part of a legal process, a charge and a discovery that leads to a sentence.
No other city within the biblical frame of reference qualifies. Rome piled up the corpses of Christian martyrs for several centuries, and there have been thousands of thousands of modern martyrs. The temporal frame of Revelation, however, precludes the possibility that it is talking directly about martyrs from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, or even the third.
Seleucids slaughtered Jews, Jews sometimes slaughtered other Jews, but, according to Jesus, only Jerusalem has shed blood of all prophets and wise men. When Jonah goes to the great city Nineveh, the Ninevites listened and repented. Jeremiah has no such luck, nor did Jesus. “A prophet is accepted except in his own country.”
Revelation was written, by virtually any account, in the first century, and at that time Jerusalem is the only city that, for an early Christian who knows the Olivet Discourse, remotely fits the description of Rev. 18:23.
The only alternative is to suggest that Babylon is not a specific city at all, but a generic city of rebellion, perhaps represented in the first century by Rome but not limited to Rome. We have seen that this option raises more problems than it solves.
If Babylon is the city of man, when did it fall? If the fall of Babylon is still future for us, then what are we to make of John’s insistence that the things he sees “must shortly take place”? ( Rev. 1:1; 22:10,12,20)
When we take seriously (a) the temporal frame of the book and (b) the prophecy of the city’s destruction, then the only consistent reading is that Babylon is Jerusalem.
Identifying the city as Jerusalem significantly affects the political economy of chapter 18. Commentators make much of the condemnation of consumerist trafficking lamented by the kings and merchants of the land, and by the shippers and sailors of the sea. The text can be deployed in a powerful critique of Mammon worship and the liturgies of consumption that support it.
Commenting on the list of goods in Rev.18:9–19, Mangina (2010: 208–209) writes,
The list exposes the way in which human beings, made in the image of God, are treated as mere commodities, convertible in principle with other goods. From the merchants’ perspective, human souls or lives (the word psyche means both) are no different in kind from silk, spices, or sheep, since the value of all these things is determined by the price they can command in the great marketplaces of Ephesus, Smyrna, or Rome itself.
There is a Mammonite ontology at work:
“Nothing ‘is’ what it is (i.e., as created and established by God). It ‘is’ only insofar as it can be traded for other things or exchanged, even more abstractly, for money. Each thing is worth nothing more nor less than what the market will bear.”
This is objectifying, but Mangina brilliantly observes that this objectification of human lives is rooted in a more fundamental subjectification:
“the market is, after all, a marketplace of fantasy and wishes, a field of dreams for those who have the resources to play.”
He takes note of the phrase “the fruit of the longing of your soul,” and connects it with the Augustinian insight that human beings are “constituted by desire.” For John as for Augustine, not only human beings but human communities are constituted by inordinate desire for things.
If the city is Jerusalem rather than Rome, however, these critiques are less tightly tethered to the text. We might attempt a historical reconstruction demonstrating that Jerusalem is a large-scale trader in the eastern Mediterranean. Alternatively, we might venture the proposal that Revelation. 18 is fundamentally about a different sort of commerce, the temple commerce Jesus himself condemns (cf. Jn. 2:13–22), which is both liturgical and “economic.”
Babylon is Sodom, so the righteous make like Lot and leave (Oecumenius 2011: 77). Commentators commonly take the exhortation “Come out!” metaphorically, as a reference to flight from worldliness or pagan culture that does not involve any spatial or geographic movement (Cyprian in Kovacs and Rowland 2004: 191; Boxall 2006: 257; Reddish 2001: 341).
On the interpretation offered in this commentary, the exhortation to leave is quite literal, repeating Jesus’s warning to flee the city when the abomination of desolation comes into view (Matt. 24:15–16).
The harlot is the queen of abominations, and her greatest abomination is consumption of holy martyr blood. When she intensifies the slaughter of the saints, the city is doomed and it is time for the faithful to leave.
For Christians in Asia, especially Jewish Christians, it is an exhortation to leave the doomed synagogues to enter a new city, new Jerusalem, the church, which is a new place, even if it is not merely a place.
Peter J. Leithart, Revelation, ed. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, vol. 2, The International Theological Commentary on the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments (London; Oxford; New York; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury; Bloomsbury T&T Clark: An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018), 209-218.
But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal (Isa.8:16; 29:11; Rev. 5:1; 10:4; 22:10) the book, until the time of the end. Many Amos 8:12 shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Da 12:4.ESV.
The verb, however, translated “going to and fro” may be rendered, as it is by Ewald, as “to peruse.” The veil then shall be removed, the seals broken when men peruse the prophecy carefully, and knowledge is increased. (H. D. M. Spence, Daniel, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 337.)
Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,see now and know;
seek in the open places
if you can find a man,
if there is any who executes justice, who seeks the truth,
that I may pardon her. Jer. 5:1 MEV
The time is coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land,
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
They will wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they will run back and forth to seek the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it. Am 8:11–12 MEV
This is not like the other prophecies which were commanded to be hidden until the appointed time, as in Daniel 12:4, because these things would be accomplished quickly and had now begun. For within fifty years afterward, Jerusalem was destroyed: the godly were persecuted, false teachers misled the people, religion was corrupted, so that the world seemed to be at its end. (Geneva Bible: Notes, vol. 2 (Geneva: Rovland Hall, 1560), 14,122)
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