There are three sections left in the book of Rev, according to my summary outline which you can get by signing up for the email list at Devotions with Dre .com or emailing me for it.
This next section we’re starting to look at today expands on the theme of The Fall of Babylon (chap 17 through the first part of 19). This is where we see more about the beast and the Harlot Babylon, and the destruction of the Babylon system in the end. In other words, the event that was mentioned in ch 16 of Babylon being defeated forever - that's now getting sussed out. God is answering the prayers of saints and martyrs and punishing evil.
G K Beale calls this two-and-a-half chapter section "a large interpretive snapshot of the 6th and 7th bowls" and explains that this chunk gives us a more thorough understanding of the judgement against Babylon.
We know that at the time of writing, the Roman empire was the latest iteration of "Babylon" which we're looking at as the 'world system', the rebelliousness of oppressing others and worshipping idols and demons instead of YHWH. It's always happening in different forms, and it will, up until Jesus' return. Today we’ll look just at chapter 17, the first part of this Fall of Babylon theme section, and we get a more thorough explanation of the avatar I call The Prostitute that is Babylon.
Chapter 17 is all about the influence that the world system / beast system has had on global economics, world religions, and governments, and how there's a downfall impending for all of it.
Revelation 17:
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.”
Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries (in other words, the cup contains obscenities and fornications). The name written on her forehead was a mystery:
Babylon the great
the mother of prostitutes
and of the abominations of the earth.
I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people (not necessarily from the cup she's holding at the moment, as that contains abominations, but implicitly from recent oppression and murders), the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to me: “Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.
9 “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. “The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.”
15 Then the angel said to me, “The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to hand over to the beast their royal authority, until God’s words are fulfilled. The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”
Breakdown:
17 1-2 One of the seven angels who had poured out the seven bowls came over and spoke to me. “Come with me,” he said, “and I will show you the judgment that is going to come on the great prostitute, who rules over many waters. 2 The kings of the world have committed adultery with her, and the people who belong to this world have been made drunk by the wine of her immorality.”
This first section is an introduction to the vision. John's talking with a major angel, one of the bowl pourers - and this verse makes it sound like the bowls have all already been poured at this pt - and the angel is going to zoom in on the destruction of Babylon (aka the end of the Beast system).
The Life App Bible tells us that the prostitute figure here, while it's called Babylon (the name of an Empire that's long gone by the time Rev is written) it "represents the early Roman empire with its many gods and the blood of martyrs on its hands. The water [remember it described her as enthroned on many waters] stands for either sea commerce or a well watered (well provisioned) city. The great prostitute represents the seductiveness of the governmental system that uses immoral means to gain its own pleasure, prosperity, and advantage. In contrast to the prostitute, Christ's Bride the Church is pure ... the wicked city of Bab contrasts with the heavenly city of Jerusalem. The original readers prob rather quickly identified Bab with Rome, but Bab also symbolizes any system that is hostile to God."
As we know, believers are people who are loyal to Christ. Imagine a metaphor where the Messiah is a really awesome bridegroom and the church is a loyal bride.
Contrast that to the beast system that is full of covenants with all sorts of demons and dark powers. Like some mafia donna psychopath sex worker that just keeps destroying more and more lives. We're not imagining your average tough times sex worker here; we're imagining a truly perverted and power hungry ruling entity that is totally ok with ruining good people's lives, every day. A harlot that purposefully draws people away from Christ. Beale says, "The kings and the nations' acquiescence to immorality refers not to literal immorality, but figuratively to acceptance of the religious and idolatrous demands of the ungodly earthly order... The intoxicating effect of Babylon's wine removes all desire to resist Babylon's destructive influence, blinds them to Babylon's own ultimate insecurity and to God as the source of real security, and numbs them against fear of a coming judgement."
Throughout the book of Rev when someone's sitting it indicates Sovereignty. So the harlot sitting on many waters here prob shows that she had sovereignty over international trade. She's like "im the queen."
3-6 In the Spirit he carried me out in the desert. I saw a woman mounted on a Scarlet Beast. Stuffed with blasphemies, the Beast had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, festooned with gold and gems and pearls (the bling here indicates that she's the evil counterpart to the jeweled holy city of God). She held a gold chalice in her hand, brimming with defiling obscenities, her foul fornications. A riddle-name (or mystery name) was branded on her forehead: great babylon, mother of whores and abominations of the earth. I could see that the woman was drunk, drunk on the blood of God’s holy people, drunk on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
The angel takes John in the spirit to the wilderness. (btw Being taken somewhere in the spirit has OT precedence, it is a type of commissioning - when we read about this happening to John throughout Rev, we should be thinking: oh he's a prophet of God). The fact that John's being taken to the wilderness to be shown a prophesy against Babylon will harken the many jewish people in the audience back to Isaiah 21, where the prophet Isaiah relays a vision against "the desert by the sea" aka Babylon and says "fallen fallen is Babylon the great"
The harlot has a mystery for a name - i was really curious why John calls the name on her forehead a mystery or riddle, when at first glance it seems like a somewhat straightforward label. Turns out Johns hyperlinking to daniel 4, where there was a king in Babylon named Nebuchadnezzar who bragged and called it "bab the great" and he had a dream that contained mystery! a spiritually significant dream - a warning dream about his pride and boasting! To quote Beale, "Revelation connects this mystery with the mystery of the last days fall of spiritual babylon" .... [read rest on pg 359 and 362] ... qso that answered a question i've had for a long time.
So we see that the prostitute Babylon is not only on many waters but also in a wilderness - she's seated on many waters, in the desert, potentially with the sea beast - desert and waters are two metaphors for: the place of chaos in hebrew thinking - both are spaces people go to do die. they represent the opposite of peace and flourishing and God's right order. So John combines them, like Isaiah 21 does. We're also remembering that in the bk of Rev the wilderness is a place where God protects and provides for His ppl, even in the midst of chaos.
since a lot of hyperlinks in Rev 17 go back to Isaiah 21:1-10 let's read it:
This is the burden against the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror. A dire vision is declared to me:
“The traitor still betrays,
and the destroyer still destroys.
Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media!
I will put an end to all her groaning.”
3Therefore my body is filled with anguish.
Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor.
I am bewildered to hear,
I am dismayed to see.
4My heart falters;
fear makes me tremble.
The twilight of my desire
has turned to horror.
5They prepare a table, they lay out a carpet,
they eat, they drink!
Rise up, O princes, oil the shields!
6For this is what the Lord says to me:
“Go, post a lookout
and have him report what he sees.
7When he sees chariots with teams of horsemen,
riders on donkeys, riders on camels,
he must be alert, fully alert.”
8Then the lookouts shouted:
“Day after day, my lord,
I stand on the watchtower;
night after night
I stay at my post.
9Look, here come the riders,
horsemen in pairs.”
And one answered, saying:
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon!b
All the images of her gods
lie shattered on the ground!”
10O my people, crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard
from the LORD of Hosts,
the God of Israel.
I see so many similarities in Is 21 and the bk of Rev. There's a mention of the threading floor. The seer/prophet feels taken aback and distraught. Babylon falls as horsemen approach, at the judgement of God for wickedness. It's all in there.
So clearly there's an evil prostitute aka harlot, who represents the evil world empire (contrast her with the pure pride of Christ typified in the city of Jerusalem). Some Bible teachers say this may be the Sumerian goddess Ishtar - Inana - Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of sex, war and violence - this seems to be her according to Derek Gilbert and others - and she's on top of a beast (possibly meaning engaged in sex, depending on which Bible scholar you ask - personally im like, she is wearing lots of clothes her), so maybe just sitting on the beast like a person rides a horse, she's in leadership/in power, and she's assuming that she'll rule and have lots of continued influence.
We talk a lot about different interpretation lenses, or views, on the bk, and the identity of the harlot in the book is no diff - there are diverse thoughts on it. From simply the literal roman empire, to an apostate church in the future, to a future actual city where idolatry (aka spiritual adultery) is rampant, to a beast system that reaches across diff eras and locations (thats my personal favorite), to a purely symbolic representation of human civilization as it rebels against God.
Here's a quote from G K Beale's commentary: "As we saw in the letters, there is a clear connection in Revelation between illicit forms of economic activity (including simply the worship of money) and idolatrous practices, and the woman represents both." (remember when we looked at the letters we learned about the trade guild idols, and if Christians abstained from honoring those idols it often became difficult for them to buy or sell). So that's the corrupt, wealth-worshipping harlot here.
And as far as the beast here, like I mentioned I tend to think this beast here is the beast of the sea, the antichrist, but some people take this to be the land beast, the false prophet. Others say it's a combo of the dragon and the sea beast. one reason i think it's the sea beast Leviathan is bc Isaiah 27:1 says that when the day of the Lord comes, YHWH will crush Leviathan - it specifics who will get defeated. Also, Leviathan is describes as having 7 heads in ancient Mesopotamian media. But i totally can see where the combo people are coming from too bc Leviathan basically is a dragon, that's the type of monster it seems he was believed to be. plus the location of the wilderness/desert points back to ch 12 where the dragon was in the desert, persecuting God's people from there.
The text here says this beast has seven heads and ten horns (same as chapter 13's description of the sea beast) and is full of blasphemies, potentially meaning that John is seeing anti-God type words written all over the beast. Maybe even the names of the gods of the world, possibly the rebelled elohim that didnt steward the nations the way god originally assigned them to, but rather fell away and sinned and wanted worship for themselves and all that. The end of days here in Rev is their final judgement for doing that.
The woman is dressed real wealthy, which could potentially remind us of Ez 28 (its a really fascinating chapter in Ez where the abuse of wealth and the corruption of international trade end up causing the evil prince of tyre and the spiritual king of tyre, possibly the fallen guardian cherub that spiritually rules tyre - that may even be satan himself, to sin; why? bc when wealth and commerce are used for evil purposes, that is condemned by YHWH, so they get thrown down bc of how they used their influence. Tyre is very similar to babylon and they're described in the same ways several times in the OT). It alsp should remind us of Isaiah 1 and Jer 2, where the prophets speak of harlots in red attire bc they spill the blood of God's people. We also may be reminded of Ez 28:16 where it says "your rich commerce led you to violence, and you sinned. so I banished you in disgrace from the Mountain of God."
here in Rev the prostitute that is Babylon does the same crap; she seduces others with her wealth and oppressive, corrupt international trade, and she brings people away from God into idolatry. And she's going to come to the same end.
Jeremiah 51:13 seems to be another hyperlink in this chapter: "o you dwell by many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come."
And, this prostitute that is Babylon is drinking blood. So if you're one of our resident conspiracy theorists that believes in vampire elites, here's your verse to back it up. (and, the historical fact that the consumption of human blood has always been an actual thing, and of course always very much disallowed by YHWH). So she's drunk on martyrs' blood - truly a disgusting figure.
7-8 Astonished, I rubbed my eyes. I shook my head in wonder. The Angel said, “Does this surprise you? Let me tell you the riddle of the woman and the Beast she rides, the Beast with seven heads and ten horns. (now we get a quick one-sentence recap of the fate of the beast) The Beast you saw once was, is no longer, and is about to ascend from the Abyss and head straight for Hell. (and next, a super quick recap about the beasts's followers) Earth dwellers whose names weren’t written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will be dazzled when they see the Beast that once was, is no longer, and is to come.
So that's vv 7-8. John being "astonished" here could imply that this dark goddess is intriguing or awe inspiring in some way. Some Bible teachers feel that the text implies this, especially bc the angel then kinda says stop it. Maybe John is a mix between caught off guard or a little bit mesmerized or maybe he's just so appalled that he's completely shook.
Either way, the angel then says "why are you so shocked" and says "i will tell you the mystery (or riddle)"- that's common phraseology in the Bible for when a vision or parable is about to be interpreted / explained.
And here we get a reminder from the angel that the beast is going to suffer a mortal wound and resurrect, and that will really wow people and gain him some new followers. Another reason i think this is specifically the sea beast aka antichrist. And we're reminded that his resurrected time is short, and he's headed for the fire of hell. The description in these verses of the beast as an entity that once was, is no longer, and will ascend for a second before landing in hell is to be compared and contrasted with God who throughout Rev is described as He who was and is and is to come. the beast tries to be like that - but cant swing it.
9-11 “But don’t drop your guard. Use your head. The seven heads are seven hills; they are where the woman sits. They are also seven kings: five dead, one living, the other not yet here—and when he does come his time will be brief. The Beast that once was and is no longer is both an eighth and one of the seven (or: he's from the 7) —and headed for Hell.
many scholars feel that the Seven hills are Rome, a city famous for having 7 hills. Others look at it more as a metaphor for power in general. Seven kings = debated. Definitely something to ponder. What stands out to me is that evil leadership is almost over; he's telling him "we're on 6 out of 7 evil leaders or empires. We're near the end." One last evil group will rule, and then they're all done. What Beale says about this is dont get too caught up on the numbers, they're likely figurative. Richard Bauckham says it might even be a Hebraic literary device called a graded numerical saying, where numbers in successive order are used in representative but not exhaustive lists.
The angel explains that the beast is an 8th king and also one of the seven or descended FROM the seven, depending on what translation you're reading. some people take this to mean that it's a not quite human, that a powerful spiritual entity is going to rule part or all of the world at some pt - and then he's headed for destruction. other people say he's a descendent of the corrupt elite. Whoever the beast is, all this talk of 7 heads should remind the reader of Daniel 7, where there are beasts with heads and horns, and they represent diff empires - world powers - throughout history.
so the main takeaway in the angel's interp of the vision is: the announcement of final judgement. very on brand as it's a main topic of the bk.
12-14 “The ten horns you saw are ten kings, but they’re not yet in power. They will come to power with the Scarlet Beast, but won’t last long—a very brief reign. These kings will agree to turn over their power and authority to the Beast. (and here we get a super quick recap of how the final war is gonna go down) They will go to war against the Lamb but the Lamb will defeat them, proof that he is Lord over all lords, King over all kings, and those with him will be the called, chosen, and faithful.”
So the beast's 7 heads are somehow sporting ten horns, and the angel says these horns symbolize kings - rulers that agree to give over their power to the beast and he lets them reign with him for a brief time. oh good, the angel in Rev interprets the ten horns the same as daniel 7 does - or else that would have been awkward. Scholars say these ten kings could be humans, or they could be other spiritual entities. (or, shout to to the fee of u out there whose next thought was - or they could be hybrids of the two- also a possibility, at least in my mind).
And so what do all these evil rulers do with their time, their last hurrah? They war against the Lamb. They hate and oppose Jesus.
15-18 The Angel continued, “The waters you saw on which the harlot was enthroned are peoples and crowds, nations and languages. And the ten horns you saw, together with the Beast, will turn on the harlot—[here it is! we've reached the verse where Babylon finally gets judged, in answer to the prayer of the saints and martyrs earlier in the book!] they’ll hate her, violate her, strip her naked, rip her apart with their teeth (or: they'll eat her flesh - this ties her in with Jezebel), then set fire to her. It was God who put the idea in their heads to turn over their rule to the Beast until the words of God are completed. [God brings this judgement about!] The woman you saw is the great city, tyrannizing the kings of the earth.”
This might remind Jewish readers of the book of Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 30: "What are you doing, you devastated one? Why dress yourself in scarlet and put on jewels of gold, Why highlight your eyes with makeup? You adorn yourself in vain, Your lovers despise you; they want to kill you" that’s about a diff city but, same theme.
The angel explains to John that the waters represent a lot of, or all, the nations, all the people groups.
Then what happens is a big insurrection / coupe type thing where the ten rulers and the beast turn against the prostitute that is Babylon and torture and kill their wicked accomplice.
We see justice happening here - the harlot and the beast want to try and take down the church, operating from the location of the desert / wilderness (where, btw, demons are believed to dwell and often operate from), then they will be punished for that - in the very place they had operated out of. Seems fair.
Chapter 17 ends with the angel explaining to John exactly who the prostitute avatar is: the Great City that rules over the kings of the earth.
Like we've discussed, the "great city" here is referencing Babylon of old, but also Rome, and more broadly means the evil worldly system - the type of kingdom that's made from oppression and injustice.
Now there is also a truly "great city" made by God which is heaven which is the new Jerusalem which is what Eden was supposed to be / finally will be - the City of God. We know that everything God does, the enemy does a counterfeit of. There's a city of God, so there's also a city of the enemy. There's God's kingdom which is present wherever YHWH is invited and glorified, and there's the kingdom of darkness which currently is present wherever people allow it and partner with it - but it won't always be present. Its end is eminent.
(end: reminder we're in a war, the demons are restrained and that’s why we're walking around fine, and God's name and prayer are very very powerful).