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Chapter 16 ends with the summoning of the kings of the earth to Armageddon and the inflicting of the seventh and final bowl judgment on the earth. At the beginning of Chapter 17 the 1260 days of the Antichrist’s rule have ended, and we are in the middle of the seventh bowl judgment. God’s wrath has taken its toll, and it has been too much for the Antichrist. He is no longer concentrating on exterminating Jews and Christians, but he is trying to keep his kingdom together and to recapture what he has lost, including Jerusalem. The killings have stopped because he has other severe problems. Right now, at the time of the seventh bowl, he is assembling his forces at Armageddon for his final assault on Jerusalem and his futile attempt to oppose Christ’s return.
As the seventh bowl was poured out, a voice from within the temple shouted, “It is done”.[1] As mentioned previously, this echoes Christ’s last words on the cross (“It is finished”[2]), but it also echoes the beginning of the Bible, since “γέγονεν” (it is finished) is cognate with “γένεσις” (genesis).
With the seventh bowl judgment, the focus of Revelation switches from the rule of the Antichrist and his kingdom to “Babylon” for the next two Chapters. The hardest question to answer here, and the most important, is “What is Babylon?” The meaning of these two Chapters and indeed of a substantial part of the book of Revelation hinges on the answer to that question. Interpreters have come to many conclusions about the identity of Babylon, including Rome (because the Great Prostitute [3] sits on seven hills and because Rome was the anti-Christian enemy of John’s day) and the literal city of Babylon on the Euphrates.
After careful study, the authors have concluded that Babylon plays the same role in Satan’s scheme of things as Israel does in God’s and can, in this way, be viewed as a kind of Anti-Israel. Israel is many things in the Bible. First, they are a specific group of people, the descendants of Jacob, who were chosen to receive the oracles and promises of God. Second, Israel is a land, the land promised to Abraham as the inheritance forever of his descendants, then land over which the Messiah will reign forever upon David’s throne. Beyond these designations, and growing out of them, is spiritual Israel, the people of God, whether believing Jews or Gentile followers of Christ. Thus, Israel has both a physical and a spiritual meaning. Likewise, Babylon is both something physical and something spiritual.
Babylon is referred to somewhat differently in Chapters 17 and 18, with the last verse of Chapter 17 providing the bridge. Throughout Chapter 17, Babylon is called a woman, indeed a prostitute, riding on a beast. In Chapter 17 the woman and especially the beast have very broad symbolic meanings. In Chapter 18, by contrast, Babylon has much more specific meaning as the city of Babylon (or, perhaps, its successor of the last days, the capital of the Antichrist), and, by extension, the last days empire of the Antichrist.
The disentangling of the Great Prostitute and the beast on which she rides presents the most difficult problems of interpretation in Revelation. Chapter 17 makes the most sense if the Great Prostitute stands for several different but closely related things, some of which are associated with historical Rome and others with historical Babylon.
She is the false politically compromised religious system which dominated each of the successive anti-God empires and will, for a time, dominate the last one, that of the Antichrist. She is not, however, the empires themselves. She embodies the priests who challenged Moses in Egypt during the captivity, Assyria that Israel prostituted herself with after seeking political protection, Babylon both of the tower of Babel and of Nebuchadnezzar, Haman of Persia, the Greek Seleucid kingdom of Antiochus Epiphanes whose very name means “God made manifest”, the emperor-worshipping Rome and the emperor-worshipping last days empire. She is, indeed, the motivating power of the beast empires. In the last days, she is a false religious system which comingles thoroughly with the secular powers of the day, and which is eventually destroyed by them.
Chapter 18 concentrates on another aspect of the anti-God empires, their economic importance. There are numerous prophecies of the fall of Babylon, and several of them have significant points of agreement with this one. The major one is from Jeremiah, Chapters 50 and 51. We will discuss these examples where appropriate in the text.
In Chapter 19 we finally see the comeuppance of the prostitute. The battle of Armageddon is completed. Her judgment is now, and her sentence is executed. The prayers of the martyrs are finally fulfilled. The Chapter begins with rejoicing and worship, a joyful contrast to the two previous Chapters. It is seen from a heavenly perspective.
Chapters 17, 18, and 19 present both Heavenly and Earthly perspectives. By the end we have passed the 1290 days and entered the final 45 days of Satan’s hold on the world.
Babylon figures prominently throughout these chapters. It will be helpful to keep in mind that it is more than just a fixed empire in a specific place at a point in time. It is a pseudonym that describes actual empires that align with a certain ideology that stands against God. It has resurfaced (Biblically speaking) several times (As mentioned before, Rome was referred to as Babylon in John’s time) and will twice more after John’s time: once briefly and then finally under the Antichrist.
As the seventh bowl was poured out, a voice from within the temple shouted, “It is done”.[1] As mentioned previously, this echoes Christ’s last words on the cross (“It is finished”[2]), but it also echoes the beginning of the Bible, since “γέγονεν” (it is finished) is cognate with “γένεσις” (genesis).
With the seventh bowl judgment, the focus of Revelation switches from the rule of the Antichrist and his kingdom to “Babylon” for the next two Chapters. The hardest question to answer here, and the most important, is “What is Babylon?” The meaning of these two Chapters and indeed of a substantial part of the book of Revelation hinges on the answer to that question. Interpreters have come to many conclusions about the identity of Babylon, including Rome (because the Great Prostitute [3] sits on seven hills and because Rome was the anti-Christian enemy of John’s day) and the literal city of Babylon on the Euphrates.
After careful study, the authors have concluded that Babylon plays the same role in Satan’s scheme of things as Israel does in God’s and can, in this way, be viewed as a kind of Anti-Israel. Israel is many things in the Bible. First, they are a specific group of people, the descendants of Jacob, who were chosen to receive the oracles and promises of God. Second, Israel is a land, the land promised to Abraham as the inheritance forever of his descendants, then land over which the Messiah will reign forever upon David’s throne. Beyond these designations, and growing out of them, is spiritual Israel, the people of God, whether believing Jews or Gentile followers of Christ. Thus, Israel has both a physical and a spiritual meaning. Likewise, Babylon is both something physical and something spiritual.
Babylon is referred to somewhat differently in Chapters 17 and 18, with the last verse of Chapter 17 providing the bridge. Throughout Chapter 17, Babylon is called a woman, indeed a prostitute, riding on a beast. In Chapter 17 the woman and especially the beast have very broad symbolic meanings. In Chapter 18, by contrast, Babylon has much more specific meaning as the city of Babylon (or, perhaps, its successor of the last days, the capital of the Antichrist), and, by extension, the last days empire of the Antichrist.
The disentangling of the Great Prostitute and the beast on which she rides presents the most difficult problems of interpretation in Revelation. Chapter 17 makes the most sense if the Great Prostitute stands for several different but closely related things, some of which are associated with historical Rome and others with historical Babylon.
She is the false politically compromised religious system which dominated each of the successive anti-God empires and will, for a time, dominate the last one, that of the Antichrist. She is not, however, the empires themselves. She embodies the priests who challenged Moses in Egypt during the captivity, Assyria that Israel prostituted herself with after seeking political protection, Babylon both of the tower of Babel and of Nebuchadnezzar, Haman of Persia, the Greek Seleucid kingdom of Antiochus Epiphanes whose very name means “God made manifest”, the emperor-worshipping Rome and the emperor-worshipping last days empire. She is, indeed, the motivating power of the beast empires. In the last days, she is a false religious system which comingles thoroughly with the secular powers of the day, and which is eventually destroyed by them.
Chapter 18 concentrates on another aspect of the anti-God empires, their economic importance. There are numerous prophecies of the fall of Babylon, and several of them have significant points of agreement with this one. The major one is from Jeremiah, Chapters 50 and 51. We will discuss these examples where appropriate in the text.
In Chapter 19 we finally see the comeuppance of the prostitute. The battle of Armageddon is completed. Her judgment is now, and her sentence is executed. The prayers of the martyrs are finally fulfilled. The Chapter begins with rejoicing and worship, a joyful contrast to the two previous Chapters. It is seen from a heavenly perspective.
Chapters 17, 18, and 19 present both Heavenly and Earthly perspectives. By the end we have passed the 1290 days and entered the final 45 days of Satan’s hold on the world.
Babylon figures prominently throughout these chapters. It will be helpful to keep in mind that it is more than just a fixed empire in a specific place at a point in time. It is a pseudonym that describes actual empires that align with a certain ideology that stands against God. It has resurfaced (Biblically speaking) several times (As mentioned before, Rome was referred to as Babylon in John’s time) and will twice more after John’s time: once briefly and then finally under the Antichrist.
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Chapter 17Chapters 17 and 18 are easier to understand, and far easier to see where they fit with the rest of Revelation if we see the timeline of Revelation being continuous from Chapter 16 to Chapter 19, with 17 and 18 outside the timeline and describing why Babylon is destroyed, not when.
At the end of Chapter 16 we are at the end of the seven bowl judgments, at the time when the armies of the earth are gathering at Armageddon. The timeline recommences at the beginning of Chapter 19. At the start of this interlude, an angel comes to show John what the consequences of the battle will be: not just the destruction of the Antichrist and his empire, but destruction of the Beast empire system across the ages.
The seventh bowl judgment has been poured out already,[1] but the gathering for the last battle has not yet taken place, so seeing where we are on earth seems straightforward: we are at the end of Daniel’s Seventieth Week. But a closer look at the beast that the Prostitute is riding shows that everything about her and the beast she is on has much broader significance in the scheme of things than the time at which she is shown to John. As we shall see, she and the beast she rides relate to the anti-God religious and political systems across time.
The Great Prostitute [i] sits on many waters, but she also rides the scarlet beast.[2] This would be confusing if we weren’t later told that the waters on which she sits are “peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages”,[3] emphasizing her control of the secular world. It also gives a hint of the beast on which she is riding. However much that beast resembles the beast from the sea that is the Antichrist, this beast is not the Antichrist because it isn’t just a single person.[4] As we explore the symbolic nature of the attributes of the beast we will see they primarily fall into two categories: symbols that point to the beast including the empire of the Antichrist and symbols spread across time showing the meaning of the Prostitute’s mount across history. The literal Babylon was also described as being by “many waters”. Jeremiah, speaking of Babylon’s destruction, gives this parallel prophecy:
Because Babylon sat on the Euphrates River surrounded by extensive canal and waterworks, and because Jeremiah is referring to the literal Babylon of his day throughout Chapter 51, this might argue that the Prostitute is the literal city of Babylon, but the subsequent descriptions of the beast she rides indicates a much more general meaning for her. It is much more likely that her sitting on “many waters” means she controls and has controlled many nations and peoples and that while the reference here harkens back to Jeremiah, presumably to show the Babylon of his day is included in the symbols here, the reference to ‘many waters’ here is figurative – as the text explains, as opposed to the literal meaning of ‘many waters’ in Jeremiah.
This is the second of three times John is told to “Come and see”. The first was the initial call to see the events of the future.[5] The other two deserve special attention. Here, John is called to see the Great Prostitute and to witness her punishment. The third time he is called it is to see the Bride of Christ.[6] The two women are a study in contrasts. The first is a prostitute, a spiritual adulteress; the second is a faithful bride. The first is arrayed in the worldly finery of her profession, the second in fine linen, bright and clean.[7] Though their introductions to John are the same, the two women could not be more different.
In scripture, adultery nearly always means spiritual adultery, and the one committing it is usually Israel.[8] It almost always means worshiping other gods, but it can mean political prostitution.[9] The term probably originates with the temple prostitutes or shrine prostitutes that some of the fertility religions practiced (especially the worship of Asherah == Astarte).[10] As part of the worship, and to make money for the shrines, there were women and men whose sexual favors were for hire.
It is likely that at least in part the Prostitute is a corrupt politico-religious system that has controlled, and been controlled by, evil governments throughout time and will, for a while, have the same relationship with the Antichrist’s empire of the Last Days. Supporting this is the flight of the three angels[11] through the heavens with warnings containing both religious and political implications. The first angel concerns God and Christ, God’s creation of the world and his judgment of it. The second concerns the Prostitute, with emphasis on her effect on the nations of the earth. The third concerns the worship of the Antichrist and the taking of his mark. All three warnings are both religious and political. Because of the religious associations of the Prostitute and since she sits on seven hills and is called “the great city who rules over the kings of the earth”,[12] some have seen in her an apostate Roman Catholic Church. She is dressed in purple (the royal color) and scarlet [13], which are very close to the colors worn by the princes of the Roman church. There are, however, problems with tying the Prostitute to the Roman Catholic Church. For one thing, it is by no means certain that calling the woman a prostitute means that she should belong to God but doesn’t, which would be the case were she the Roman Church. In fact, it is extremely unlikely that is what is meant. There are two different words for adultery in Greek and the NIV’s translation is confusing here. First, in Greek scripture, the primary word for adultery is “moicheia” (μοιχεία). It is specific to the case of adultery (being unfaithful towards you spouse) and it is the Greek word used whenever the commandment against adultery is quoted. The Hebrew word which the Greek translates always meant either spiritual adultery or marital unfaithfulness. The word used here, however, is “porneia” (πορνεία) which means “sexual immorality or fornication”. It is a broader term than “moicheia”, and though it can include adultery,[14] it primarily is the sin of a harlot, not an adulteress. The use of “porneia” here is suggestive that the woman is most likely not affiliated with the church and therefore is pagan rather than apostate, although it is difficult to be certain.[15]
The beast on which the woman sits closely resembles both the dragon (Satan) in Chapter 12 and the beast from the sea (the Antichrist) in Chapter 13. For more detail on the comparison see Appendix 3. The position of the woman, sitting on the beast, indicates a position of control. As we will see, this position is temporary.
The word scarlet has two associations with the woman. First, the beast she rides is scarlet, matching the fiery red of the satanic dragon.[16] Second, her clothing is scarlet. Scarlet has two different correlations, both in view here. First, because the dye which produced the color was costly, the color is associated with wealth, an idea further conveyed by her gold and jewels. It is quite often the color of good or pure things, from the clothing of a noble family [17] to the curtains of the tabernacle.[18] David, in his lament for Saul, spoke of the prosperity of the kingdom under Saul:
Secondly, scarlet also conveys the idea of sin. Isaiah says that “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”.[19] The ideas of wealth and sin are not altogether separated in scripture. In the prophets, for example, the idea of finery in general took on some negative connotations, primarily because of the unfaithfulness that often accompanies wealth. James warned the church that it was the wealthy who exploited them.[20] Jeremiah, predicting the fall of Jerusalem, described the city in ways very similar to the vision seen by John:
Jerusalem here, having prostituted herself to the nations around her, finds that they hold her in contempt and despise her. As we shall see, the same betrayal by her adulterous lovers awaits the woman.
The Prostitute is finely (if extravagantly) dressed and carries a golden cup. Instead of being filled with fine wine, however, it is filled with filth, the product of her fornications.[21] The word translated here as “abominable things” is the same translated “Abominations” in verse 5.
There are two closely related cups associated with the Prostitute. Here she carries the cup of her abominations. She is drunk with the blood of the saints which, among other things, are figuratively in the cup she holds. But as we will see below, God also gives her a cup to drink, one filled with the fury of his wrath.[22] It is appropriate that God pour out his wrath on her for shedding the blood of the saints, the primary cause, as we have seen several times, of the wrath of God. It is instructive that “thumos”, the Greek word for wrath or fury, is used both for God’s fury [23] and the “maddening” filth of the Prostitute’s adulteries.[24] John now sees the woman in more detail:
In scripture, a mystery is usually a religious secret, often one which has been or is about to be revealed. That is the case here. What the Prostitute is, is about to be revealed.[25] Mysteries are common in scripture. Christ talks of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven which are revealed to the disciples, but not to the masses,[26] and Paul of the mystery of Christ [27] and the Christian religion.[28] The Rapture is called a mystery,[29] as is the coming rule of Christ over all things [30] and the ability of Gentiles to partake of God’s kingdom along with the Jews.[31] The workings of the man of lawlessness are also called a mystery.[32]
The word used here for “ABOMINATIONS” [33] appears six times in the New Testament. Twice it means things in general which are detested by God,[34] twice here for the abominations of Babylon the Great, and twice the “abomination that causes desolation,” [35] the idol set up in the temple by the Antichrist and false prophet.[36] The same word is used for the Antichrist’s idol in the Septuagint translation of Daniel.[37] The woman has several meanings. She is not a person, for we never see her punished eternally as we do the Antichrist and the False Prophet (and even Death and Hades). She is carefully contrasted with the Bride of Christ which also isn’t one person. The faithful bride is differentiated with an unfaithful one and the pure woman with the impure. There are plenty of scriptures where Israel plays the harlot both with other gods and with the political powers of the nations around them, instead of worshiping God and trusting in him for their protection. Some of the saints are within her,[38] which at least implies that she may be the apostate Church which may still hold some true believers. The best interpretation probably takes all these things into account. The Prostitute is a system which, for a time, dominates the beast empire of the Antichrist as it has the Beast empires of the past. In its final form the system takes power again during the period before the Antichrist becomes truly Satanic.[39] That system contains many religious elements, probably including most of the “religious leaders” of the time, who have cooperated fully with the governmental system of the rising Antichrist. It is possible that she bears the form of a church, perhaps even the Roman Church, but it is a church far more compromised by the Beast system than any today. The Prostitute wields considerable political power throughout the earth, dominating the political system. Her adulteries are political and religious, but the political predominates. The mixture of political acts with religious imagery may mean that the religious system of the last days is secular in the extreme, giving only lip service to religious perspectives. The use of ‘porneia’ for her sexual transgressions indicates that the Prostitute’s prostitution is not primarily with gods but with men. If the Prostitute represents false religion, which seems likely, then the false religion of the Last Days, at least before the worship of the Antichrist is initiated, is likely secular. Things of God are rendered to Caesar. World-wide humanism takes the place of the worship of the true God. The Prostitute is worse than compromised. She actively participates in the persecutions of God’s people in the last days, as the next verse shows:
The Prostitute persecutes and has persecuted the people of God. In this she is directly associated not only with the persecutions of the Antichrist but also of the persecution of Christians from Rome forward.
Again, the NIV translation is deceptive here. In Greek the word following saints is “kai” [40] which can be properly translated by the conjunction “and”. This shows two groups of people in view. In addition, the word “saints” can be translated as God’s “holy [41] ones” or “holy people”. Given that, this passage translates as “with the blood of God’s holy people and of those who testify about Jesus”. Since several of the beast empires predate Christianity, it makes sense we have two groups in view here: Jewish people and Christians. If the Jewish people were not meant, it is hard to see who she persecuted before Rome since Christians didn’t then exist. We will return to the woman after looking at the beast she rides.
The interpretations of the Prostitute and the beasts of Revelation 13 and 17 are among the most difficult in the book. Their close resemblance of the beasts with each other and with the Dragon (Satan) was discussed in detail in Appendix 3. Here we will concentrate more on their differences.
Parts of this scripture seem clear, such as the identity of the beast of Chapter 13 with the Abomination of Desolation mentioned by Christ in the Olivet Discourse, while others, such as the meaning of the seventh head of both the beast of Chapter 13 and the beast of Chapter 17 are far more obscure. The close resemblance of the beast in Chapter 13 to the one here and of both to the Dragon was discussed in detail in Appendix 3. We will review and extend that analysis here. As we begin to analyze the mount of the Prostitute, it is helpful to quote again the relevant comparison text from Chapter 13.
In the current Chapter we have:
Here we encounter the second “call for wisdom” in Revelation. The first was the number of the Beast in Chapter 13.[42] Both calls deal with how the beast is to be identified.
In distinguishing the two beasts, let’s start with the seven heads and ten horns, which both beasts have. The ten horns are ten kings who will be a part of the Antichrist’s last-days empire. In Chapter 17 they are specifically called kings while in Chapter 13 they have crowns, the symbol of kingship. They are to be distinguished from the “kings of the earth” who mourn the destruction of Babylon and are present in other ways in scripture. They are the ordinary rulers of countries, not the ten that helped assemble the Antichrist’s kingdom. Daniel saw these ten kings in two of his visions, that of the toes of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Chapter 2 and of the ten horns of the beast in Daniel 7. In Chapter 13 they are part of the symbolism of the Antichrist because they will play an important part in his rise to power. In Chapter 17 they are a property of the Prostitute’s mount, but though that mount has meaning across time (as the analysis of the seven heads will show) we are specifically told that they will in the future gain power for a short period along with the eighth king, the Antichrist. In other words, though they are shown on a beast that has meaning across time, they are specifically said to acquire their meaning when they and the Antichrist rise to power. Since they are a part of his symbology, they are subservient to him. Both references to the ten horns are meant to refer to the Last Days. That isn’t the case, however, with the seven kings. In Chapter 13, the seven heads are people, each bearing a blasphemous name. This no doubt means that whoever the heads represent, they are Satan’s, not God’s. This is further supported by the dragon having seven crowned heads. It is extremely likely that saying a horn or a head has a crown and saying it is a king mean the same thing. In Chapter 13 one of the heads has a fatal wound that has healed. Or at least it seemed to have been fatal. If all we had was this initial introduction of the Antichrist we really could not say what this means. But it is cleared up in verses 12 and 14 where it is made clear it is the Beast itself – the Antichrist – who has the ‘fatal’ wound. Since we know the 10 kings are creatures of the Last Days (From Daniel as well as from Revelation 17 as we have shown), it is best to take the Beast of chapter 13 to be a creature of a specific time period, namely the Seventieth Week of Daniel. This is why he is invariably taken to be the final Beast emperor, the Antichrist. The beast of Chapter 17, on the other hand, spans all time, referring to all the Beast empires (though it also, as is made clear near the end of Chapter 17, refers to the final one, that of the Antichrist). It will clarify what is going on if we note that as we move through Chapter 17 we go more and more from the mount of the Prostitute representing the Beast empires of all time to it representing the final one, that of the Antichrist. That transition is completed when we transition late in Chapter 17 [43] from discussing the seven crowned heads (the empires across time) to discussing the ten kings (the coalition that leads to the creation of the final beast empire of the Last Days). In Chapter 13 one of the heads of the beast has a seemingly fatal head wound. We have seen above that this applies to the Beast of the last days. That would imply that the “fatal” head wound that is ”healed” by Satan is a parody of Christ’s death and resurrection. Though the text doesn’t say so directly, most interpreters, including the present authors, take this as a miraculous (or miraculous appearing) healing of the Antichrist which fills the world with wonder and makes many follow him. For this reason, we have placed that near-death at the mid-point of the Seventieth Week when the Antichrist is revealed (and when he becomes completely a creature of Satan). Let’s look at the seven heads in more detail. Other than to say that one of the seven heads had a head wound, little is said of the seven in Chapter 13. It is possible they are the seven remaining kings after three are overthrown by the “little horn” in Daniel 7, though that is little more than speculation. In Chapter 17, however, the seven kings are made specific – they are the seven Beast empires that precede the final one of the Last Days. They show that the imagery of the mount of the Prostitute – as distinguished from that of the Beast in Chapter 13 – is not of a moment in time but extends across all human history. While there are seven heads in both cases, there are eight beast empires in Chapter 17: the five that were, the one that is, the one that will come for a short time. The eighth is the beast itself.[44] All but the final one corresponds to one of the heads. That these empires occur across time supports the hypothesis that the symbols in the mount of the Prostitute have a more cross-time meaning than the symbols in the Beast from the sea. There are other differences between the two beasts. One is where they arise and where they go. The beast of Chapter 13, a man, rises from the sea (“θαλάσσης”). The beast of Chapter 17 rises from the Abyss (ἀβύσσου), a word that can mean sea but also means the abode of demons. Thus, where the two beasts rise from is parallel but not necessarily identical. Their destruction is even more interesting. The Antichrist is seized at the Last Battle and thrown alive, along with the False Prophet, into the Lake of Fire.[45] We do not see the destruction of the amalgam of beast empires of Chapter 17, though we are told (verse 8) that it goes to its destruction. Scripture supplies two hints of what this means. First was the statue from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.[46] It represents a series of empires across time but is destroyed all at once during the time of the last empire by the stone not made by hands.[47] Thus, its existence is across time but its destruction once and for all is the work of an instant. Second is the way the emphasis with respect to the beast of Chapter 17 shifts from the empires across time to the final one, just in time for it to be destroyed with the defeat of the beast of Chapter 13 (seen again in Chapter 19) at the Last Battle. This temporal juxtaposition shows that with the destruction of the final beast kingdom, the entire system of anti-God kingdoms will be destroyed. Let’s look now in detail at the meanings of the seven heads on the mount of the Prostitute. We are told that the seven heads have two meanings which, at first, seem completely unrelated: they are both seven “kings” or empires across time and also seven literal hills This can be quite confusing and there are many possible interpretations of this scripture, but the most logical is the following. The broadest meaning of the Prostitute is that she represents the politico-religious system that controls the beast empires of all time, including that of the Antichrist, at least until he “rises from the Abyss” and takes full power. The more specific meaning (and the one most applicable to John) is that at the time John has the vision, she is controlling the Roman Empire. That Rome is meant is clear: in John’s time as now, Rome is the city on the seven hills. The use of the present tense in verse 9 (‘sits’) and again in verse 18 (‘is’) where the woman is called the great city which rules (present tense) over all the earth would seem to clinch it, for in John’s day the Roman Empire ruled all the world that mattered. In other words, the statement about the Prostitute sitting on seven hills is a statement about who the Prostitute is and where she is located in John’s day, but not for all time. Where she is in the Last Days is much less clear. So much for the seven hills. Now for the seven kings as kings. Of the seven kings, we are told that five have fallen (by the time when John was seeing them). Egypt lasted from the unification of upper and lower Egypt by Medes in about 3100 BC until it effectively lost its independence to the Assyrians in 671 BC. Assyria was an empire from approximately from 2025 BC until 609 BC when it fell to a coalition of Babylon and the Medes. Babylon, in turn, lasted (the neo-Babylonian Empire) from 626 BC until 539 BC when it was conquered by the Medes and the Persians. Medo-Persia as an important empire began with Cyrus the Great in 550 BC and ended when it was conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedon in 330 BC. The Greek empire was founded by Alexander around 336 BC. Upon his death in 323, his empire split into four pieces, but since they were all very Hellenistic, and since Daniel speaks of the break-up of Alexander’s empire ‘to the four winds’,[48] the successor empires (particularly that of the Seleucids) are considered part of the “Greek” beast empire. The most anti-Jewish of the Seleucid emperors was Antiochus IV Epiphanes [49] who ruled from 175 BC until 163 BC and plays a major part in the book of the Maccabees. The Seleucid empire fell to the Roman Republic in 63 BC. At the time when John saw this vision, Rome ruled much of the known world. It had been a monarchy from its founding (traditionally, 753 BC) until 509 BC when the kings were overthrown and the Republic instituted. The Roman Republic lasted from then until 27 BC when Augustus Caesar became its first emperor. It remained an empire until it fell, in 476 AD for the Western Empire and 1453 AD for the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. Since it was at least nominally Christian starting in the fourth century, it makes little sense to call it a beast empire thereafter. Notice something important: From the unification of Egypt in the fourth millennium BC until the Christianization of Rome in the fourth century AD there always was at least one Beast empire in existence. That changed with the Christianization of Rome. This ending for a time of the explicitly anti-God system of empires may explain the astonishment of the inhabitants of the earth at the reappearance of a Beast empire in the last days.[50] The identities of the first six empires are widely accepted by Biblical scholars. The identity of the seventh is anything but certain. One possible interpretation, and the one tentatively adopted here, is that the seventh king, the one who will remain for a little while, was Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich. The primary arguments for this are that he was the greatest enemy of the Jews to date, he called his ‘empire’ “the Thousand Year Reich”, in mimicry of the Millennium, and his empire wasn’t around long. The eighth and final beast empire is that of the Antichrist. But what are we to make of verse 17:11 where it says, “He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction”? The word translated “belongs to” is the Greek “ek” which simply means “from” or “one of”. Some have thought that this meant that the Antichrist was some kind of Satanic “reincarnation” of one of the beast emperors of the past, usually the Emperor Nero. More likely is that it simply means he more closely resembles one of them than he resembles the others. Or even that he shares their common basis in Satan. We already know that his empire is a kind of recreation of Rome from the iron and clay feet of the final empire in Daniel (where Rome was characterized as being made of iron). This interpretation: that he is a re-creation of a previous beast emperor and his kingdom a kind of re-creation of Rome (supported by the mixed iron and clay of Daniels’ last empire) [51] has a symmetry to it. We now turn from the parts of the beasts to the beasts themselves. The beast of Chapter 13:2 is a composite: it has a mouth like a lion [52], the feet of a bear [53], and it resembled a leopard.[54] These make it very much like the first three beasts of Daniel Chapter 7. The fourth beast of Daniel 7 appears to be missing, but it is worth noting how it is described in Daniel.
This seems to fit very well with the ten kings who, for a while, will share power with the Antichrist.[55] We will discuss them later, but for now we note that these similarities show that the beast of Chapter 13, though not explicitly called out as a composite of other beast empires, certainly looks like one. The beast of Chapter 17 is closely related to the other beast empires as we have seen (and is the eighth and last of their number). We see this as near-parallel between the two beasts.[56]
We now come to another strange such near-parallel. Of the seven heads of the beast of Chapter 13, one has a head with a seemingly fatal wound, but the wound has been healed. As we have discussed, this is generally taken to mean that the Antichrist will receive such a mortal wound and apparently miraculously survive it. This miraculous survival will make everyone marvel at him and will lead to or assist in his rise to world power. Since he is a man, this apparent fatal wound and its healing makes him a parody of Christ and his death and resurrection. The beast of Chapter 17 is interesting. The beast here is a system of powerful governments, and not a person. We are told this beast was, is not, and yet will come (verse 8). Consider what we said above about the beast empires from Egypt to Rome: there never was a time after the rise of Egypt when there wasn’t a beast empire on earth. But since the fall of Rome (and ignoring the mysterious seventh empire), there has not been such a system active on the earth. It will come again with the empire of the Antichrist. Hence it was, is not, and yet will come, which will make people marvel. Add to this that the Antichrist’s empire is a kind of resurrected Rome, the parallels are complete. The Antichrist’s empire, like all the beast empires of history, will be overseen and directed by Satan.[57] Seen this way, the parallels in the images of death and resurrection associated with the beast become clearer. In so far as it applies to the man, the Antichrist will be wounded, the wound will appear fatal, and he will live. This will astound people and help him establish his rule. In addition, Daniel predicted that the Roman empire would split into, or be reconstituted from, 10 pieces.[58] That last division would be destroyed by the establishment of God’s kingdom,[59] and hence pertains to the time of the end. Since the Roman Empire fell, and yet the ten toes/horns are from it, it will also be “resurrected” in the last days. It is in this form that the beast kingdom system also will die and be “resurrected” to appear again in the Last Days as discussed above.
In Chapter 13 very little is said about the meaning of the ten crowned horns of the beast there, but here they are members of some sort of ten-nation alliance that support (willingly or unwillingly) the Antichrist as he rises to power. Assuming these are the same ten horns that are associated with the fourth beast of Daniel 7, there will be trouble within the alliance, and the Antichrist will at some point have to subdue three of them. However well or poorly they get along with each other, these ten have three things they hold in common: they effectively receive their power for a short time through the Antichrist,[60] they hate the Prostitute and are willing to unite to help him destroy her,[61] and they hate Christ.[62]
King of Kings is a title of Artaxerxes [63] and Nebuchadnezzar,[64] but Lord of Lords is only given to God.[65] Three times [66] King of Kings and Lord of Lords are used in concert, all in the New Testament. In the first of these, the title is applied to God the Father,[67] while in the other two it is applied to Christ. This use alone establishes the divinity of Christ, since how can there be two king of kings or two lord of lords?
What is the purpose of God which the Beast and the ten kings inadvertently bring about? Clearly, it is the destruction of Babylon, but this leads to a timing problem. Since the Beast dominates and uproots three of the ten kings when he arises,[68] their giving the beast their power to rule would seem to take place at the time the Antichrist received his empire, which is at the midpoint of the Seventieth Week. The problem with this is that the destruction of Babylon presumably does not take place until the seventh plague, since that is where this interlude in Chapter 17 takes place. Since the Prostitute is given to drink of the “fury of the wrath” of God, and since that is a formula for the seven last plagues, the Prostitute’s destruction is very late, after the Seventieth Week has ended and the kings of the earth are gathering for Armageddon. Although it certainly is possible that the delegation of authority which took place three and one half years earlier was for the purpose (as seen by God) of destroying Babylon, one would prefer a closer coupling in time.
The importance of this temporal spacing depends on just what is meant by Babylon. If it means all false or compromised religion throughout history, then there is no problem with the spacing. It would seem to mean that, from God’s perspective a major reason for the Seventieth week is to destroy the anti-God politico-religious system once and for all. This view has a certain appeal to it. If she represents a specific city without also representing the false religion, then one of four things must be true: 1. The kings of the earth give their authority to the Beast late in his reign and her destruction follows soon thereon. This seems unlikely since, according to Daniel, at least three of the kings were forced into submission to the Antichrist as a part of his rise to power. 2. The kings of the earth give the Beast their authority at the midpoint of the Seventieth week and her destruction follows soon after. This would seem to require that there are two destructions of Babylon, one in Chapter 17 which takes place near the midpoint, and which has to do with Babylon as a symbol of false religion, and one in Chapter 18 which is a political and economic destruction which happens during the seventh plague. The only alternative would seem to be that these two Chapters are badly out of sequence or are a strange retrospective with no clear meaning at the time within the seventh plague where they are placed. 3. It takes about three and one-half years for the Beast and ten kings to accomplish God’s purpose. 4. Chapters 17 and 18 stand outside the flow of time of the Seventieth Week. This was discussed briefly in the introduction to this book where it was pointed out that if those two chapters were not present, the flow of time would still make sense. Under this viewpoint, probably the most likely, there is no point in trying to draw a timeline from Chapters 17 and 18 because they describe why Babylon and the beast system are destroyed and not when. Jeremiah saw this day as well:
“Leb Kamai” is an Atbash cypher for “Chaldeans” or Babylon, meaning “heart of those who rise against me”. This supports the idea that Babylon is representing all those who have risen against God across time.
As we mentioned above, here at the end of Chapter 17 we transition from the more general view of Babylon as the system that has controlled the beast empires to a specific city.
In their day, both Babylon and Rome ruled over the kings of the earth, and while tenses are uncertain in these two Chapters, the use of the present here seems to clinch it for Rome being the woman at the time John is writing. Additional support for this comes from 1 Peter 5:13 where Peter sends greetings from “Babylon” when he is almost certainly in Rome. The apocryphal book 2 Esdras also uses Babylon for Rome.[69] Isaiah had a similar prophecy concerning the fall of Babylon:
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Chapter 18Chapter 18 continues the ideas of Chapter 17. Insofar as they can be fit into a timeline, (see above) they are events of the seventh bowl judgment. The seventh bowl judgment completes the seven trumpet judgments, which in turn completes the seven seals. We speculated at the start of the opening of the seals that the scroll being opened was the deed to the earth, something Christ has by right of creating. We see here and in the next Chapter the removal of the last resistance to his ownership.
John sees another angel, making it clear that something different is being proclaimed. This is an unusual occurrence. When angels present themselves to us on earth it is in some sort of corporeal form. We may or may not recognize them as supernatural beings. In this case it is not definite, but certainly plausible that those on earth are seeing an angel unmasked and in his full glory. The result is that the earth is illuminated by him. It would not be surprising since we are very close to Christ’s return at this point. The supernatural world is no longer veiled and how it impacts the physical world has become obvious. We are about to see what “great authority” has been given him.
Isaiah foresaw a similar result for Babylon:
We are seeing from Heaven’s perspective how Satan and his minions have set up residency in the world/society and the worst concentration of Satanic authority is represented in Babylon. Remember that the kingdoms of the world belong to Satan. Jesus does not deny this when Satan offers it to him.[1]
The Bible has a long list of birds which are classified as unclean and for various reasons.[2] A good number of them are birds of prey. Ironically, birds also play a role after Armageddon.[3] In this case it is safe to say that the implication is the symbols of Babylon’s corruption have become real.
The first part of this verse echoes verse 2 of Chapter 17, while the second part introduces something new. The implication is that we are looking at the same thing but from a new angle. The additional angle is the wealth and greed associated with Babylon. Nahum has a similar story to tell of Nineveh:
The type of adultery in Revelation 18, from God’s view, is idolatry and it is God’s main complaint against the Israelites. Today we are hard pressed to find such pagan abominations, at least in the western world. In Chapter 13, though, we see them reemerge at their greatest and most complete (worldwide) than any time throughout history. The whole world is required to worship the image of the beast or die, followed by the taking of the mark to be able to function within society.
The message is clear: do not participate in her sins e.g., greed, power, sexual immorality etc., so that you will not be punished as she will be. Notice that the warning is not to stay out of her, but to come out of her, strongly implying that Christians and Jews can be “in” Babylon. If, for example, Babylon is the combined religious and secular authority of the last days, it is possible that there will be Christians within the system, at least early on, before refusal to worship the image of the beast becomes a capital offense.[4] Once it becomes clear what the system is, God’s people must get out of it, because if they do not, they will participate in its corruption.
While it is likely that a literal departure from a system (or perhaps even a place) is meant here, that is not all that is meant. The sins associated with the Prostitute and the warning to leave her closely parallel a passage in Colossians. There, Paul warned individual Christians against the kinds of sins associated with the Prostitute and those who have sinned with her. It associates greed with idolatry, which the rest of scripture links with harlotry. Paul also says that the practice of such things was once the normal habit of the Christians (before they became Christians) and still needs to be put to death. Such things cause God’s wrath.
It is not clear whether Paul means the wrath of God will apply to a time on the earth (as it does in the warnings concerning Babylon) or at the Judgment or both, but the voice from heaven and Paul are effectively speaking about the same things and issuing the same warning.
The voice John hears from heaven is not God speaking, but an angel, since verse six mentions God in the third person. When we are at this point in the timeline is not clear, though Chapters 17 and 18 have events that span at least the second half of the Seventieth Week. It is likely that this call is roughly contemporary with the midpoint or just afterwards since it is associated with God’s Wrath. It is tempting to make this contemporary with the call in Matthew 24 to head for the hills. The purpose of the two calls have an interesting difference, however. The purpose of the call in the Olivet Discourse is to flee Jerusalem because it is about to be conquered. This call is not a warning to escape the Antichrist, but one to escape sin and the plagues. It also differs from the other calls to come out of Babylon (see Isaiah scriptures below) in that they are calls, after Babylon has fallen, for the Jews to return to the Holy Land. However, this is a call while Babylon is yet powerful; to come out to escape her sins and therefore, later, escape her plagues. Here, the escape precedes the judgment, and indeed is a call to avoid that judgment. There, the call is to leave the wreckage and go home. Since a major reason Babylon is destroyed is because of her participation in the slaughter of the saints, it is possible that the sharing in her sins has the double meaning of not becoming willing participants in them and not becoming the victim of them. The former is the primary meaning here, as “so that you will not receive any of her plagues” makes clear. It is most likely the plagues referred to here are the seven last plagues. The exit of Christians from spiritual Babylon has a partial parallel in the exit of the Jews from literal Babylon. Note that the Jews did not escape first and then Babylon fell. They survived through the fall.
And again:
Note, however, that the Jews’ departure from Babylon was the result of her fall and was a joyous return home, while the one from the end-times Babylon is cautionary. It is not the Rapture since it is also the result of choice. If Christians had no choice about leaving Babylon, there is little reason to demand they leave lest they suffer her plagues. On the other hand, nowhere in scripture does it indicate that participating in the Rapture is voluntary.[5]
There are other Biblical examples that parallel this event. Noah was told to separate himself and build the Ark and Lot with his family was told to flee Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Greek literally says her sins are glued [6] together up to heaven, quite possibly a hearkening back to the first sin associated with Babylon, the building of the tower of Babel.
The “remembered” in verse 5 cannot refer to the same time as the “remembered” at the end of Chapter 16, since there the time in view is during the seventh plague. At that point, it is too late to flee from Babylon to avoid her plagues. What is meant is that God’s people are to flee from Babylon and her sins now, at the time of the warning since later God will destroy her for them. It is not at the time the Prostitute is shown to John during seventh bowl judgment. This dual timeframe is consistent with our being told the beast on which she rides had not yet ascended from the sea or abyss.[7]
Jeremiah also calls for this reverse Golden Rule to do to Babylon as she has done:
This is the flip side of Christ’s warning about judging:
And Paul’s:
All these hearken back to the Law in Exodus:
All these show that man is not to take revenge on his own. God is the one who will take revenge.
Man may still, however, be the agent of God’s vengeance:
Again, Isaiah saw something similar:
The kings of the earth do not mourn her exactly, they mourn the loss of her power and, through her, their own. Three times “Woe, Woe” is sounded over Babylon: by the kings,[8] the merchants,[9] and the sailors who carry the goods of the merchants.[10] Three times the destruction is said to have taken place in one hour.[11]
Jeremiah said:
Who are these kings of the earth and what is their relationship to the ten kings who share authority with the Antichrist and give him their power?[12] The latter will cause the destruction of ‘Babylon’ (though they are merely acting out God’s will),[13] while the former lament it.
Kings of the Earth:
The Ten:
The best explanation is probably that the ten kings are tightly associated with the Beast, and have no significant existence without him, at least once he has seized power. They are doubtless among the nations gathered at Armageddon, but there are others there as well, summoned by Satan, the Beast, and the False Prophet. The ten kings work in one accord with the Beast, while the remaining rulers of the earth are dominated by him to a lesser degree. The ten are a literal number, prophesied both by Daniel [14] and John.[15] The ten are an integral part of the Beast empire, and of the Beast empires of all ages. They appear as horns on the heads of Daniel’s fourth beast, of the Dragon [16] and of the Beast from the Abyss.[17] The kings of the earth, on the other hand, are an unspecified number of rulers. They are linked with the Beast, and like him, hate Christ and his people,[18] but their loyalties are somewhat divided. These kings mourn the fall of commercial Babylon. There is another point that needs to be made. Satan’s power on earth is crumbling under the assaults of the trumpet and plague judgments and he turns upon his own. When the Beast attacks Babylon, Satan’s house is divided, and, as predicted, his end has come:
Christ, of course, said this in response to the Pharisees’ argument that he cast out demons by Satan’s power, but it applies equally well here.
It is probably worth pointing out here that the gold, precious stones, and pearls that no one buys any more are exactly what was worn by the Prostitute.[19]
The second group of mourners of the fall of Babylon are now in view. Notice the merchants don’t mourn because of the loss of her, but of their income. It is clear that even this late, there was wealth to be made in commerce.
It is interesting to note that when famine is announced with the third seal, the wine and the oil are not touched, which may indicate that luxury items are unaffected. This is supported here with the listing of wine and olive oil with things of substantial worth.
The third group, the seamen, now mourn Babylon. Their lament is essentially identical with the others, first the cry of woe and then the observation that Babylon has fallen in one hour. The twenty-fourth Chapter of Isaiah is one of the most complete Old Testament prophecies of the events immediately preceding the return of Christ. Early in this passage, the prophet foretold the end of commerce on the earth:
The perspective now shifts from the merchants to the saints. They are told to rejoice at the destruction. This makes it likely the destruction is once again the result of the pleas associated with the fifth seal.
The boulder the size of a millstone echoes two famous passages about Babylon. The first is where Daniel describes the great statue with a golden head, silver chest, bronze thighs, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay.[20] The head of the statue is Babylon, the chest Persia, the thighs Greece, the legs Rome, and the feet the empire at the end of the age. These represent five of the beast empires of history. A rock, not cut by human hands, struck the statue on its feet. This not only smashed the feet, but the entire statue at the same time. The vision of Nebuchadnezzar shows in highly symbolic form what John sees more literally when Christ returns in triumph, destroys the beast’s empire, and hurls the beast into the Lake of Fire. As we saw in Chapter 17, the Beast represents all the beast empires as well as his own, and in destroying him Christ destroys all of them at the same time. There are several similarities between John’s vision here in Chapter 18 and Nebuchadnezzar’s. Both systems are “headed” by Babylon. Here, the Beast is ridden by her, while in Daniel the golden head represents Nebuchadnezzar’s empire. The two stones have some similarities. The one in Daniel is not cut by (or, presumably impelled by) human hands. This certainly means that it is thrown by God. The rock here is thrown by an angel, the agent of God. Both stones destroy the perverse Satanic system, and the events related to the stone being thrown involve the ushering in of the Millennium.
The second close parallel is with the scroll at the end of Jeremiah 51:
Both John’s vision and Jeremiah’s instructions involve an object to be thrown into water and a proclamation to be made that a sudden fall is the method of Babylon’s destruction. In both cases, the object is hurled, signifying that Babylon’s fall will not be accidental.
Note the strong parallel with Jeremiah:
If the words of Jeremiah of the complete destruction of Babylon had been fulfilled in his day, or as a result of the fall of Babylon to the Persians, they probably will not be fulfilled again in the end times. Babylon, however, was not destroyed at the time of the Persian conquest. That it still existed in the time of Artaxerxes of Persia is seen from Ezra 4:9 where Babylon is listed in a list of administrative regions. Indeed, we know from history that Babylon was an important city in the time of Alexander the Great who wanted to make it his capital and who died there.
Though Babylon faded in importance, it was never destroyed the way the prophets foresaw. Therefore, that destruction must be for a time yet to come. That this is true seems clear from this passage from Isaiah which put the destruction of Babylon at the time of the Day of the Lord and says the Medes will be the agent of Babylon’s destruction:
The Medes will destroy the city as the agents of God, but the symbolism of darkened sun and moon indicate this will happen in the Last Days. Since Isaiah says the Medes will destroy Babylon and John that it will be the Beast and the ten kings, does this mean the Medes are part of the ten nations? This is unlikely. Today, the Medes have no national identity and have been submerged into the general Iranian population. More likely the Medes, if they exist at all in the Seventieth Week, are part of the kings of the East who are called to Armageddon by the Beast.
It is therefore likely that Isaiah saw two things simultaneously: the capture of Babylon by Darius and the eventual destruction seen as well by John.
Once more the destruction of Babylon, which is carried out like by wrath of God, is because of the persecution of the people of God. The implication here is that Babylon was responsible for all the slaughters of all God’s people throughout the ages. This strengthens the idea that Babylon in Revelation represents the religious, political, and economic systems that dominated all the Beast empires of all ages, including the last one.
Jeremiah proclaimed that Babylon would fall for the same reason:
Notice here that Babylon falls because of Israel’s slain while the empire of the Antichrist and all the beast empires of history are destroyed because of their shedding the blood of the saints. Note also that we never actually see the destruction of Babylon in Revelation 18. It is still future here, and in fact does not become past tense until Chapter 19.
This interlude concerning Babylon is among the most difficult sections in the book of Revelation. It contains a very cryptic references to beasts past and future. It is very difficult to fit into a timeline in its own right, at least in part because John and the interlocutors in the prophecy keep switching tenses. It is rarely clear where the temporal reference point is supposed to be. Is it John’s own day or the time which he is looking at in the vision itself? The relationship of the internal timeline(s) of these Chapters and that of the surrounding ones is also unclear. If the initial verses of Chapter 19 are read immediately after the conclusion of Chapter 16, the sequence makes perfect sense. This helps put the events of 17 and 18 into perspective. They are shown to tell why Babylon is destroyed. The timing of the events, obviously prior to the destruction, is not that important. The purpose of the vision in Chapters 17 and 18 is not to show those events (since most of them have been seen in different forms elsewhere in Revelation) as part of a timeline, but to show them as evidence of Babylon’s sins. She will be destroyed because of what she has done, regardless of when she did it. It would be remiss not to point out how we are to view and live within the world now. Many aspects of the description of Babylon are easy to see today. As mentioned earlier, after Christ’s 40 days of fasting, Satan said that he would give Him the Kingdoms of the World if He worshiped him. Christ did not deny his claim to the world or his ability to give them to someone. They do belong to him.[21] How are we to live our lives in this world? Hebrews and 1 Peter tells us we are foreigners and exiles.[22] This is not our home. We should never try to make it so. We are to live out our earthly lives here as we would at home with Christ. Christ essentially says we are to live in the world not to be of the world.[23] We are to live as good citizens and are not to break the laws of the land [24] unless they compel us to violate our life in Christ. If this is lived out, it will be much less likely that we will be caught up in Babylon’s sins and we will be ready to flee from exile [25] when God calls us out of Babylon. |
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Chapter 19The timeline of Revelation works smoothly if Chapter 19 follows on directly from the end of Chapter 16 and Chapters 17 and 18 are presented to show what happens to “Babylon” and why but not when. We saw there that some of the symbolism only makes sense if the events signified took place over a significant part of the Seventieth Week.
We thus start Chapter 19 with the announcement that the destruction of the great Prostitute has taken place. Since that takes place before the capture of the Antichrist (since he participates in that destruction), it takes place before the gathering at Armageddon. Now, after celebrating the destruction of the world system, we see the capture and punishment of the Antichrist. A great multitude cries out in triumph and praise at God’s having destroyed Babylon. It is here for the first time that the destruction of Babylon is certainly behind us. Yet again it is stressed that she was destroyed because she shed the blood of the saints. This multitude is quite possibly the same one seen in Chapter 7, the martyrs from the Great Tribulation.[1] Supporting the assumption they are the same is that both their praises start with “Salvation belongs to our God”[2] and that the slaying of the first multitude is a proximate cause of God’s wrath and in particular his destroying Babylon on whose head was the blood of all the martyrs.[3] We have come full circle from the fifth trumpet. There, martyrs of previous ages called out for God’s vengeance on the earth for their killing. They were told to wait until the full complement of their numbers was filled up. Then, in Chapter 7 we saw those whose deaths completed the number of the slain. In Chapter 16, deep in the fury of the wrath of God, the sources of fresh water are turned to blood, a fitting (and acknowledged [4]) punishment of those who slaughtered the saints. Again, the punishments associated with the wrath of God are tied into the martyrdom suffered by the saints. Three times Babylon is said to be guilty of killing God’s people.[5] God’s wrath is primarily vengeance for how the corrupt politico-religious system has treated his people.
Twice smoke is seen to rise forever in Revelation. Those who take the mark of the beast will be tormented forever before God and his angels in the Lake of Fire,[6] and the smoke of Babylon’s destruction rises up forever. These two are related, but there is a significant difference. Those who serve the Beast are human beings and can be punished. Since they are thrown into the lake of fire, there is smoke associated with their punishment. The anti-God system of the beast empires across time, however, is not a person and can therefore be destroyed but not punished. It is burned up but those fires never stop smoking.
Those who take the mark are both willing participants in the Beast system and its victims. The irony is that though those participants carry out the Beast’s plans against God’s people, putting many of them to death, the result is that those martyrs are immediately beyond the reach of the Beast. They are not any longer within reach of Satan, even as accuser, for he has been cast down from heaven before this.[7] By killing the martyrs, Satan’s minion has removed them forever from his grasp. The participants in the Beast system, however, are not so fortunate. Like all who wittingly or unwittingly serve Satan, they find the covenant they have made is a covenant of death, in this case eternal destruction (for Babylon) and the Second Death (for those with the mark). Just as the Beast, at the end, turns on Babylon, so Satan leads those who follow him to eternal misery. A close parallel to Babylon’s destruction is that of Edom. As discussed in Chapter 14, the smoke of Edom’s destruction will also rise forever:
It is probably no coincidence that so many of the descriptions of destruction of Israel’s enemies contain “Day of the Lord” imagery. This is true for Edom,[8] Babylon,[9] Damascus,[10] Egypt,[11] Nineveh,[12] Tyre and Sidon and all the nations of the world.[13] The fall that occurs at the battle of Armageddon and the destruction of Babylon is the stroke from the rock not cut by hands.[14] The whole system of anti-God governments will be finally destroyed when Christ returns to earth to rule on David’s throne.
Here we have another instance of praise by the elders and falling in worship before God. The upshot of this song of praise is that God is in control. He reigns in heaven, his throne, and He is in control of all the events which happen there and on the earth. He is the God who tells the end from the beginning [15] so that we know that he is in charge. He is also about to reign on the earth in the person of His and David’s son. It is appropriate that this is presaged by the shout of a great multitude in heaven. This multitude is quite likely the same great multitude we have seen sporadically since Chapter 7: the martyrs of the earth, and by extension, all God’s people in heaven.
The Bride of Christ is the Church, the believers of all ages. The bride has been made ready, and the wedding is about to take place. The full number of the saved is now complete, for the final scouring of the earth has come. Remember what Christ told us in parables to be ready for: the return of the bridegroom. Now he is returning. He has finished preparing a place for us and is coming back now to take us to it.
The images of the relationship between Christ and the Church, as those of God and Israel, have a significant sexual (intimacy) component that to some modern ears sounds strange, but it is not so to many peoples on earth today and was certainly not in Christ’s time or the prophets’.
The same angel who showed John the destruction of the Great Prostitute is still with him and is telling him about the Bride of Christ. We have here the contrast between the faithless and the faithful woman. Note also that the wedding of Christ and his bride does not take place until after the Great Prostitute is destroyed.
This is the first of two times (the other is Revelation 22:8) that John falls at an angel’s feet and is rebuked for trying to worship him. Both times, the angel states that it is God who should be worshipped, and that he is a fellow servant with all who serve God. The angel is one of the seven with the last plagues, possibly the very last since under his dominion is the destruction of Babylon. That work is now finished.
Why does John fall at his feet now? In both cases where John does so, the angel has just finished saying that what he has presented have been the direct words of God, and it is likely that the angel, especially in his function as God’s direct mouthpiece, seems even holier to John than usual, and this is what provokes the sudden act of attempted worship.
This is the Second Coming, Christ’s Return to earth. Does this seem like a thief in the night to you? This is the event which every eye shall see. It is for this reason Christ warned us not to believe it when we are told he is out in the desert or in the inner rooms. That is not the way he will return and not the way we are to look for him. False Christs will have secret appearings, but not the real one. As the lightning flashes across the sky, so will his coming be.[16]
This is the ultimate man on a white horse, not the charlatan of the first seal. It has been a long journey from the first appearance of the counterfeit until the coming of the real thing. There will be those who are impatient and will follow phony Christs as they appear and will not have the patience to wait for the Master who is coming. But what a difference! Christ is no longer the slain Lamb; he is the conquering or reclaiming king. The crowns on his head here are not the victory wreath but the royal diadem. Satan wore many diadems, and so did the beast from the abyss, and that was appropriate, for then the kingdoms of the earth were Satan’s, the prince of this world. They are his no longer. In rapid succession, the Beast, his supporters, and his master will be seized and eliminated. And Christ will do it all with a command. And yet, while showing his majesty, he is wearing a robe, the royal robe of deep red. And it is indeed the royal robe, but it is also the martyr’s robe, for it is both the color of royalty and the color of spilled blood. Once before, John had seen Christ wearing a crown and robe of royal purple:
There is an interesting parallel to this Revelation scripture in Isaiah 62:11. The LORD has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.'" The word here for Savior is the Hebrew “yesha”, the root of the name Yeshua or Jesus.
The armies of heaven are both angels and redeemed humanity. That they include men is clear from Revelation 17:14 where Christ’s called, chosen, and faithful followers will be with him at Armageddon. Besides, we were just told who was given white linen, bright and clean - Christ’s bride. It also includes angels since we are told that, when Christ comes, all his holy ones will be with him,[17] which certainly includes the angels, who are called “holy ones” more often than are the saints. Christ himself said the angels will be with him when he comes.[18]
This event was shown many times to the prophets:
And again:
And again:
Note that Zechariah refers to it as a unique day, a day without daytime or nighttime. He goes on to say that toward evening there will be light. From the words “without daytime or nighttime” alone it is not possible to determine precisely the lighting of that day, but it is probably a dark, cloudy day. First, if it were not dark, there would be no need for the contrasting statement that “when evening comes there will be light”. In addition, Joel told us that that day was a day of “darkness and gloom”.[19]
The contrast that there will be light in the evening is interesting. It is, of course, possible that with the battle over, the clouds will clear away, letting in the fading sunlight. Another possibility, however, is that it is Christ himself who provides the light. This is appropriate, since the last battle takes place on the last day of this present age. The Millennium begins that evening, following the Jewish reckoning of days from evening to evening. This fits with the Olivet discourse where Christ says sun, moon, and stars will lose their light, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky “with great glory”.[20] Since most of the uses of “glory” in the New Testament are strongly connected with light, it is likely that what Zechariah saw was part of the return of Christ.
Elsewhere God the Father is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords.[21] If any more were needed, this presents strong evidence that Christ is God.
Now we see the Last Battle from the heavenly perspective, the perspective from which resurrected believers see it. Now, while Armageddon is the place where the kings of the earth gather for the final battle, the fight itself, such as it is, will almost certainly take place at Jerusalem rather than sixty miles away at Armageddon. We start the argument for this with a parallel passage from Joel:
Two things about this passage in Joel are in dispute: when does it take place and where. As for when, there are two events with substantial support in the literature: the last battle before the millennium and Judgment Day. Supporting the latter is that the nations are “brought down to the Valley of Jehosophat” [22] where God will “put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel.” The name Jehosophat means “God judges”. That together with Joel 3:2 would indicate some sort of trial or judgment is to take place there. That much supports as least the possibility that this is discussing the Last Judgment, but Joel continues later in the same passage:
Nothing about the Last Judgment elsewhere in scripture speaks of preparing for war, invokes “Day of the Lord” imagery, or speaks of swinging the sickle for harvest. While there is no such imagery associated with the Last Judgment, there certainly is associated with the final battle with the Antichrist. We therefore conclude that it is much more likely that this is the final battle at the end of this age than the Last Judgment.
Further evidence that the Last Judgment is not in view here is the rather clear statement that the Last Judgment does not take place on earth:
The fact that earth and the heavens had no place at the Last Judgment makes it conclusive that the Last Judgment does not take place on earth.
Another possibility is that the vision in Joel takes place with the final revolt at the end of the Millennium when Satan is released.
Again, there are no Day of the Lord images, no talk of a harvest, just sudden destruction. Though there is an attempt at another battle, there is no indication that that final uprising involves anyone except the nations at the far corners of the earth. This contrasts with both the battle after the gathering at Armageddon and the Last Judgment where all the nations of the earth will participate.
The use of Day of the Lord imagery, the harvesting of the earth, the universality of those preparing for battle all support that it is the battle following the gathering at Armageddon, at the time of Christ’s return, that is meant in the scripture from Joel. Now, given the battle referred to in Joel 3 is the one for which people were gathering at Armageddon, where does it take place? There are several strong hints. First, it takes place in the “Valley of Jehoshaphat”. It should be remembered that Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, not Israel. Armageddon is within the borders of the Northern Kingdom. It seems very unlikely to be a place referred to as the “Valley of Jehoshaphat” in an area he never ruled. In addition, though there are several theories of where that valley is located, they are all in Judah, not Israel. The most convincing argument that the last battle takes place at Jerusalem, however, is that it takes place as Christ returns.[23] We know that Christ returns to the Mount of Olives. We know this both from Acts Chapter 1 (that Christ will return as he left) and from Zechariah 14:4 (that when the Messiah comes, he will set foot on the Mount of Olives). Add to this two other things, and it seems conclusive that the Last Battle will take place at Jerusalem. First, one of the several possible places for the location of the ‘Valley of Jehoshaphat’ is the central part of the Kidron Valley between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem.[24] Second is the previously quoted verse from Joel 3:16. Speaking of that day, Joel says “The Lord will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem”. While Christ can, of course, make himself heard all the way from Jerusalem to Armageddon and destroy his enemies remotely, it seems more likely he both shouts and acts from Jerusalem and its environs, strongly implying that is where the Antichrist and his armies have come for the battle. Assuming therefore that the last battle is outside Jerusalem and, given the fact that a short time earlier the Antichrist was still in control of Jerusalem (where he had killed the Two Witnesses), there remains the question of how he lost control of the city between the killing of the Witnesses and the gathering at Armageddon. That he is not in control seems certain from the fact that scripture tells us repeatedly that he will trample the city for forty-two months, which time is now over. Presumably sometime during the plagues and the destruction of “Babylon” he leaves the city. It is very likely that his entire kingdom is in shambles at this point, regardless of what he nominally controls. If he is separated from Jerusalem and wants it back, then at least part of why he gathers the armies at Armageddon is to try to regain God’s city. But nonetheless, the main reason for the gathering and for the last battle is to fight against Christ and his armies. We know that from the previous Chapter that regardless of anything else, both the Antichrist and the ten kings associated with him, have a single purpose: to fight against Christ and his followers.
The last battle is over almost before it can begin, emphasizing that the time of the Antichrist is over and Christ has reconquered the earth.
In verse 21 we see that those who are members of the armies of the Antichrist and who fight at Jerusalem are killed at Christ’s return. Zechariah gives a more detailed description of their deaths:
This sounds remarkably like the deaths from radiation for those close to a nuclear blast. All those fighting, all the Antichrist’s soldiers, will be killed. The nations from which they come have a different fate. From the same passage:
Why this feast of all the Jewish festivals? It is likely so that those who opposed him can come and worship him while Christ is reigning in Jerusalem. Revelation 21:3 says,
The word used here for ‘dwelling place’ is σκηνὴ, which means tabernacle or dwelling place. It is the same word used in the Septuagint (Greek) version of the passage in Zechariah 14.[ii]
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