Read with Me
Revelation 17:1-14 (HCSB)
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me: “Come, I will show you the judgment of the notorious prostitute who sits on many waters. The kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and those who live on the earth became drunk on the wine of her sexual immorality.” So he carried me away in the Spirit to a desert. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and 10 horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She had a gold cup in her hand filled with everything vile and with the impurities of her prostitution. On her forehead a cryptic name was written:
BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE VILE THINGS OF THE EARTH.
Then I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the saints and on the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.
Then the angel said to me, “Why are you astonished? I will tell you the secret meaning of the woman and of the beast, with the seven heads and the 10 horns, that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up from the abyss and go to destruction. Those who live on the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast that was, and is not, and will be present again.
“Here is the mind with wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. They are also seven kings: Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes, he must remain for a little while. The beast that was and is not, is himself an eighth king, yet he belongs to the seven and is going to destruction. The 10 horns you saw are 10 kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they will receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will conquer them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings. Those with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
Listen with Me
In this vision, John is shown the great prostitute and the beast on which he sits. This is the same beast as the one that had risen out of the sea in 13:1-8. This is not the Antichrist as some imagine, but is symbolic of the leadership of Rome, as shown by the fact that the seven heads represent the seven hills on which the prostitute sits. This would instantly bring to the minds of John’s readers the famous seven hills of Rome.
The seven heads also represent seven kings or emperors. Some have looked at the list of Roman leaders up to the time of Domitian who had exiled John, and they have found that there had been many more than the six depicted here. But the anti-Christian bias of the empire, which is called here Babylon and which is motivated by the dragon, did not begin until the reign of Nero.
But the vital information for John’s readers is that the current emperor would not reign forever. He would soon be replaced by Nerva in AD 96, who would only reign for a short time (one year and four months), to be followed by Trajan, who was much more accepting of the other faiths in the empire, including Christianity.
The woman herself represented not a person or a succession of persons, but a system of thought and action that was corrupt to its core. This corrupt system, which rises from time to time in different places, God calls Babylon because it encapsulates the moral corruption and idolatry that was at the core of the empire and was the reason He had brought destruction on it.
The woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, symbolic of the persecution of God’s people. She had grown so powerful over the course of just a few decades that she had absorbed several other kingdoms into her sphere whose rulers were now mere figureheads who had ceded their power to the woman and had participated with her in the oppression and persecution of God’s people.
But as powerful as the woman had been, she was now doomed because the persecution of God’s people had set God against her, just as it had set HIm against the original Empire of Babylon nearly six hundred years earlier.
Pray with Me
Father, this really does pull back the curtain to let us see what is going on behind the scenes. Behind all the pomp and wealth, and glitter of one of the most powerful empires on earth was a drunk, corrupt harlot, whose beautifully painted lips exhaled a horrible stench because of the blood she had been guzzling. Her thick makeup was cracking and sagging as she sank deeper into her inebriation and corruption. As powerful as she had been, her doom was hanging heavily over her head, and she was not going to be able to avoid it. She would find that the beast on which she sat, as fearsome as it might seem to those under her spell, was just as doomed as she was, and would be falling under God’s wrath and be completely erased. Again, we have seen this happening over and over again all over the earth through the ages. And every time, You are victorious. The oppressive regime collapses, leaving your people standing among the ruins, freshly inspired and freshly empowered to make a new start. Thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness to us, and for Your power to keep every promise You have made to us. Amen.