Revelation — Chapter 17

Authorship & Background

Map & Geography

• Babylon (v.5): Capital of the Babylonian empire; place of Judah's exile (modern Iraq).

Places on this map

• Babylonnear Hillah, IraqOn the Euphrates about 55 miles south of modern Baghdad. Judah's exiles were marched roughly 900 miles to get here, the long way round the Arabian desert, which is why the journey took months and the return was a genuine undertaking rather than a short trip home. Wikipedia

Towns sit on their excavated or traditional site. Regions, rivers and seas are ringed rather than dotted, because for those a single point is only an anchor. Coastlines from Natural Earth.

Deep Dive

Setting: The seventh bowl ended with the great city split in three and God remembering "Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath" (16:19). Chapters 17 and 18 now stop the action and zoom in on that one sentence. One of the bowl angels takes John aside to show him who Babylon is and how she falls. Chapter 17 is a portrait and its explanation. Chapter 18 is the funeral song. Chapter 19 is heaven's answer. Babylon has already been named twice (14:8; 16:19), and the original city on the Euphrates had been a ruin for centuries by John's day. Babylon was the empire that burned Jerusalem and carried God's people into exile, so the name had become a code word for any proud power that sets itself against God. Peter uses it the same way for Rome (1 Pet 5:13).

The chapter is also the one place where the angel explains the symbols, so it is where the four reading approaches from chapter 1 differ most:

• Futurists (Guzik) see the woman as a worldwide false religion of the last days, carried for a time by the Antichrist's empire and then destroyed by it.
• Historicists like Henry and JFB see papal Rome, or more broadly the church that has made peace with the world. JFB stretches it to every apostate church, "Roman, Greek, and even Protestant."
• Preterists most often see pagan imperial Rome, the city on seven hills that ruled the kings of the earth in John's day. Some instead see apostate Jerusalem, which killed the prophets.
• Idealists see the seductive pull of the world's wealth, power and false worship in every age, which always ends up turned on by the very powers it rides.

All agree that she is attractive, that she is guilty of the saints' blood, and that she falls.

The Great Prostitute and the Beast (vv1–18)

• "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls" (v1). The vision grows straight out of the bowls. The same kind of angel later shows John the bride, the new Jerusalem (21:9), with almost the same words: "Come, I will show you." The book is built as a contrast between two women and two cities, the prostitute and the bride, Babylon and Jerusalem. Chapter 12's woman, clothed with the sun, is the faithful people of God. This woman is her counterfeit.
• "The great prostitute who is seated on many waters" (v1). The phrase comes from Jeremiah 51:13, spoken to the real Babylon: "O you who dwell by many waters." Babylon sat on the Euphrates and its canals. The angel explains the waters in v15 as "peoples and multitudes and nations and languages," so her reach is worldwide. The Tyndale notes point out that Rome, on the Tiber, controlled the sea lanes of the whole Mediterranean.
• "With whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality" (v2). In the prophets, sexual unfaithfulness is the regular picture for worshiping other gods (Hos 2; Ezek 16; 23). But it is also used for a city's trade and alliances. Isaiah says Tyre "will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world" through commerce (Isa 23:17). Both meanings fit here: false worship and the deals that come with it. "The wine" that makes the world drunk echoes Jeremiah 51:7, "Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD's hand, making all the earth drunken."
• "He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness" (v3). "In the Spirit" marks a new vision (1:10; 4:2; 21:10). In chapter 12 the wilderness was where God protected his people. Here it may be the place where the prostitute's true emptiness can be seen. Isaiah 21:1 calls Babylon's oracle "the wilderness of the sea." JFB contrasts the two women: the true one passes through the wilderness on her way home, while the harlot is "contented to have her portion in this moral wilderness."
• "A woman sitting on a scarlet beast… seven heads and ten horns" (v3). This is the beast from the sea (13:1), and behind it the dragon, who also has seven heads and ten horns (12:3). Its color now matches the woman's clothes. She rides it, which means she is carried by its power and seems to be in control of it, at least for now.
• "Arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls" (v4). Purple dye was rare and costly, the color of rulers. Scarlet was also expensive. The same list of goods turns up in the merchants' cargo in 18:12, 16. She is rich, beautiful and dressed to impress. The bride, by contrast, is clothed in "fine linen, bright and pure," which "is the righteous deeds of the saints" (19:8).
• "A golden cup full of abominations" (v4). The cup looks precious, but what is in it is filthy. "Abominations" (bdelygmata) is the Old Testament word for idols and the practices that go with them (Deut 29:17; Dan 11:31). The outside promises wealth and pleasure, and the inside is idolatry.
• "On her forehead was written a name of mystery" (v5). The Roman writers Seneca and Juvenal mention prostitutes wearing their names on a headband, which may lie behind the image. Every follower of the beast carried its mark on the forehead (13:16), and every follower of the Lamb carries his name there (14:1). "Mystery" (mystērion) in the New Testament means a secret God now reveals, not a puzzle that cannot be solved. The lexicon also lists Revelation 1:20 and 17:5, 7 as examples. The angel is about to explain it (v7). Some take "mystery" as part of her name. The ESV takes it as describing the name, a symbolic name that must be read rightly.
• "Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations" (v5). "Babylon the great" is Nebuchadnezzar's boast in Daniel 4:30, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built… for the glory of my majesty?" As mother, she is the source and model of the rest. Guzik traces false religion back to ancient Babylon and its myths. Others note simply that Babel was the first city built to make a name for itself in defiance of God (Gen 11:4).
• "Drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (v6). Here is her worst crime. Her real drink is not wine but blood. "Martyrs" (martyrōn) here still has its basic meaning, "witnesses," though in Revelation witnessing and dying overlap (2:13; 11:7). Nero had burned Christians in Rome around AD 64. Jesus said the same of Jerusalem, that it "kills the prophets" (Matt 23:37), which is why some preterists read the woman as the apostate city.
• "When I saw her, I marveled greatly" (v6). The same verb is used of the world marveling at the beast (13:3; 17:8). John is not fooled, but he is stunned. Some read it as awe at her splendor, others as horror. JFB says John "certainly did not admire her in the modern English sense," but felt "sorrowful astonishment." The angel's gentle rebuke, "Why do you marvel?" (v7), suggests a little of both. Evil can look impressive even to an apostle.
• "I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast" (v7). What follows is mostly about the beast. The woman's meaning only comes in vv15–18.
• "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction" (v8). This is a parody of God, "who is and who was and who is to come" (1:4, 8). The beast has a past, a pause and a comeback. It echoes the head with the mortal wound that was healed (13:3). Its end is fixed: it goes "to destruction" (apōleia, ruin). Readers explain the "is not" differently: - Many scholars, and the Tyndale notes, connect it with the Nero legend. After Nero's suicide in AD 68 many believed he would return, and impostors claiming to be Nero did appear. On this view Domitian is Nero come back, a persecutor reborn. - Futurists see a final Antichrist who seems to die and rise, a counterfeit resurrection that dazzles the world. - Historicists like JFB see the old pagan empire wounded by Christianity, then reviving in a new, worse, religious form. - Idealists see the pattern of tyranny that always seems beaten and always rises again, until the end.
• "Whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" (v8). Only those without their names in God's book are taken in (13:8). The comfort for believers is that the beast's great deception has a limit. God's people are known and kept.
• "This calls for a mind with wisdom" (v9). The same call came before the number 666 (13:18). What follows needs careful thought, and its exact meaning has never been agreed.
• "The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated" (v9). Rome was famous as the city of seven hills. Roman poets used the phrase, and a coin of Emperor Vespasian (AD 71) shows the goddess Roma seated on seven hills. Most readers, ancient and modern, have heard Rome here. Henry agrees: "the seven hills on which Rome stands." Guzik argues the Greek word means mountains, not hills, and that mountains in prophecy stand for kingdoms (Dan 2:35). JFB also reads them as "prominent seats of power." The word study gives oros a range that includes "hill." Jesus' "city set on a hill" uses this same word (Matt 5:14), so the word alone cannot decide it. The next verse adds that the heads are also kings, so the symbol works on more than one level.
• "Seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come" (v10). This is the hardest verse in the chapter. "Fallen" is the word used for the death or overthrow of rulers. There are three main ways of counting: - Roman emperors. Counting from Augustus (or Julius Caesar) gives different lists depending on where one starts and whether the three short reigns of AD 68–69 count. On the Tyndale notes' count, Nero is the fifth, Vespasian the one who "is," Titus the short-lived seventh (he ruled two years) and Domitian the eighth. Others make Nero the sixth and date the book before AD 70. No count fits every detail neatly. - World empires. Guzik and JFB read the kings as kingdoms: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece have fallen, Rome "is," and one is still to come. Guzik makes that a revived Roman empire at the end. JFB makes it the later European powers. - Symbolic. Seven is the number of completeness, so the seven heads stand for the whole line of godless power through history. The point is that the time is short: most of it is past, and the last ruler "must remain only a little while."
• "It is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction" (v11). The beast itself is the eighth king. It is not a new kind of evil but the sum of all of them, "of" the seven in character. JFB says "the eighth is the embodiment of all the seven." Eight was the number of new beginnings, the day of the resurrection, so the beast may be one more counterfeit of Christ. Whoever he is, the angel says it twice: he "goes to destruction" (vv8, 11).
• "Ten kings who have not yet received royal power… for one hour" (v12). The ten horns come from Daniel's fourth beast (Dan 7:7, 24). In John's day they had no kingdoms yet. Some think of Rome's client kings and provincial governors, and others of the Parthian rulers who were expected to march with a returning Nero. Futurists like Guzik look for a final ten-nation alliance and have often suggested Europe, though the Tyndale notes warn against such guesses and note the many that have failed. "One hour" means a short, fixed time. Their power is borrowed and brief.
• "These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast" (v13). Evil can unite for a time around a single cause. They give their authority away willingly.
• "They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them" (v14). In the middle of a chapter about the beast, the verse that matters most is short. This war is described in 19:11–21. The Lamb is the one who was slain (5:6), and he wins.
• "For he is Lord of lords and King of kings" (v14). The title belongs to God in Deuteronomy 10:17 and Daniel 2:47. In 19:16 it is written on Christ's robe and thigh, there as "King of kings and Lord of lords." Rome claimed the emperor as lord. Here every lord and king is placed under the Lamb.
• "Those with him are called and chosen and faithful" (v14). Three words describe the Lamb's army. Called and chosen come from God, and faithful is how they respond. Jesus said "many are called, but few are chosen" (Matt 22:14). Here all three belong together. JFB notes the Greek has no verb, so it may be "those with him, the called…" share in the victory. Henry: "His followers are called to this warfare, are fitted for it, and will be faithful in it."
• "The waters… are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages" (v15). This is the fourfold list of the nations that runs through the book (5:9; 7:9; 13:7). The Lamb redeems people from every one of them, and the prostitute seduces every one of them. JFB links "languages" with Babel, where the nations were scattered by tongue (Gen 11:9).
• "They and the beast will hate the prostitute" (v16). This is the shock of the chapter. The beast she rode turns and devours her. Making her desolate and naked, eating her flesh and burning her are images taken from the judgment of unfaithful Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16:37–41 and 23:25–29, and from Jezebel, whose flesh the dogs ate (2 Kgs 9:36). Evil does not keep faith with its own. Guzik places this at the midpoint of a future tribulation, when the Antichrist no longer needs religion and demands to be worshiped alone (2 Thess 2:4). Preterists think of the civil wars of AD 69, when Rome's own armies burned the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, or of Rome's armies burning Jerusalem in AD 70. Idealists see a pattern: worldly power uses religion and wealth and then turns on them.
• "God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose" (v17). Here is the deepest comfort in the chapter. The beast and the kings think they are acting freely, and they are. But God is using their hatred to judge the prostitute, as he once used Assyria and Babylon to judge his people (Isa 10:5–7; Jer 25:9). Their power lasts only "until the words of God are fulfilled." The Tyndale notes point to Pharaoh's hardened heart and Romans 9 as the same kind of sovereign rule over evil.
• "The woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth" (v18). This is the plainest clue in the chapter. In John's day only one city ruled the kings of the earth, and that was Rome. Henry writes that "every one knows Rome to be that city." Futurists agree that Rome was the first-century face of Babylon but expect a final form still to come. Readers who see Jerusalem point to 11:8, where "the great city" is "where their Lord was crucified." Idealists see every capital of human pride.
• Commentators: All three read the chapter as the judgment of a false religious power that rides political power, and all three tie her name to Rome in some way. They differ on what Rome means. Henry, a historicist, says "Rome clearly appears to be meant in this chapter" and reads it as papal Rome, gaining ground by deceit and politics. On the kings in v16 he says, "They shall see their folly, and how they have been bewitched and enslaved by the harlot." On v17 he writes that "God so ruled the hearts of these kings, by his power over them, and by his providence." JFB widens the harlot to "the apostate Church" of every kind, and sets her against the faithful woman of chapter 12. Guzik, a futurist, sees an end-times religion bigger than any one church. He warns against simply equating her with Roman Catholicism, though he sees Rome as part of the picture. He prefers world empires for the seven kings and a final ten-nation league for the horns. On the "mountains," his point is fair but overstated, since the lexicon allows "hill." His application is that God hands the world the godless religion and rulers it wants, and lets them destroy each other. The Tyndale notes, more preterist in tone, tie the beast to the Nero legend and Domitian and remind readers that the main point is the Lamb's victory, not the identity of the ten kings.

Pointing to Christ

The prostitute has everything the world prizes: beauty, wealth, influence over kings and a cup that promises pleasure. She is also drunk on the blood of Christ's people. The chapter does not ask its readers to fear her but to see through her, and then to look past both her and the beast to the Lamb. He is the one who will conquer, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings. Even the hatred of his enemies serves his purpose. His people are not dressed in purple and gold but they are "called and chosen and faithful," and they are with him. Against the prostitute stands the bride, whom he loved and gave himself for (Eph 5:25), and the rest of the book moves toward the wedding.

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik covers the prostitute's identity, the beast, the seven heads/ten horns, and the Lamb's victory.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Revelation -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

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Reflection

• Entangled With the World (v.2) — The kings of the earth are drawn into corruption by the prostitute's influence, intoxicated by what she offers. Where are you tempted to get too close to the world's values instead of staying separate?
• The Allure of Excess (v.4) — She is dressed in luxury and gold, yet her cup is full of corruption. What looks impressive on the outside in your own life but is hollow or harmful underneath?
• The Lamb Wins (v.14) — Kings make war against the Lamb, and He overcomes them, with those who are called, chosen, and faithful standing beside Him. Does this give you confidence when evil looks like it's winning?
• Evil Still Serves God's Purpose (v.17) — Even the beast's coalition unknowingly fulfills God's plan. Can you trust His sovereignty over circumstances you can't yet make sense of?