Then one of the seven angels pouring out the seven ceremonial bowls came out and was talking with me, saying, “Here, I will reveal to you the judgment of the great idolator/prostitute sitting upon the many waters.”
In association with the rulers of the earth have practiced idolatry/indulged in unlawful sexual acts, and the ones dwelling on the earth who became intoxicated with the wine of her idolatry/unlawful sexual acts.
Then he carried me away into solitude in Spirit, and I saw a woman sitting upon a dangerous, crimson-colored creature, which was full of names of blasphemies, having seven heads and ten horns.
And the woman had wrapped herself all round with purple and crimson, and had been being gilded with gold and precious stone, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand being filled with abominations and the moral foulness of her idolatry, pornographic acts.
And upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Idolaters/Prostitutes and the Abominations of the Earth.”
Then I saw the woman being intoxicated from the blood of the holy ones from the blood of the martyred witnesses of Jesus. And I marveled, beholding her, a great wonder.
Revelation 17:1-6
As a reminder, though the word is routinely translated “harlot” or “prostitute,” the meaning is best understood as “idolator.”
Historicist
Scholars compare the true, unblemished, and morally pure church with the depiction here of the false, corrupted, unfaithful, and morally degenerate Roman church.
The place of solitude John is taken to, being swept up in the Spirit, is an actual area, la wilderness of low plains that surround the city of Rome, built as it is on seven hills.
The woman is bedecked and bedazzled in costly treasures similar to the basilicas of the Roman church, and to the rich raiment adorning its religious leaders. Even the colors connote royal opulence, presumably at the expense of the peasantry from whom exorbitant tithes and indulgences were extracted.
The woman’s titles becomes a caricature of the church, and later ironic commentary concerning the Roman church’s description of itself in 1725 as “the mother of all believers, and the mistress of all churches.”
Her cup is full of abominations because the Roman church remains unrepentant of doctrinal claims that promote idolatry. In a very real way, leadership within the Roman church has, during several notorious eras, engaged in sexual predation and immorality, and mercilessly persecuted those who pressed for reform. The blood of many fills her cup—according to some, upwards of fifty million martyrs have been slain by the Roman church.
Preterist
Though the fall of Babylon has already been announced and discussed, a more detailed description of Babylon’s demise is necessary.
The Harlot is Rome
Like historicist, preterists compare Christ’s bride with the harlot/idolator of Babylon. The dangerous red beast she sits on is the same creature that rose up from the sea at the dragon’s command in Chapter 13
All evidence points to the beast as a portrayal of the Roman Empire. Even its crimson hue indicates the royal red of emperors, though also the blood of its many Christian victims.
Some expositors see the woman as the city of Rome, riding the ten-horned beast of the Roman Empire. It is the city of Rome’s cup that is filled with the shed blood of Christ’s witnesses, for it is from Rome the edict came to put Christians and their leaders to death in the arena, by the cross, and in other gruesome and horrifying ways.
The Harlot is Jerusalem
The focus of John’s Apocalypse is the destruction of Jerusalem, an event that would take place in the near future of Revelation’s writing.
- Aspects of the Jewish War off 66-70 CE dovetail well with Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
- Revelation employs a series of contrasts—the Lamb versus the dragon; the Father’s name versus the beast’s name, inscribed on the foreheads of adherents; now the bride versus the harlot/idolator; and later, earthly Jerusalem will be compared to heavenly Jerusalem.
- Just as Egypt and Sodom were used as meaningful metaphors for Jerusalem, so now Babylon is apt.
- “That great city,” is the code phrase that alerts the reader this is about Jerusalem:
“… the open square of that great city, the same one spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, and also where their Lord was crucified.”
Revelation 11:8
- The location of the winepress of God’s wrath “outside the city” is Jerusalem, yet Babylon is the only city mentioned.
- Dividing Babylon into three parts matches God’s judgment of Jerusalem as revealed to Ezekiel.
- Prophets of old likened Jerusalem to a harlot in reference to idolatry and false religion.
Isaiah
How the faithful city
Isaiah 1:21 (NRSV, italics added)
has become a prostitute!
She that was full of justice,
righteousness lodged in her—
but now murderers!
Jeremiah
For long ago you broke your yoke
Jeremiah 2:20 (NRSV, italics added)
and burst your bonds,
and you said, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill
and under every green tree
you sprawled and prostituted yourself.
Ezekiel
But you trusted in your beauty and prostituted yourself because of your fame and lavished your prostitutions on any passer-by. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful high places and on them prostituted yourself; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be.
You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you and made for yourself male images and with them prostituted yourself, and you took your embroidered garments to cover them and set my oil and my incense before them.
Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with choice flour and oil and honey—you set it before them as a pleasing odor, and so it was, says the Lord God. You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. As if your prostitutions were not enough! You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them.
And in all your abominations and your prostitutions you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.
Ezekiel 16:15-22 (NRSVUE, italics added)
Hosea
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of prostitution, for the land commits great prostitution by forsaking the Lord.”
Hosea 1:2 (NRSVUE)
- Jerusalem also sits on seven hills: Mount Scopus, Mount Olivet and the Mount of Corruption (all three are peaks in a mountain ridge that lies east of the Old City), Mount Ophel, the original Mount Zion, the New Mount Zion and the hill on which the Antonia Fortress was built.
- If the phrase τῆς γῆς | tēs gēs, is translated “of the land” rather than “of the earth” (both are accurate translations), then the rulers referred to are of the land of Palestine, ergo, of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, the lands the Roman Empire brutally subjugated at the end of the first and beginning of the second centuries CE.
- Only Jerusalem could be indicted with the slaughter of both holy ones—the prophets including John the Baptist, and of Jesus himself—and witnesses, beginning with the stoning of Stephen.
“That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. 3 But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.”
Acts 8:1-3 (NRSVUE)
The four perspectives taken from Revelation: Four Views A Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg
Hi Joanne, just wondering if you have received my messages about changing my subscription?
Okay, Pastor Terry, I figured it out. Thankful for learning new things, and this is something I need to know how to do. You are successfully unsubscribed. Grace and peace, Joanne