The book of Revelation originated with Father God (Re.1:1), who gave it to Jesus Christ, who revealed it to the apostle John. John wrote it to seven (persecuted) 1st century churches located along a mail route in Asia Minor (Re.1:4), western Turkey today.
The word of God is true (Jn.17:17)! In Re.2:1-5, Jesus warned His church at Ephesus to repent, else He would remove it…Ephesus harbor is now a plain! He removed it. Re.3:14-19 Jesus warned the church at Laodicéa to repent. It didn’t. Consequently, the ruins of Laodicea are seen today. Jesus does what He says He will do!
When John wrote Revelation, he used the apocalyptic method. That is, to take predictions/prophecies which were unfulfilled in the literal sense, and recast or reinterpret them in hidden or symbolic terms. (That was unlike the rabbinic methods.) Identifying the original text of the book of Revelation (Rev) is difficult, as there are 500 variant terms in early manuscripts. The book has been described as a revised Ezekiel and a commentary on Daniel.
The main text for this topic is Re.17:5-7. “Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations.” Who was this symbolic or encoded mystical Babylon? Babylon the Great originally wasn’t: New York City (with the woman Statue of Liberty in the harbor waters, as some view Re.17:1, she “who sits on many waters”), nor the USA, nor European Union nations, nor an Islamic block, nor modern Iraq, nor the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages…nor ancient Rome.
Historically, in 586 BC King Nebuchadnézzar of Babylon (Chaldéan Empire) conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the first temple. Jews were taken captive to Babylon. Babylon was later judged, conquered by the Medes/Persians in 539 BC, and King Belshazzár was killed. Is.47:1-3 the Medes exposed Babylon’s shame. Je.51:6-9 relates to the ancient exit of Jews fleeing Babylon. In 538 BC, Jews began returning to Jerusalem, bringing Babylonian influences with them. Christian author Ron Dart wrote, “Roman Catholicism wasn’t the only gateway by which Babylonian mystery religions found their way among God’s people”. The Jewish Babylonian Talmud, e.g., also contains religious traditions.
Da.7:1-3 while in Babylon, the Jewish prophet Daniel envisioned four Beasts, which represented gentile kingdoms. Bible historians identify these as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome. v.7 the 4th Beast or empire, Rome, having 10 horns, was dreadfully strong. Re.13:1 John sees this 4th Beast, having 10 horns, on the scene 600 years later. This Beast, Rome, direly affects the harlot in Re.17-18!
It is recorded in the Old Testament (OT) where some nations committed spiritual harlotry: Tyre (Is.23:17), Assyria/Nineveh (Na.1:1, 3:4), Egypt, Ephráim/Israel (Ho.5:3-4). The northern kingdom of Israel’s adulterous harlotry resulted in God sending them into captivity to Assyria (721 BC).
Also, Judah/Jerusalem committed adulterous harlotry…ref Je.2:20, 28, 3:1-3. God/Christ was spiritually ‘married’ to Israel and Judah. Is.54:5 “Your Maker is your husband.” The grievous end of that relationship was foretold in Ezekiel 16 & 23. Especially note Ezk.16:1-2, 8-45, 23:1-5, 11-19, 45-49 (Sodom); as these two chapters will resolve in Re.17–18.
Is.1:1, 21 “The faithful city [Jerusalem] has become a harlot.” The Lord is just, even in judging His wives – adulterous Israel & Judah! Je.13:27 “As for your adulteries…Woe to you, Jerusalem.” God wouldn’t allow her idolatry and abominations to forever go unpunished. In De.28:49-68, Moses had warned Israel in prophecy that disobedience to their Lord would result in terrible consequences!
The expression “great city” (mégas pólis, Strongs g3173 g4172, Greek), is crucial to us understanding the identity of Babylon the Great, Re.17:5. Re.11:8 “The great city, which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.” Here the great city is Jerusalem, recast as Sodom and Egypt. Besides Re.11:8, other Rev verses which refer to mystical Babylon the great city/harlot are: 14:8, 16:19, 17:1, 5, 18, 18:2, 10, 16, 18-19, 21, 19:2. (Finally, in 21:10, the great city is again identified as Jerusalem, but now she’s the holy new Jerusalem!…more on this aspect at the end.)
Jeremiah too had referred to Jerusalem as the “great city”! Je.22:6-9 Septúagint/LXX “Why has the Lord done thus to this great city (g3173 g4172)?” Josephus Wars of the Jews 7:8:7 “Where is not that great city, the metropolis of the Jewish nation.” And ibid 7:1:1 “Jerusalem…a city of great magnificence, mighty of fame among all mankind.” Jerusalem was renowned as a great city!
Re.17:9 “Seven mountains on which the woman sits.” The woman/harlot/city is on seven mountains. Historians say that Jerusalem and Rome both contained seven literal mounts or hills. The seven hills of Jerusalem have been identified as: Acra, Antonio, Bezétha, Millo, Ophel, Moriah, Zion. (Of note, the Vatican area was a later addition across the Tiber River from the traditional seven hills of Rome, which are on the east side. The state of Vatican City doesn’t fit in Re.17:9.)
Re.17:16-18 “The Beast will make her desolate and burn her with fire.” The Beast destroys the harlot city. From this verse, it’s evident that the Beast and the harlot aren’t the same entity. (Rome was never God’s wife anyway.) The Beast/Rome/abomination who makes desolate…burned the harlot city with fire in 70 AD. cf. again Ezk.16:41, 23:47, Je.22:7-8, where Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be burned with fire! Also Jesus’ parable of Mt.22:7. “The king sent his armies…and set their city on fire.” Pulpit Commentary Mt.22:7 “The Romans, under Vespasian and Titus.” (Also in Le.21:9, a Levitical priest’s harlot daughter in Israel was to be burned with fire!)
Rome, the Beast of Da.7:7 and Re.13:1, destroyed the harlot Jerusalem during the 3 ½ year period of 66–70 AD. ref Re.12:6, Mt.24:15-16, 21 for this time of great tribulation!
That which Jesus said in the book of Revelation did happen to Ephesus and Laodicea, e.g….and most significantly to Jerusalem and Judea! (This isn’t to say that prophecy can’t repeat itself.) Re.18 detail:
Re.18:1-4 traditionally the saints in Jerusalem fled 60 miles east to Pella in 66 AD. In Lk.21:11, 20-21, Jesus had said there’d be great signs and, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee”.
In Wars of the Jews 6:5:3, Josephus recorded the amazing event of angelic armies seen in the clouds surrounding Jerusalem in 66 AD! So did the Roman historian/senator Tacitus in The Histories 5:13, “There had been seen hosts joining battle in the skies, the fiery gleam of arms, the temple illuminated by a sudden radiance from the clouds.” That’s historical evidence! It’s reminiscent of when the Syrians attacked Israel around 800 BC. In 2Ki.6:15-17 the Lord opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant and, “Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots all around Elisha”. Heavenly hosts were seen by human eyes!
Babylon the harlot said in Re.18:5-7, “I sit as queen and am not a widow”. Israel/Judah/Jerusalem was the figurative ‘wife’ of YHVH! cf. Je.3:8. A wife or queen can become a widow, but an unmarried woman cannot. (The Tyndale translation also rendered Re.17:6 as “wife”). Re.18:8-10 woes to the great city. cf. Ezk.16:22-23 & Je.13:27 which reflect woes to Jerusalem.
Re.18:11-16 the harlot city’s wealth & adornment. cf. Ezk.16:13-14 Jerusalem’s fame & adornment. Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner of Harvard University wrote, “The only city which is differentiated from all other cities is the metropolis, the mother of cities, Jerusalem”.
Re.18:17-18 again, her burning. Ge.38:24 the patriarch of the Jewish people, Judah, had declared against the woman who was pregnant with his own posterity…“Let her be burned!”
Re.18:19-23 & Je.7:32-34 glad voices of the bridegroom and bride would cease in Jerusalem/Judea. In Wars of the Jews 5:12:3, the Gehenna valley was heaped with Jewish corpses from the Roman siege.
Re.18:24 when the autopsy was performed on the great harlot, the blood of prophets & saints was found in her! The Greek term “ge”, g1093, can mean earth or Land. Jesus had declared in Lk.13:33-34, “It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets.” Stephen accused the Jerusalem court in Ac.7:52. “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?” Ac.7:58 Stephen was then stoned to death in Jerusalem. James, Jesus’ relative, was thrown down from the Jerusalem temple in 62 AD and killed (prior to 70 AD).
{Sidelight: Re.2:9 Jesus/John warned the church at Smyrna about the “synagogue of Satan”. Jn.8:44 Jesus had called the Pharisees the “children of the devil”. Jesus had warned His disciples would be flogged, cast out of the synagogues, killed (Mk.13:9, Jn.16:2). Judea was justly punished by God.}
Re.16:18-19 “A great earthquake” occurred. Josephus Wars 4:4:5 there were “concussions and bellowings of the earth” at the time Jerusalem was besieged. Re.16:21 “Huge hailstones the weight of a talent.” In Wars 5:6:3, Josephus wrote that stones thrown by catapults of the 10th Roman legion weighed…a talent! (In the Bible, hail may also symbolize government change of cataclysmic magnitude.) Some of Josephus’ statements in Wars of the Jews seem like a parallel historical account or detailed commentary on the book of Revelation! Further verse-by-verse detail of the destruction in Revelation would make this too lengthy. (also see the topics: “The Last Days”, “Two Witnesses in the Bible”, “Day of Atonement (2) – in Revelation”, “John Wrote Five Bible Books?”.)
Jesus had said of the temple in Lk.21:5-6, “There will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down”. After burning the temple cedars in 70 AD, the Roman soldiers tore down the temple stones to get at the melted gold which had congealed in the cracks! Roman General Titus even tried to stop the temple burning…but to no avail. Jesus’ prophecy was not to be denied. It happened!
Jesus opposed the corruption and intolerance of the Jewish religious leaders of His day, and their oral additions to His written Toráh. These additions survive in normative Judaism today. Interestingly, they prefer the Babylonian Talmud to the Jerusalem Talmud, and many value it above the written OT!
A corrupt Jewish priesthood is cited back in Mal.2:11. Many high priests were actually selected by the Greeks & Romans. The priestly line of succession was violated. Harvard’s Frank Moore Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic “The Éssenes of Qumrán were a priestly party. The community referred to itself as the sons of Zadók. They heaped scorn and condemnation upon the ungodly priests of Jerusalem who, they argued, were illegitimate.” This is Jewish history, not a biased anti-Semitism.
In surveying the New Testament books, the chief persecutors of Jewish Christians were disbelieving Jews, not Romans or gentiles. e.g. 2Th.2:14-15 the Jewish apostle Paul affirmed that disbelieving Jews had “killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets”. The expression “(of) the Jews” occurs 15 times total in the synoptic gospels, but 50 times in John’s gospel! And it was John who wrote Revelation. The allusions to the temple throughout Revelation don’t relate to Rome or gentiles. e.g. Re.16:15 “Keep your garments” alluded to sleeping temple guards whose clothes could be set afire.
Le.26:18, 21, 24, 28 Moses had warned there would be increasing sevenfold intensities of punishment upon Israel for disobeying the Lord! Correspondingly, Re.5:1, 6:1-ff reveals seven seals, Re.8 then seven trumpets of destruction, Re.15:6 culminating in seven last plagues of the wrath of God! Re.6:16 during the seven seals those afflicted will say “to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us”. Jesus foretold they would be the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Lk.23:28-30 “Daughters of Jerusalem…the days are coming when they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us.” (Also ref Ho.10:1, 8-9 in regards to Israel. “They will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ You have sinned O Israel.”) Not Rome’s church.
Then Re.19:1-2. “Hallelujah! God has judged the great harlot. He has avenged the blood of His bondservants upon her.” The harlot city was burned, the temple destroyed in 70 AD. God’s servants, including the faithful remnant of Judah, were avenged. God is just.
Centuries before Jesus walked the earth, Jews had returned to Judea from Babylon. The punishments in the book of Revelation primarily refer to Jerusalem the great harlot, and Judea. Mic.3:12 prophesied “Zion will be plowed as a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins.” As fulfillment, the Romans plowed it over, and even refashioned Jerusalem as a gentile city in 135 AD.
Yet the book of Revelation has a glorious ending! Jerusalem/Yerushaláyim (h3389, Hebrew) is a plural term. The book of Revelation is also…a tale of two cities! F.M. Cross op. cit. “Essenes searched for prophecies of the end of days when they, the poor of the desert, would be reestablished in a new, transfigured Jerusalem.” The older Jerusalem was made desolate. But at the end of Revelation….
Re.21:1-2 “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.” There’s another Jerusalem! Re.21:9-10 “I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.” Not the great city, old Jerusalem…but the holy city, new Jerusalem. And there’s a new wife. This new Jerusalem isn’t an adulterous harlot wife, but is a holy Bride. The rest of Re.21 describes the glorious adornment of the Lamb’s faithful wife, new Jerusalem!
British historian Margaret Barker conveys a similar view of mystical Babylon in her book The Older Testament. “Jerusalem, restored Jerusalem [1st century], was perpetuated in the apocalyptic tradition as Babylon, the place of great evil. The city of Rev.17 was not always Rome, for Rev.17:16 says that the ten horns of the beast, i.e. ten Roman rulers, would attack her. The image of the harlot city upon many waters had originally been applied to Jerusalem, drunk with the blood of earlier saints.”
Also Peter J. Leithart Between Babel and Beast, p.46 “The harlot-city of Revelation is not Rome, but Jerusalem….As in the Old Testament (cf. Ezk.16, 23; Hosea), Jerusalem has turned harlot.”
As for the Jerusalem temple doors, Josephus Wars 4:4:5 “Before these doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered with blue & fine linen, and scarlet & purple. Nor was the mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation, but was a kind of image of the universe.” (ref the colors in Re.17:4.) Amazingly, even the temple veil was mystical Babylon!
Old Jerusalem was mystical Sodom & Egypt (where our Lord was crucified, Re.11:8)…and Babylon. The system is perpetuated in part by the Babylonian Talmud. Talmuds are a mixture of good & bad. Also the system may be churches that proclaim as God’s truth their own traditions which contradict or wrongly add to His written word. And again, all this isn’t to say that prophecy can’t repeat itself.
Re.22:14 KJV “Blessed are they that do His commandments…that they may enter in through the gates into the city.” The holy city, new Jerusalem. By the grace of God, and through the sacrifice of Jesus/Yeshúa the Bridegroom…the saints will enter in!
Bible Topic Exposition 