1And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
The vision which John saw in chapter 17 is introduced by one of the seven angels who had the seven vials of God’s anger. The account of the pouring out of the seven vials was in the previous chapter. This connection with those angels tells us that the judgment of the whore fits into the context of those seven judgments.
Beginning with verse 7, the angel will explain to John about the things he sees in this vision, but the first thing that catches our attention is that there is a woman who is called a whore. Whoredom is a frequent metaphor in the Old Testament. The rightful loyalty of the people of God is to Him. By metaphor, God is the husband of His people (Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 3:14; 31:32). So, whenever Israel turned to false gods, it was called adultery (Ezekiel 23:37). God said they were acting like prostitutes (Ezekiel 16:15-17). In the New Testament, James also described spiritual disloyalty to God as adultery: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? (James 4:4). He was talking about Christians who gave their hearts’ passion to getting material possessions instead of drawing near to God.
The whore that John saw in chapter 17 likely pictures false religion. False religion seeks wealth instead of seeking God. False religion gives approval to doing things that God calls sin, and false religion offers pleasurable things without moral boundaries that agree with God’s word. Kings and political leaders who don’t know Christ form relations with the whore of false religion. The general population of the world gets drunk with false religion. That means that people become inebriated with its rituals and forms and lies and with the salving of their consciences that it produces. This drunkenness with false religion keeps people from turning to the Lord Jesus Christ.
3So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
The harlot that John saw was sitting upon a scarlet colored beast with seven heads and ten horns. In Isaiah 1:18 God said to His people Israel, Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. The scarlet color pictures the sins of the beast.
We saw this beast in chapter 13. It arose out of the sea. The seven heads represent seven empires that have oppressed or will oppress Israel: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome I, and Rome II (see notes under 13:1 and 13:2). The beast resembles the dragon in 12:3; Satan has used these world empires as his instruments. The ten horns are ten kings, as the angel will explain to John in this chapter. The beast is a blasphemer of God.
The woman sitting on the beast is the whore of false religion. That false religion took a different form in each empire, but it is the same harlot that was seated upon them all.
4And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
False religion is showy, wealthy, and morally corrupt. It is called a whore because it poses as one who belongs to God but sells religious lies for money and fleshly compromise.
Why is the name of the woman called a “mystery”? In the Bible, “mystery” means “secret.” It means something that is learned by revelation. This woman’s name is “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” We learn about this mother of false religions by going back to the book of Genesis. After the flood, people went to live on a plain in a place called “Shinar.” Shinar included the then future location of the ancient city of Babylon. Also, Asshur, the founder of Nineveh, came from Shinar. The Assyrian city of Nineveh was called a “harlot,” too, in Nahum 3:4-5. At the plain of Shinar people determined to build a city and a tower that would reach to heaven. Their motive was to make a name for themselves and to consolidate rather than replenishing the earth as God had commanded. That place was later called “Babel” because God confounded their language there, and they were scattered (Genesis 9:1;10:10-11; 11:2; Daniel 1:2).
The thing that people tried to do at Babel is at the root of all false religion: they tried to make their own religion to their own glory independent of God’s will. In history, Babylon mercilessly oppressed Israel. God said to Babylon, thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke (Isaiah 47:6). Chapter 17 and chapter 18 of Revelation each speak of a future Babylon. John’s vision of the whore has opened that topic in chapter 17. We will be given more information in the following verses.
6And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. 7And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
The harlot of false religion was drunk with the blood of those who had given witness about the Lord Jesus Christ. Since John saw ten horns on the beast (verse 3), which are ten kings that will be present in the future, the witnesses of Jesus here spoken of may be those of the Tribulation period. The word translated “admiration” is actually a cognate form of the same word translated “wondered.” That is, John “wondered a great wonder.” The angel will now explain to John the meaning of the vision he has seen.
8The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
The beast that John saw had seven heads representing seven empires. Thus, the one beast took different forms at different times in history. But John saw only one point of time in the existence of the beast. The angel told John that the beast which he saw “was and is not.” John lived during the time of the old Roman empire, “Rome I.” Thus, the angel was telling John that the beast he saw in the vision was not Rome I. Rather, it was one of the empires that came before Rome I (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, or Greece). That empire and its leaders were already dead and confined to the abyss. For a limited time in the future, that beast will ascend out of the abyss; that is, one of those empires which was present before Rome I will be active again. We read about this beast once in chapter 11 with reference to the killing of God’s two witnesses: “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them” (11:7). Everyone in the world who does not belong to the Lord Jesus Christ will be utterly amazed by the revival of this former world power. The reappearance of this beast is likely what is referred to in 13:3 : “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” There will probably also be an individual leader of that empire who is wounded and recovers.
9And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. 10And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
The harlot of false religion has sat and will sit on all seven heads of the beast. The religions of the seven empires differed from one another, but their religions are just different forms of the same harlotry. These verses also tell us that we are to understand that each head is both a kingdom (“seven mountains”) and a king (“seven kings”). The angel told John that five of them had fallen (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece). One of them was in existence in John’s day (Rome I). The seventh world ruler had not yet come in John’s day. When that ruler appears, he will remain for only a short period of time.
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream of a statue whose body symbolized a sequence of four empires. God gave Daniel the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The four empires were kingdoms which included Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom and three others which would follow his. These four empires were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. The legs and feet of the statue symbolized Rome. But the legs were different from the feet:
His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay (Daniel 2:33).
And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay (Daniel 2:40-41).
The legs represented the Roman empire of history, which was present in John’s day. It was very strong. The feet represented a future form of the Roman empire. We have called it “Rome II.” Rome II is the seventh ruler of which the angel spoke. Rome II will be strong, but not as strong as Rome I. When Rome II comes to power, its ruler will continue for only a short time.
11And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
“The beast that was, and is not” is the beast that John saw (verse 8). That beast is not Rome I because it “is not.” That beast is not Rome II because it “was.” It is a revived form of one of the kingdoms which existed before the old Roman empire. That kingdom is “the eighth.” Thus, it follows Rome II. That kingdom will ascend out of the abyss and later be destroyed.
The number “8” occurs frequently in Scripture in good contexts. Eight people entered Noah’s Ark (Genesis 7:13; I Peter 3:20). God told Abraham that his male descendants should be circumcised when they were 8 days old (Genesis 17:12). The Feast of Tabernacles had a holy convocation on the 8th day (Leviticus 23:34-36). It was on that 8th day that Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink (John 7:2,37). David was the 8th son of his father Jesse (I Samuel 16:10-13). Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the new week (thus an 8th day).
The true 8th king will be Jesus. The prophet Daniel said that Christ would come and establish His kingdom on earth in the days of Rome II. Daniel told the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces (Daniel 2:34). Daniel explained to Nebuchadnezzar that the stone symbolized the kingdom that God would establish: And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (Daniel 2:44). Thus, Christ’s kingdom will be established after Rome II. Jesus’ kingdom is the true 8th kingdom.
The beast that ascends out of the abyss and seeks to follow Rome II is a false 8th kingdom, the kingdom of a usurper. That usurper is the Antichrist. But which of the former kingdoms will ascend out of the abyss? Egypt? Assyria? Babylon? Medo-Persia? Greece? The focus of both chapters 17 and 18 of the book of Revelation is Babylon. We also read a specific proclamation by the angel in 14:8 saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” A very similar proclamation is found in chapter 18. And it is Babylon who appears as a lion in Daniel 7:4, though Jesus is the true Lion (Revelation 5:5).
12And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
The beast that John saw had seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads of the beast are seven empires and their kings. The ten horns are also kings; they belong to the future empire of the beast. In John’s day these ten kings had “received no kingdom as yet”. When they do come to power, they will reign for only "one hour." The wording is similar to that in verse 10, which spoke of Rome II: “the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” It is likely that the ten toes of the feet of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2:41-42) pictured these ten kings. The feet of the statue symbolized the future Rome II empire.
13These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. 14These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
It is interesting that when John saw the beast arise out of the sea (13:1), he saw ten crowns on the the horns. Yet these crowns are not said to be on the horns in chapter 17 nor are they ever mentioned again in the book of Revelation. Perhaps it is because these ten kings will agree to give their power and authority to the empire and its head. At Christ’s return these ten kings together with the head of the empire will attempt to fight against Him. The Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, will vanquish them.
It is in the context of the topic of this battle that verse 14 says, “and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” Who are “they that are with him?” The description “called and chosen and faithful” does not seem to fit an angelic army. Neither does it seem likely that the bride of Christ (19:7-9) should lay aside her wedding garments and go out to battle. Ezekiel spoke of the resurrection of God’s people in Israel and described this resurrected people as “an exceeding great army” (Ezekiel 37:10). That may be the intended reference here.
15And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
When the prophet Jeremiah prophesied the fall of ancient Babylon to the Medes, he said, O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness (Jeremiah 51:13). The whore of chapter 17 pictures false religion, the harlotry that had its roots in the ancient plain of Shinar at the tower of Babel. In verse 1 the harlot is said to be sitting on many waters. The many waters symbolize peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. In verse 3 John saw the whore sitting on the scarlet beast. The scarlet beast rose out of the sea and is the ruler of the peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. False religion will dominate Rome II and thereby exercise sway over the peoples of the world.
16And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 17For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
At some point the ten kings and the leader of the empire will turn against the whore. They will hate her and destroy her. They will likely come to despise this false religious system’s using them to her advantage. They will “burn her with fire.” The statement that they “shall eat her flesh” may refer to the seizure of all the material wealth of this religious establishment. In destroying this whore of false religion, the ten kings and the beast will unwittingly be doing the will of God. Indeed, their unification itself is setting them up for God’s judgment on them.
18And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
According to verse 18, the harlot is “that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” At the time that John wrote the book of Revelation, Rome was reigning over the kings of the earth. The harlot of false religion will be inseparably identified with the city of Rome, the political center of the restored Roman empire of the last days.
As we considered in studying verses 9-11 above, Rome II will continue for only a short time. It will then be followed by a revived form of one of the earlier empires, probably Babylon. How will the transition from Rome II to Babylon II take place?
The prophet Daniel gives us more information about the beast and the ten horns. In describing his vision, Daniel said, I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things (Daniel 7:8). Then Daniel was given an explanation of his vision. He was told concerning the ten horns, And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. (Daniel 7:24-26).
At some point after the 10 kings unite in the restored Roman empire, another king will come up among them. That king will take over the kingdoms of three of the ten kings. He will “speak great words against the most High.” That latter king will be the Antichrist. He will oppress Israel and believers in Jesus for “a time and times and the dividing of time,” the last 3½ years of the seven-year Tribulation period.
In the eighth chapter of Daniel, that future king is pre-figured by a person named Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus was one of the rulers in the Seleucid dynasty, which dominated the eastern division of the Greek empire after the death of Alexander. Babylon was in the Seleucid empire. The connection made in Daniel between Antichrist and the Seleucid leader Antiochus may explain the fact that the beast John saw in chapter 13 was primarily Greek (see notes under 13:2). The same connection also provides a clue concerning the transition from a restored Roman empire to a revived Babylonian empire. The Antichrist will arise from within Europe but will have some relation with the region of Babylon.
It is interesting, too, that in Daniel 9:26-27, which speak of the seven-year covenant that Antichrist will make and break with Israel, the armies that destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. are called “the people of the prince that shall come.” The Roman army that destroyed Jerusalem was not purely Italian. It was also composed of troops from the region of Syriaa.
Whether from within the government of Rome II or as an outside entity, the one that Daniel called “a little horn” will make a treaty with Israel for seven years but will break the treaty at the midpoint of that period. As well as taking over the government of Rome II, he will declare himself to be God. Paul wrote, Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God (II Thessalonians 2:3-4).
aThe Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus the Jewish Historian, “The Jewish War. Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem,”
Book III, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3.
Note: All Scriptures are quoted from the King James Version of the Bible.