Revelation 17

And {1} 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 {2} thee the {a} judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: (1) The state of the Church militant being declared, now follows the state of the church overcoming and getting victory, as I showed before in the beginning of the tenth chapter. This state is set forth in four chapters. As in the place before I noted, that in that history the order of time was not always exactly observed so the same is to be understood in this history, that it is distinguished according to the people of which it speaks, and that the stories of the people are observed in the time of it. For first is delivered the story of Babylon destroyed in this and the next chapter (for this Babylon out of all doubt, shall perish before the two beasts and the dragon). Secondly, is delivered the destruction of both the two beasts, chapter nineteen and lastly of the dragon, chapter eighteen. In the story of the spiritual Babylon, are distinctly set forth the state of it in this chapter, and the overthrow done from the first argument, consisting of the particular calling of the prophet (as often before) and a general proposition. (2) That is, that damnable harlot, by a figure of speech called hyppalage. For John as yet had not seen her. Although another interpretation may be thought of, yet I like this better. (a) The sentence that is pronounce against this harlot.

Revelation 17:1-2 . And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials — Most probably this was the seventh angel; for, under the seventh vial, great Babylon came in remembrance before God, and now St. John is called upon to see her condemnation and execution; saying, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great whore — Which is now circumstantially described. This relation concerning the great whore, and that concerning the wife of the Lamb, ( Revelation 21:9-10 ,) have the same introduction, in token of the exact opposition between them; that sitteth as a queen, in pomp, power, ease, and luxury, upon many waters — So ancient Babylon, which was seated upon the great river Euphrates, is described by Jeremiah, ( Jeremiah 51:13 ,) as dwelling upon many waters; and from thence the phrase is borrowed, and signifies, according to the angel’s own explanation, ( Revelation 17:15 ,) ruling over many peoples and nations. Neither was this an ordinary prostitute; she was the great whore, with whom the kings of the earth, both ancient and modern, have committed fornication — By partaking of her idolatry, and various kinds of wickedness. So Tyre is described, Isaiah 23:17 , as having committed fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.

Nay, not only the kings, but inferior persons, the inhabiters of the earth, the common people, have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication — No wine can more thoroughly intoxicate those who drink it, than false zeal does the followers of the great whore. Thus it was said of ancient Babylon, The nations have drunk of her wine, therefore the nations are mad. Fornication, in the usual style of Scripture, is idolatry; but if it be taken even literally, it is true that modern Rome openly allows the one as well as practises the other. Ancient Rome doth, in no respect, so well answer the character; for she ruled more with a rod of iron than with the wine of her fornication. Her ambition was for extending her empire, and not her religion. She permitted even the conquered nations to continue in the religion of their ancestors, and to worship their own gods after their own rituals. She may be said rather to have been corrupted by the importation of foreign vices and superstitions than to have established her own in other countries.

The Judgement of the Great Whore. Her Pomp. Chap. 17 Revelation 17:1-6 1 . one of the angels ] So Revelation 21:9 : cf. Revelation 5:5 . I will shew unto thee the judgement &c.] Which had been exhibited, and described in general terms, in Revelation 16:19 : but the seer is now to have a nearer view of it, and describe it in detail. the great whore ] The image of the harlot is taken from the Old Testament description, not of Babylon, which when personified is a virgin ( Isaiah 47:1 ), but of Tyre ( Isaiah 23:15 sqq.) and Nineveh ( Nahum 3:4 ). The truth is, the Antichristian Empire is conceived as embodying the various forms of evil that existed in previous earthly empires. They have existed and become great, in virtue of what was good in them: (see St Augustine’s City of God , V. xii. 3, 5, xv. &c.; Epist. cxxxviii. 17: cf. Plat. Rep. I. xxiii. pp. 351–2); they are the divinely appointed protectors of God’s people ( Jeremiah 29:7 ; Romans 13:1-7 ; 1 Timothy 2:2 ) though their possible persecutors: and so they at once hinder ( 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 ) the coming of Antichrist, and foreshadow his coming by acting in his spirit. The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar had (as no one can read the Book of Daniel without seeing) something nobler in it than mere conquering pride, and to this nobler element Isaiah does justice: but St John sees (it does not follow that the natural man will see) that in the New Babylon the baser element is supreme. But another interpretation has been suggested.

In Revelation 12:6 ; Revelation 12:14 we found that the Woman, the City of God and the Mother of His Son, fled into the wilderness, and there was concealed through the time of the Beast’s reign: and some have thought that the Woman in the Wilderness whom we meet with here is actually the same as the one we then parted with—the faithful City become an harlot ( Isaiah 1:21 .) This view is an unpleasant one, and seems out of harmony with the tone either of chap. 12 or of this chapter. But it is supported by the argument, that the image of a harlot is most frequently, in the O. T. used of the unfaithful City of God: Isaiah 1:21 ; Jeremiah 2:20 , Jeremiah 3:1 sqq., Jeremiah 3:6 sqq.; Ezekiel 16:23 ; Hosea 1-3; Hosea 4:15 ; Micah 1:7 : while it is applied to heathen cities only in Isaiah 23 fin.; Nahum 3:4 , already quoted. On the other hand, in almost all those passages it is insisted on, more or less expressly, that the whoredoms of unfaithful Israel have the special guilt of adultery : and of that there is no hint here, the Lord does not say of Babylon as of Aholibah that she was “Mine.” This seems to destroy the parallel with the former nine cases, which moreover is less close, as regards the details of language, than that with the two latter. And further, the identification of the two Women is only possible on the assumption, that the Mother of chap. 12 is the true Christian Church, and the Harlot of this chapter the apostate Christian Church of Rome.

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication; with which great whore several princes of the world have committed spiritual fornication, receiving her idolatrous worship, yielding to her authority, and following her example. And the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with, the wine of her fornication; and not the kings only of the earth, but the generality of the people, have been influenced with a mad heat, and with the wine of her fornication, that is, with that wine by which she enticed them to commit idolatry with her. By this wine are meant honours, riches, preferments, pleasure, the gaudery of her worship, the magnificence of the apostolic see, their pretended antiquity, unity; in short, whatsoever specious arguments papists use to entice persons into the idolatrous communion of their church.

Sitteth upon many waters Said of Babylon, Jeremiah 51:13; the wealth of Babylon being caused both by the Euphrates and by a vast system of canals. The symbol is interpreted by some commentators as signifying Babylon, by others pagan Rome, Papal Rome, Jerusalem. Dante alludes to this passage in his address to the shade of Pope Nicholas III., in the Bolgia of the Simonists. "The Evangelist you pastors had in mind, When she who sitteth upon many waters To fornicate with kings by him was seen. The same who with the seven heads was born, And power and strength from the ten horns received, So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing." "Inferno," xix., 106-110.