Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her! Revelation Revelation β β The Book of Revelation: Worship. And the rest of the chapter interprets these symbols much of which recalls c. It was one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls 1 who introduces this vision. Later, the Bride is also introduced by this angel [Ladd ] , which seems to underscore the contrast between these two women β the prostitute and the Bride.
Some have said that Rev. The Vision β Throughout Scripture, the prostitute is used as an image of foolishness, folly, cunning, unfaithfulness, danger, and more cf. It has also been used to describe other cities or peoples: Jerusalem Eze. Here the prostitute turns out to be Rome, citadel of pagan opposition to the cause of Christ and, in principle, every opponent of similar ilk, precisely because of her connection with the beast she rides Carson The overall sense is that anyone religiously or politically aligned with Babylon against the cause of Christ is intrinsically evil.
So, here Babylon functions as a type of the ultimate malevolence, of Antichrist, of Satan himself. Her blasphemies are an overt affirmation of self-deification Carson Babylon [is] referred to about times in the Bible[. It] is occasionally viewed as a satanic religious program opposing the true worship of God, but primarily it is viewed as a political power with a great city bearing the name Babylon as its capital. That Babylon , the prostitute , is sitting on a scarlet beast 3 , means, in effect that Satan ; cf.
The Interpretation β We commented on this section when we covered c. We noted that saying the beastβ¦ was, and is not, and is about to rise 8 is a sort of parody of the Lamb , who was and who is and who is to come cf. And that is precisely what causes 8 β¦ the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world [to] marvel [at] the beast, because it was [defeated] and [was] not , [but now] is [returning].
This scene astounds them! It proves to them that the beast is worthy of their worship. But we also see that 9 β¦ the seven heads of the beast 7 are seven mountains on which the woman is seated , and we pointed out before that Rome is known as the city of seven hills. But, 10 they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet comeβ¦. And it seems quite possible that this is what John means here.
