Revelation 17:1

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 harlotis 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 goodin 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. Now we have seen reason to reject the former view: nor does the latter appear any more tenable. This subject is discussed in the Introduction: it may be enough to refer to St John's own words in I Eph 4:2-3, as proving that the spirit of the theology (whatever may be said of the political attitude) of the existing Roman Church is, on the whole, of God that it certainly is notthe spirit of Antichrist.

Yet it is hardly necessary, if it be possible, to restrict the application of this chapter to the Pagan Rome of the past. -The kings of the earth have committed fornication" with other cities since. Nor did Rome, like Nineveh and Babylon (Nahum 3:4; Ezekiel 23:5; Ezekiel 23:12; Ezekiel 23:14), conquer as much by the fascinations of her splendour as by her arms, though the royal vassals of the Cæsars were dazzled as well as awed.

on many waters Jeremiah 51:13. Literally true of the old Babylon, it is explained of the new in Revelation 17:15.