Revelation 17:3

Revelation 17:3. And he carried me away in spirit into a wilderness. The expression ‘he carried me away in spirit' is found only here and at chap. Revelation 21:10, where the vision of the New Jerusalem is introduced. It denotes spiritual ecstasy, not bodily removal; but it may be intended to do this in a peculiarly expressive form. In chap. Revelation 12:6; Revelation 12:14 we have been told of ‘the wilderness' into which the woman there mentioned fled. Here we have no article, and we cannot therefore suppose that the wilderness now mentioned is the same. Attention is fixed simply on the fact that, amidst all Babylon's pomp and luxury, the place where she reigns is really desolate (1 Timothy 5:6). It has indeed been conjectured that the fate prepared for Babylon, and expressed by a peculiar word in Revelation 17:16 and in chap. Revelation 18:17; Revelation 18:19, is already in the Seer's mind, and that the thought of that fate leads to the description now given of the place of her abode. But it is more natural to think that these other expressions are conformed to that before us. The dwelling-place of Babylon is always ideally desolate: the fact shall afterwards correspond to the idea. A description of the beast upon which the harlot sat now follows. It is obviously that of chap. Revelation 13:1-2, and this may be said to be admitted. The identity is established by the whole description, especially by the comparison of the two passages relating to the beast in chaps. 13 and 17 with that in which it is again mentioned in chap. Revelation 19:19-20. In these latter verses the beast is spoken of as ‘making war against Him that sat upon the horse,' and as cast alive into the lake of fire ‘with the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight.' But the first of these traits belongs to the beast of this chapter (Revelation 17:14), and the second, its close connection with the false prophet, to the beast of chap. 13 (Revelation 17:12-13). In all three passages, therefore, we have the same beast. On the other hand, the differences are slight. In chap. Revelation 13:1 the names of blasphemy are upon the heads of the beast: here the whole body is covered with them. But the former statement does not exclude the latter, and the names upon the heads only are mentioned in the one place because it is of the heads that the Seer is speaking; be sees them coming up from the sea. Now he sees the whole beast. If, also, the article before the word ‘names' is to be read, it carries us to the thought of specific names already mentioned, and these can be no other than those of chap. Revelation 13:1. Again the ‘heads' of this verse are naturally mentioned before the ‘horns,' whereas in chap. Revelation 13:1 the order was reversed, because the horns appeared first as the beast ascended from the sea. Once more, the composite character of the beast of chap. Revelation 13:2 may equally belong to this beast, while the colour of the beast here may equally belong to the beast there. It is the manner of the Apocalypse thus to fill out in one place the more imperfect description of the same object in another. At the same time it is not impossible that, while the beast itself is the same, some of the differences in the description may be intended to point out the effect of its alliance with the harlot. More especially may this be the case with regard to the greater extension of the names of blasphemy. How strikingly, if the harlot be the degenerate Church, would this indicate the greater and more confident rage against the saints to which the world is prompted when it finds, as it has so often found, the Church upon its side!

The attitude of the woman towards the beast, both in this verse and in Revelation 17:7, ought to be marked. In the one she ‘sits' upon it; in the other it ‘carries' her: and the meaning is, not so much that her movements are facilitated by the beast, as that she is the beast's directress and guide. Without her it would simply spend itself in ungovernable and often misdirected fury. The harlot holds the reins, and with skilful hand guides the beast to the accomplishment of its aims.