Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 17

And there came . . .—One of the vial-bearing angels summons the seer, saying, Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot that sits upon many waters (or, the many waters—compare to Revelation 17:15). The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and those who inhabit the earth were made drunk (lost their reason and self-control) from the wine, the delicious and delirious draught of her fornication.

Before we go further, it is well to make sure of our ground. Babylon was the great city, whose splendor dazzled, and whose power destroyed Jerusalem (Isaiah 39:1–8; Isaiah 13:19; Isaiah 14:4; Isaiah 14:13–14; Isaiah 47:5–8). Against Babylon the voices of the prophets were lifted up (Isaiah 21:9; Jeremiah 51:25); she seemed to them the embodiment of splendid vice and irresistible power; the glory of kingdoms, the golden city, who exalted her throne above the stars of God, who sat as a lady given to pleasures, and flattering herself that she would see no sorrow.

In her greatness and her hostility to Jerusalem she became a type of later world-powers; and, in St. John’s vision, Babylon, in her purple and her pomp, in her luxuriousness and her tyranny, takes her place. And it is explained in the vision that Babylon is no longer the literal Babylon, but the power which has taken her place of pride and empire. That power was Rome. Rome was in St. John’s day just what Babylon had been in the days of the prophets—the hammer of the whole earth, the golden cup that made all the earth drunken (Jeremiah 50:23; Jeremiah 51:7; compare to Revelation 17:2 of this chapter).

At the same time, the way in which the Evangelist transfers to the Rome of his day the prophetic language which earlier prophets applied to ancient Babylon (compare these chapters, Revelation 17:18, with Isaiah 47:0, Jeremiah 51:6–14) ought to be sufficient to warn us against limited and local interpretations, even if the seven-headed wild beast did not show us that the world-power, like the moral principles of which Babylon and Rome were examples, is not confined to one age. If we remember this, we shall see that the Babylon of the Apocalypse, while, undoubtedly, Pagan Rome, cannot be limited to it.

Is it, then, the question must be asked, Papal Rome? The answer is: Insofar as Papal Rome has wielded tyrant power, turned persecutor, stood between the spirits of men and Christ, depraved men’s consciences, withheld the truth, connived at viciousness, sought aggrandizement, and been a political engine rather than a witness for the righteous King, she has inherited the features of Babylon. The recognition of these features led Dante to apply this very passage in the Apocalypse to Rome under the rule of worldly and tyrant popes, when he exclaimed to the shade of Nicholas III (Il compiuto):—

“Of shepherds like you the Evangelist
Was aware, when her who sits upon the waves
With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld:
She who with seven heads towered at her birth,
And from ten horns her proof of glory drew
Long as her spouse in virtue took delight.
Of gold and silver you have made your god,
Differing in what way from the idolater,
But that he worships one, you a hundred!”

—Inferno, Canto XIX, 109-117.

So he carried. . . .—Better, And he carried me away into a wilderness in spirit: and I saw a woman sitting upon a wild beast of scarlet color, teeming with names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

We recognize the wild beast as that described in Revelation 13:1. Now the wild beast carries the woman, for she draws her support from the great world-power. The scene is the wilderness. The contrast between the desolation around her and the splendor of her appearance is striking and suggestive. The woman clothed with the sun (Revelation 12:1), persecuted by the dragon, finds a home in the wilderness into which she is driven.

She is persecuted, but not forsaken; she can joy in tribulation. The scarlet-clad woman, amid all her dazzling surroundings, is still in a wilderness. The fugitives continue in scarcity. Sansjoy is the brother of Sansloy.

The wild beast is scarlet in color. The dragon was red (Revelation 12:3); the woman is clothed in scarlet. Is it the emblem of lawlessness ending in violence? . It also has a show of sovereignty.

Full of names.—Teeming with names, etc.—The living creatures (Revelation 4:8) teemed (the same word as here) with eyes, the tokens of ready obedience and true intelligence. The wild beast teems with tokens of lawlessness and self-sufficiency.

And the woman was arrayed . . .—Better, arrayed (or, clad) in purple (the color of the robe that was mockingly put on our Lord—John 19:2) and scarlet, gilded (not “decked”) with gold, etc. Her appearance is one of imperial splendor. (Compare the description of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:13.)

Having a golden cup in her hand . . .—Translate, Having a golden cup in her hand teeming with abominations and with the unclean things of the fornication of the earth. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 51:7) called Babylon a golden cup in the hand of the Lord. The cup had made all the earth drunken; the cup of intoxication, splendid and attractive, was full of an evil power, which robbed men’s senses and degraded them. The great city of the world always holds out such a glittering cup, which

“Most do taste through fond intemperate desire.
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form...
—Comus, 68-77.

And upon her forehead . . .—It was usual for harlots to wear their name on the forehead; but the name here is more than a name. Like the name impressed upon the foreheads of the saints, it is “the expression of her nature”—

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

The word “mystery” is, perhaps, part of the name; it is, at any rate, a prefix which tells us that the name is not literal, but symbolical. Something lies behind, which will be revealed in due time. (Compare to 2 Thessalonians 2:7.) She is mother of harlots. Others, in smaller spheres, will follow her example; but she is the origin and type of all.

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints.—It is said later (Revelation 18:24) that in her was found the blood of prophets, and saints, and of all that have been slain upon the earth. The cruel spirit of persecution marked old Pagan Rome. She was drunk with their blood. It is not literally true that “all the blood shed on the earth” would be found in Rome, either Pagan or Papal; but it is spiritually true. Just as all the blood from righteous Abel to Zacharias was required of Jerusalem, so also of Babylon; for the spirit is the same spirit of hatred of holiness and love of worldliness.

To slay one is to slay all, as to be guilty in one point of the Law is to be guilty of all; for it is not to mere acts, but also to the spirit and general course of people’s conduct, that the Scriptures look. It is the Babylon spirit, whether dominant in Rome or in London, that kills the good. Wherever the spirit of worldliness (in its widest sense) is to be found, there is the spirit at enmity with God and good, and there is the Babylon which has slain the saints.

And when I saw her, I wondered . . .—Rather, And I wondered when I saw her with great wonder (not “admiration” in our modern sense). Why did St. John wonder? Was it at the splendor or the blasphemous names? Hardly these; for he was familiar with the former in descriptions of Babylon given by the prophets, and with the latter from his own vision in Revelation 13:0. The wonder probably rose from the strange alliance of the woman with the wild beast. It was not wonderful to see the vision of a wild beast or monster dealing out death and slaughter, but to see a woman allied with the monster and drunken with the blood of the holy provoked astonishment.

The woman, too, was a harlot. The prophets had spoken of Israel and Judah as harlots, where they had allied themselves with the world and its dark idolatries (Jeremiah 2:20; Ezekiel 16:15; Hosea 2:5). Did he read in the form of the vision the hint that with the passing of years the Church of Christ, like Israel of old, might fall from her high calling and become the ally of the world-power? The hint of it slumbered in the vision.

And the angel said to me, Why did you marvel?—Better, Why did you wonder? The angel explains the mystery or hidden meaning. In doing so he identifies the wild beast which carries the woman with the wild beast of Revelation 13:0. In that chapter the wild beast was seen wounded to death; the same thought is expressed in this chapter.

The wild beast was and is not. It has received its death wound: the dying and risen Lord has given the death-blow to the world-power, as He has cast down Satan (Revelation 12:9), put limits to his power (Revelation 20:2), and destroyed him that had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14).

In the victory of Christ the wild beast that was (i.e., that had in successive ages been seen in the great world-powers) is slain, or, as the angel expresses it, is not. But though he is not, though he is to be reckoned as doomed, yet he will show signs of vitality: he will rise into temporary power. He shall come up out of the abyss. But the march of his power is only a march to the grave.

He goes to destruction. Yet this transient revival and apparent recovery from its death-wound will be viewed (as was said in Revelation 13:3: all the earth wondered after the wild beast) as a marvel by those whose [??] are not heaven-taught, and whose minds are set upon earthly things. They that dwell upon the earth shall wonder, whose name is not written on the book of life from the foundation of the world, seeing the wild beast that he was, and is not, and shall be present (i.e., shall come again).

And here is the mind . . . — It is better to read, Here (omit “and”) is the mind, etc. Attention is called to the fuller explanation that follows. It requires true wisdom to observe many incidents of the world’s history and not find stumbling-blocks in them (Psalms 73:2–3; Psalms 119:165).

The seven heads are seven mountains where the woman sits upon them. The description seems to be drawn from Rome, the seven-hilled city. This keeps the reference to Rome before us, yet at the same time, the further explanation (Revelation 17:10) broadens our thoughts and shows us that the literalism on which the imagery is based is used to convey a wider symbolic meaning.

The seven heads are seven mountains, etc., and they (the seven heads; the words “There are seven kings” in the English version are confusing) are seven kings: the woman rides on the seven-headed beast; just as Rome dwells on her seven hills, so also the world-city, seen in vision, sits among the various empires that have risen, like great mountains, in the history of the world.