Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Revelation 17:3

"And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness: and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." — Revelation 17:3 (ASV)

John is carried in the Spirit (cf. 4:2; 21:10) into a “desert,” where he again sees ancient Babylon (Isaiah 14:23; Isaiah 21:1; cf. Revelation 18:2) as a prostitute seated on “a scarlet beast”—scarlet, presumably, because the color symbolizes the beast’s blasphemy in contrast to the white-horse rider and those dressed in white, who are faithful and true (19:8, 11, 14). Since this beast is a seven-headed monster, there is no cogent reason against identifying it with the first beast in ch. 13, which is also inseparable from the seven-headed dragon of ch. 12.