Revelation 17

Re 17:1-18.

THE

HARLOT

BABYLON'S

GAUD:

THE

BEAST ON

WHICH

SHE

RIDES,

HAVING

SEVEN

HEADS AND

TEN

HORNS,

SHALL

BE THE

INSTRUMENT OF

JUDGMENT ON

HER.

As

Re 16:12

stated generally the vial judgment about to be poured on the

harlot, Babylon's power, as the seventeenth and eighteen chapters

give the same in detail, so the nineteenth chapter gives in detail the

judgment on the beast and the false prophet, summarily

alluded to in

Re 16:13-15,

in connection with the Lord's coming.

1. unto me--A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic

omit.

many--So A. But B, "the many waters"

(Jer 51:13);

Re 17:15,

below, explains the sense. The whore is the apostate Church, just as

"the woman"

(Re 12:1-6)

is the Church while faithful. Satan having failed by violence,

tries too successfully to seduce her by the allurements of the world;

unlike her Lord, she was overcome by this temptation; hence she is seen

sitting on the scarlet-colored beast, no longer the wife, but

the harlot; no longer Jerusalem, but spiritually Sodom

(Re 11:8).

2. drunk with--Greek, "owing to." It cannot be pagan

Rome, but papal Rome, if a particular seat of error be meant, but I

incline to think that the judgment

(Re 18:2)

and the spiritual fornication

(Re 18:3),

though finding their culmination in Rome, are not restricted to it, but

comprise the whole apostate Church, Roman, Greek, and even Protestant,

so far as it has been seduced from its "first love"

(Re 2:4)

to Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, and given its affections to worldly

pomps and idols. The woman

(Re 12:1)

is the congregation of God in its purity under the Old and New

Testament, and appears again as the Bride of the Lamb, the transfigured

Church prepared for the marriage feast. The woman, the invisible

Church, is latent in the apostate Church, and is the Church militant;

the Bride is the Church triumphant.

3. the wilderness--Contrast her in

Re 12:6, 14,

having a place in the wilderness-world, but not a home; a

sojourner here, looking for the city to come. Now, on the contrary, she

is contented to have her portion in this moral wilderness.

upon a scarlet . . . beast--The same as in

Re 13:1,

who there is described as here, "having seven heads and ten horns

(therein betraying that he is representative of the dragon,

Re 12:3),

and upon his heads names (so the oldest manuscripts read) of

blasphemy"; compare also

Re 17:12-14,

below, with

Re 19:19, 20,

and Re 17:13, 14, 16.

Rome, resting on the world power and ruling it by the claim of

supremacy, is the chief, though not the exclusive, representative of

this symbol. As the dragon is fiery-red, so the beast is

blood-red in color; implying its blood-guiltiness, and also

deep-dyed sin. The scarlet is also the symbol of kingly

authority.

full--all over; not merely "on his heads," as in

Re 13:1,

for its opposition to God is now about to develop itself in all its

intensity. Under the harlot's superintendence, the world power puts

forth blasphemous pretensions worse than in pagan days. So the Pope is

placed by the cardinals in God's temple on the altar to sit

there, and the cardinals kiss the feet of the Pope. This

ceremony is called in Romish writers "the adoration." [Historie de

Clerge, Amsterd., 1716; and LETTENBURGH'S

Notitia Curiæ Romanæ, 1683, p. 125; HEIDEGGER, Myst. Bab., 1, 511, 514, 537]; a papal

coin [Numismata Pontificum, Paris, 1679, p. 5] has the

blasphemous legend, "Quem creant, adorant."

Kneeling and kissing are the worship meant by John's word

nine times used in respect to the rival of God (Greek,

"proskunein"). Abomination, too, is the scriptural term

for an idol, or any creature worshipped with the homage due to the

Creator. Still, there is some check on the God-opposed world power

while ridden by the harlot; the consummated Antichrist will be when,

having destroyed her, the beast shall be revealed as the concentration

and incarnation of all the self-deifying God-opposed principles which

have appeared in various forms and degrees heretofore. "The Church has

gained outward recognition by leaning on the world power which in its

turn uses the Church for its own objects; such is the picture here of

Christendom ripe for judgment" [AUBERLEN]. The

seven heads in the view of many are the seven successive forms of

government of Rome: kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, military

tribunes, emperors, the German emperors

[WORDSWORTH], of whom Napoleon is the successor

(Re 17:11).

But see the view given, see on

Re 17:9, 10,

which I prefer. The crowns formerly on the ten horns

(Re 13:1)

have now disappeared, perhaps an indication that the ten kingdoms into

which the Germanic-Slavonic world [the old Roman empire,

including the East as well as the West, the two legs of the image with

five toes on each, that is, ten in all] is to be divided, will lose

their monarchical form in the end [AUBERLEN]; but

see

Re 17:12,

which seems to imply crowned kings.

4. The color scarlet, it is remarkable, is that reserved for

popes and cardinals. Paul II made it penal for anyone but cardinals to

wear hats of scarlet; compare Roman Ceremonial [3.5.5]. This

book was compiled several centuries ago by

MARCELLUS, a Romish archbishop, and dedicated to

Leo X. In it are enumerated five different articles of dress of

scarlet color. A vest is mentioned studded with pearls.

The Pope's miter is of gold and precious stones. These

are the very characteristics outwardly which Revelation thrice assigns

to the harlot or Babylon. So Joachim an abbot from Calabria, about

A.D. 1200, when asked by Richard of England, who

had summoned him to Palestine, concerning Antichrist, replied that "he

was born long ago at Rome, and is now exalting himself above all that

is called God." ROGER HOVEDEN

[Annals, 1.2], and elsewhere, wrote, "The harlot arrayed in gold

is the Church of Rome." Whenever and wherever (not in Rome alone) the

Church, instead of being "clothed (as at first,

Re 12:1)

with the sun" of heaven, is arrayed in earthly meretricious gauds,

compromising the truth of God through fear, or flattery, of the world's

power, science, or wealth, she becomes the harlot seated on the beast,

and doomed in righteous retribution to be judged by the beast

(Re 17:16).

Soon, like Rome, and like the Jews of Christ's and the apostles' time

leagued with the heathen Rome, she will then become the persecutor of

the saints

(Re 17:6).

Instead of drinking her Lord's "cup" of suffering, she has "a cup full

of abominations and filthinesses." Rome, in her medals, represents

herself holding a cup with the self-condemning inscription, "Sedet

super universum." Meanwhile the world power gives up its hostility

and accepts Christianity externally; the beast gives up its God-opposed

character, the woman gives up her divine one. They meet halfway by

mutual concessions; Christianity becomes worldly, the world becomes

Christianized. The gainer is the world; the loser is the Church. The

beast for a time receives a deadly wound

(Re 13:3),

but is not really transfigured; he will return worse than ever

(Re 17:11-14).

The Lord alone by His coming can make the kingdoms of this world become

the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. The "purple" is the badge of

empire; even as in mockery it was put on our Lord.

decked--literally, "gilded."

stones--Greek, "stone."

filthiness--A, B, and ANDREAS read, "the

filthy (impure) things."

5. upon . . . forehead . . . name--as

harlots usually had. What a contrast to "HOLINESS TO

THE LORD," inscribed on the miter on

the high priest's forehead!

mystery--implying a spiritual fact heretofore hidden, and

incapable of discovery by mere reason, but now revealed. As the union

of Christ and the Church is a "great mystery" (a spiritual truth of

momentous interest, once hidden, now revealed,

Eph 5:31, 32),

so the Church conforming to the world and thereby becoming a harlot is

a counter "mystery" (or spiritual truth, symbolically now revealed). As

iniquity in the harlot is a leaven working in "mystery," and

therefore called "the mystery of iniquity," so when she is

destroyed, the iniquity heretofore working (comparatively) latently in

her, shall be revealed in the man of iniquity, the open

embodiment of all previous evil. Contrast the "mystery of God" and

"godliness,"

Re 10:7;

1Ti 3:16.

It was Rome that crucified Christ; that destroyed Jerusalem and

scattered the Jews; that persecuted the early Christians in pagan

times, and Protestant Christians in papal times; and probably shall be

again restored to its pristine grandeur, such as it had under the

Cæsars, just before the burning of the harlot and of itself with

her. So HIPPOLYTUS [On Antichrist] (who

lived in the second century), thought. Popery cannot be at one and the

same time the "mystery of iniquity," and the manifested

or revealed Antichrist. Probably it will compromise for

political power

(Re 17:3)

the portion of Christianity still in its creed, and thus shall prepare

the way for Antichrist's manifestation. The name Babylon, which in the

image,

Da 2:32, 38,

is given to the head, is here given to the harlot, which marks

her as being connected with the fourth kingdom, Rome, the last part of

the image. Benedict XIII, in his indiction for a jubilee, A.D. 1725, called Rome "the mother of all

believers, and the mistress of all churches" (harlots like herself).

The correspondence of syllables and accents in Greek is

striking; "He porne kai to therion; He numphe kai to arnion."

"The whore and the beast; the Bride and the Lamb."

of harlots--Greek, "of the harlots and of

the abominations." Not merely Rome, but Christendom as a whole,

even as formerly Israel as a whole, has become a harlot. The invisible

Church of true believers is hidden and dispersed in the visible Church.

The boundary lines which separate harlot and woman are not

denominational nor drawn externally, but can only be spiritually

discerned. If Rome were the only seat of Babylon, much of the

spiritual profit of Revelation would be lost to us; but the harlot

"sitteth upon many waters"

(Re 17:1),

and "ALL nations have drunk of the wine of her

fornication"

(Re 17:2;

Re 18:3;

"the earth,"

Re 19:2).

External extensiveness over the whole world and internal conformity to

the world--worldliness in extent and contents--is symbolized by the

name of the world city, "Babylon." As the sun shines on all the earth,

thus the woman clothed with the sun is to let her light penetrate to

the uttermost parts of the earth. But she, in externally Christianizing

the world, permits herself to be seduced by the world; thus her

universality or catholicity is not that of the Jerusalem which

we look for ("the MOTHER of us all,"

Re 21:2;

Isa 2:2-4;

Ga 4:26),

but that of Babylon, the world-wide but harlot city! (As Babylon

was destroyed, and the Jews restored to Jerusalem by Cyrus, so our

Cyrus--a Persian name meaning the sun--the Sun of righteousness,

shall bring Israel, literal and spiritual, to the holy Jerusalem at His

coming. Babylon and Jerusalem are the two opposite poles of the

spiritual world). Still, the Romish Church is not only accidentally and

as a matter of fact, but in virtue of its very

PRINCIPLE, a harlot, the metropolis of whoredom,

"the mother of harlots"; whereas the evangelical Protestant Church is,

according to her principle and fundamental creed, a chaste woman; the

Reformation was a protest of the woman against the harlot. The spirit

of the heathen world kingdom Rome had, before the Reformation, changed

the Church in the West into a Church-State, Rome; and in the

East, into a State-Church, fettered by the world power, having

its center in Byzantium; the Roman and Greek churches have thus fallen

from the invisible spiritual essence of the Gospel into the elements of

the world [AUBERLEN]. Compare with the "woman"

called "Babylon" here, the woman named "wickedness," or "lawlessness,"

"iniquity"

(Zec 5:7, 8, 11),

carried to Babylon: compare "the mystery of iniquity" and "the

man of sin," "that wicked one," literally, "the lawless

one"

(2Th 2:7, 8;

also

Mt 24:12).

6. martyrs--witnesses.

I wondered with great admiration--As the Greek is the

same in the verb and the noun, translate the latter "wonder." John

certainly did not admire her in the modern English sense.

Elsewhere

(Re 17:8; 13:3),

all the earthly-minded ("they that dwell on the earth") wonder

in admiration of the beast. Here only is John's wonder called

forth; not the beast, but the woman sunken into the harlot, the

Church become a world-loving apostate, moves his sorrowful astonishment

at so awful a change. That the world should be beastly is natural, but

that the faithful bride should become the whore is monstrous, and

excites the same amazement in him as the same awful change in Israel

excited in Isaiah and Jeremiah. "Horrible thing" in them answers to

"abominations" here. "Corruptio optimi pessima"; when the Church

falls, she sinks lower than the godless world, in proportion as her

right place is higher than the world. It is striking that in

Re 17:3,

"woman" has not the article, "the woman," as if she had been

before mentioned: for though identical in one sense with the

woman,

Re 12:1-6,

in another sense she is not. The elect are never perverted into

apostates, and still remain as the true woman invisibly

contained in the harlot; yet Christendom regarded as the

woman has apostatized from its first faith.

8. beast . . . was, and is not--(Compare

Re 17:11).

The time when the beast "is not" is the time during which it has "the

deadly wound"; the time of the seventh head becoming Christian

externally, when its beast-like character was put into suspension

temporarily. The healing of its wound answers to its

ascending out of the bottomless pit. The beast, or Antichristian

world power, returns worse than ever, with satanic powers from hell

(Re 11:7),

not merely from the sea of convulsed nations

(Re 13:1).

Christian civilization gives the beast only a temporary wound, whence

the deadly wound is always mentioned in connection with its

being healed up the non-existence of the beast in connection

with its reappearance; and Daniel does not even notice any change in

the world power effected by Christianity. We are endangered on one side

Antichristianity of the beast; the third class is Christ's little

flock."

go--So B, Vulgate, and ANDREAS read

the future tense. But A and IRENÆUS,

"goeth."

into perdition--The continuance of this revived seventh (that

is, the eighth) head is short: it is therefore called "the son of

perdition," who is essentially doomed to it almost immediately after

his appearance.

names were--so Vulgate and ANDREAS.

But A, B, Syriac, and Coptic read the singular, "name

is."

written in--Greek, "upon."

which--rather, "when they behold the beast that it was,"

&c. So Vulgate.

was, and is not, and yet is--A, B, and

ANDREAS read, "and shall come" (literally, "be

present," namely, again: Greek, "kai parestai"). The

Hebrew, "tetragrammaton," or sacred four letters in

Jehovah, "who is, who was, and who is to come," the believer's

object of worship, has its contrasted counterpart in the beast "who

was, and is not, and shall be present," the object of the earth's

worship [BENGEL]. They exult with wonder in

seeing that the beast which had seemed to have received its death blow

from Christianity, is on the eve of reviving with greater power

than ever on the ruins of that religion which tormented them

(Re 11:10).

9. Compare

Re 13:18;

Da 12:10,

where similarly spiritual discernment is put forward as needed in order

to understand the symbolical prophecy.

seven heads and seven mountains--The connection between

mountains and kings must be deeper than the mere outward fact to

which incidental allusion is made, that Rome (the then world city) is

on seven hills (whence heathen Rome had a national festival called

Septimontium, the feast of the seven-hilled city

[PLUTARCH]; and on the imperial coins, just as

here, she is represented as a woman seated on seven hills. Coin

of Vespasian, described by CAPTAIN

SMYTH [Roman Coins, p. 310;

ACKERMAN, 1, p. 87]). The seven heads can hardly

be at once seven kings or kingdoms

(Re 17:10),

and seven geographical mountains. The true connection is, as the

head is the prominent part of the body, so the mountain

is prominent in the land. Like "sea" and "earth"and "waters

. . . peoples"

(Re 17:15),

so "mountains" have a symbolical meaning, namely, prominent seats of

power. Especially such as are prominent hindrances to the cause of God

(Ps 68:16, 17;

Isa 40:4; 41:15; 49:11;

Eze 35:2);

especially Babylon (which geographically was in a plain, but

spiritually is called a destroying mountain,

Jer 51:25),

in majestic contrast to which stands Mount Zion, "the mountain of the

Lord's house"

(Isa 2:2),

and the heavenly mount;

Re 21:10,

"a great and high mountain . . . and that great city, the

holy Jerusalem." So in

Da 2:35,

the stone becomes a mountain--Messiah's universal kingdom

supplanting the previous world kingdoms. As nature shadows forth the

great realities of the spiritual world, so seven-hilled Rome is a

representative of the seven-headed world power of which the dragon has

been, and is the prince. The "seven kings" are hereby distinguished

from the "ten kings"

(Re 17:12):

the former are what the latter are

not, "mountains," great seats of the world power. The seven universal

God-opposed monarchies are Egypt (the first world power which came into

collision with God's people,) Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Medo-Persia,

Rome, the Germanic-Slavonic empire (the clay of the fourth kingdom

mixed with its iron in Nebuchadnezzar's image, a fifth material,

Da 2:33, 34, 42, 43,

symbolizing this last head). These seven might seem not to accord with

the seven heads in

Da 7:4-7,

one head on the first beast (Babylon), one on the second

(Medo-Persia), four on the third (Greece; namely, Egypt, Syria,

Thrace with Bithynia, and Greece with Macedon): but Egypt and Greece

are in both lists. Syria answers to Assyria (from which the name Syria

is abbreviated), and Thrace with Bithynia answers to the

Gothic-Germanic-Slavonic hordes which, pouring down on Rome from the

North, founded the Germanic-Slavonic empire. The woman sitting on

the seven hills implies the Old and New Testament Church conforming

to, and resting on, the world power, that is, on all the seven world

kingdoms. Abraham and Isaac dissembling as to their wives through fear

of the kings of Egypt foreshadowed this. Compare

Eze 16:1-63; 23:1-49,

on Israel's whoredoms with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon; and

Mt 7:24; 24:10-12, 23-26,

on the characteristics of the New Testament Church's harlotry, namely,

distrust, suspicion, hatred, treachery, divisions into parties, false

doctrine.

10. there are--Translate, "they (the seven heads) are seven

kings."

five . . . one--Greek, "the five

. . . the one"; the first five of the seven are fallen

(a word applicable not to forms of government passing away, but

to the fall of once powerful empires: Egypt,

Eze 29:1-30:26;

Assyria and Nineveh,

Na 3:1-19;

Babylon,

Re 18:2;

Jer 50:1-51:64;

Medo-Persia,

Da 8:3-7, 20-22; 10:13; 11:2;

Greece,

Da 11:4).

Rome was "the one" existing in John's days. "Kings" is the

Scripture phrase for kingdoms, because these kingdoms are

generally represented in character by some one prominent head, as

Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, Medo-Persia by Cyrus, Greece by

Alexander, &c.

the other is not yet come--not as ALFORD,

inaccurately representing AUBERLEN, the

Christian empire beginning with Constantine; but, the

Germanic-Slavonic empire beginning and continuing in its

beast-like, that is, HEATHEN Antichristian

character for only "a short space." The time when it is said of it, "it

is not"

(Re 17:11),

is the time during which it is "wounded to death," and has the

"deadly wound"

(Re 13:3).

The external Christianization of the migrating hordes from the North

which descended on Rome, is the wound to the beast answering to

the earth swallowing up the flood (heathen tribes) sent by the

dragon, Satan, to drown the woman, the Church. The emphasis palpably is

on "a short space," which therefore comes first in the

Greek, not on "he must continue," as if his continuance for

some [considerable] time were implied, as ALFORD wrongly thinks. The time of external

Christianization (while the beast's wound continues) has lasted for

centuries, ever since Constantine. Rome and the Greek Church have

partially healed the wound by image worship.

11. beast that . . . is not--his beastly character

being kept down by outward Christianization of the state until he

starts up to life again as "the eighth" king, his "wound being healed"

(Re 13:3),

Antichrist manifested in fullest and most intense opposition to God.

The "he" is emphatic in the Greek. He, peculiarly and

pre-eminently: answering to "the little horn" with eyes like the eyes

of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, before whom three of

the ten horns were plucked up by the roots, and to whom the whole

ten "give their power and strength"

(Re 17:12, 13, 17).

That a personal Antichrist will stand at the head of the

Antichristian kingdom, is likely from the analogy of Antiochus

Epiphanes, the Old Testament Antichrist, "the little horn" in

Da 8:9-12;

also, "the man of sin, son of perdition"

(2Th 2:3-8),

answers here to "goeth into perdition," and is applied to an

individual, namely, Judas, in the only other passage where the phrase

occurs

(Joh 17:12).

He is essentially a child of destruction, and hence he has but a little

time ascended out of the bottomless pit, when he "goes into perdition"

(Re 17:8, 11).

"While the Church passes through death of the flesh to glory of the

Spirit, the beast passes through the glory of the flesh to death"

[AUBERLEN].

is of the seven--rather "springs out of the seven." The

eighth is not merely one of the seven restored, but a new power or

person proceeding out of the seven, and at the same time

embodying all the God-opposed features of the previous seven

concentrated and consummated; for which reason there are said to be not

eight, but only seven heads, for the eighth is the

embodiment of all the seven. In the birth-pangs which prepare the

"regeneration" there are wars, earthquakes, and

disturbances [AUBERLEN], wherein Antichrist

takes his rise ("sea,"

Re 13:1;

Mr 13:8;

Lu 21:9-11).

He does not fall like the other seven

(Re 17:10),

but is destroyed, going to his own perdition, by the Lord

in person.

12. ten kings . . . received no kingdom as yet; but

receive power as kings . . . with the beast--Hence and

from

Re 17:14, 16,

it seems that these ten kings or kingdoms, are to be contemporaries

with the beast in its last or eighth form, namely, Antichrist. Compare

Da 2:34, 44,

"the stone smote the image upon his feet," that is, upon the

ten toes, which are, in

Da 2:41-44,

interpreted to be "kings." The ten kingdoms are not, therefore,

ten which arose in the overthrow of Rome (heathen), but are to rise out

of the last state of the fourth kingdom under the eighth head. I agree

with ALFORD that the phrase "as kings,"

implies that they reserve their kingly rights in their alliance with

the beast, wherein "they give their power and strength unto" him

(Re 17:13).

They have the name of kings, but not with undivided kingly power

[WORDSWORTH]. See AUBERLEN'S

not so probable view, see on

Re 17:3.

one hour--a definite time of short duration,

during which "the devil is come down to the inhabitant of the earth and

of the sea, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a

short time." Probably the three and a half years

(Re 11:2, 3; 13:5).

Antichrist is in existence long before the fall of Babylon; but it is

only at its fail he obtains the vassalage of the ten kings. He in the

first instance imposes on the Jews as the Messiah, coming in his own

name; then persecutes those of them who refuse his blasphemous

pretensions. Not until the sixth vial, in the latter part of his reign,

does he associate the ten kings with him in war with the Lamb, having

gained them over by the aid of the spirits of devils working miracles.

His connection with Israel appears from his sitting "in the temple of

God"

(2Th 2:4),

and as the antitypical "abomination of desolation standing in the Holy

place"

(Da 9:27; 12:11;

Mt 24:15),

and "in the city where our Lord was crucified"

(Re 11:8).

It is remarkable that IRENÆUS [Against

Heresies, 5:25] and CYRIL OF JERUSALEM [RUFINUS, Historia

Monachorum, 10.37] prophesied that Antichrist would have his seat

at Jerusalem and would restore the kingdom of the Jews. JULIAN the apostate, long after, took part with the Jews,

and aided in building their temple, herein being Antichrist's

forerunner.

13. one mind--one sentiment.

shall give--So Coptic. But A, B, and Syriac,

"give."

strength--Greek, "authority." They become his dependent

allies

(Re 17:14).

Thus Antichrist sets up to be King of kings, but scarcely has he

put forth his claim when the true KING OF KINGS

appears and dashes him down in a moment to destruction.

14. These shall . . . war with the Lamb--in league

with the beast. This is a summary anticipation of

Re 19:19.

This shall not be till after they have first executed judgment

on the harlot

(Re 17:15, 16).

Lord of lords, &c.--anticipating

Re 19:16.

are--not in the Greek. Therefore translate, "And

they that are with Him, called chosen, and faithful (shall overcome

them, namely, the beast and his allied kings)." These have been with

Christ in heaven unseen, but now appear with Him.

15.

(Re 17:1;

Isa 8:7.)

An impious parody of Jehovah who "sitteth upon the flood"

[ALFORD]. Also, contrast the "many waters"

Re 19:6,

"Alleluia."

peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues--The

"peoples," &c., here mark the universality of the spiritual fornication

of the Church. The "tongues" remind us of the original Babel, the

confusion of tongues, the beginning of Babylon, and the first

commencement of idolatrous apostasy after the flood, as the tower was

doubtless dedicated to the deified heavens. Thus, Babylon is the

appropriate name of the harlot. The Pope, as the chief representative

of the harlot, claims a double supremacy over all peoples,

typified by the "two swords" according to the interpretation of

Boniface VIII in the Bull, "Unam Sanctam," and represented by

the two keys: spiritual as the universal bishop, whence he is crowned

with the miter; and temporal, whence he is also crowned with the tiara

in token of his imperial supremacy. Contrast with the Pope's

diadems the "many diadems" of Him who alone has claim to, and

shall exercise when He shall come, the twofold dominion

(Re 19:12).

16. upon the beast--But A, B, Vulgate, and Syriac

read, "and the beast."

shall make her desolate--having first dismounted her from her

seat on the beast

(Re 17:3).

naked--stripped of all her gaud

(Re 17:4).

As Jerusalem used the world power to crucify her Saviour, and then was

destroyed by that very power, Rome; so the Church, having apostatized

to the world, shall have judgment executed on her first by the world

power, the beast and his allies; and these afterwards shall have

judgment executed on them by Christ Himself in person. So Israel

leaning on Egypt, a broken reed, is pierced by it; and then Egypt

itself is punished. So Israel's whoredom with Assyria and Babylon was

punished by the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. So the Church when

it goes a-whoring after the word as if it were the reality,

instead of witnessing against its apostasy from God, is false to its

profession. Being no longer a reality itself, but a sham, the Church is

rightly judged by that world which for a time had used the Church to

further its own ends, while all the while "hating" Christ's unworldly

religion, but which now no longer wants the Church's aid.

eat her flesh--Greek plural, "masses of flesh," that is,

"carnal possessions"; implying the fulness of carnality into which the

Church is sunk. The judgment on the harlot is again and again described

(Re 18:1; 19:5);

first by an "angel having great power"

(Re 18:1),

then by "another voice from heaven"

(Re 18:4-20),

then by "a mighty angel"

(Re 18:21-24).

Compare

Eze 16:37-44,

originally said of Israel, but further applicable to the New Testament

Church when fallen into spiritual fornication. On the phrase, "eat

. . . flesh" for prey upon one's property, and injure the

character and person, compare

Ps 14:4; 27:2;

Jer 10:25;

Mic 3:3.

The First Napoleon's Edict published at Rome in 1809, confiscating the

papal dominions and joining them to France, and later the severance of

large portions of the Pope's territory from his sway and the union of

them to the dominions of the king of Italy, virtually through Louis

Napoleon, are a first instalment of the full realization of this

prophecy of the whore's destruction. "Her flesh" seems to point to her

temporal dignities and resources, as distinguished from "herself"

(Greek). How striking a retribution, that having obtained her

first temporal dominions, the exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the

LOMBARDs, and the state of Rome, by recognizing

the usurper Pepin as lawful king of France, she should be

stripped of her dominions by another usurper of France, the Napoleonic

dynasty!

burn . . . with fire--the legal punishment of an

abominable fornication.

17. hath put--the prophetical past tense for the future.

fulfil--Greek, "do," or "accomplish." The Greek,

"poiesai," is distinct from that which is translated,

"fulfilled," Greek, "telesthesontai," below.

his will--Greek, "his mind," or purpose; while

they think only of doing their own purpose.

to agree--literally, "to do" (or accomplish) one mind" or

"purpose." A and Vulgate omit this clause, but B supports it.

the words of God--foretelling the rise and downfall of the

beast; Greek, "hoi logoi," in A, B, and

ANDREAS. English Version reading is

Greek, "ta rhemata," which is not well supported. No mere

articulate utterances, but the efficient words of Him who is

the Word: Greek, "logos."

fulfilled--

(Re 10:7).

18. reigneth--literally, "hath kingship over the kings."

The harlot cannot be a mere city literally, but is called so in

a spiritual sense

(Re 11:8).

Also the beast cannot represent a spiritual power, but a world power.

In this verse the harlot is presented before us ripe for judgment. The

eighteenth chapter details that judgment.