Jeanie C. Crain http://crain.english.missouriwestern.edu
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Jeanie C. Crain http://crain.english.missouriwestern.edu
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Revelation 17–18 Destruction of the whore, Babylon According to the NRSV Oxford Annotated, chapters 17-19 signal the last major division before the Epilogue and contain the judgment and fall of Babylon and the aftermath of rejoicing in heaven. Certainly, these chapters have been much talked and written about, complete with speculations about both John's world and the world as it will exist at the terrible day of God's judgment. The following outline will suffice as an introduction:
IX. THE FALL OF BABYLON THE GREAT (17: 1-19:21) I would caution the reader who wants to understand these chapters to be firmly anchored in the Old Testament. Throughout the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, the themes of marriage and adultery have intertwined. A wayward people of God, whether Israel or Judah, is depicted as a whore, unfaithful to commitment. In that tradition, Babylon becomes the Great Whore, the metaphor of all that is wicked. She is preceded by Sodom and Gomorah. First, what actually happens in chapter seventeen? Recall that the pouring of the seven plagues has resulted in the world's greatest earthquake in which Babylon receives the wine-cup of God's fury (16.19). One of the seven angels who had the seven bowl approaches John with a stern, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of earth have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication the inhabitants have become drunk." Please note the metaphor used is fornication, not adultery; there apparently has never been a commitment here--these are those who curse God. To see this event, John is spirited away into a wilderness where he sees a woman sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names (3). The beast has seven heads and ten horns; the woman is clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, jewels, and pearls (4). She is named only mystery (5): "Babylon the great, mother of whores of earth's abomination," and she is drunk with the blood of witnesses to Jesus (6). The context of John's day, Roman domination, and persecution is clear in the "blood of witnesses to Jesus" (especially with respect to Nero), but as has often been pointed out, the persecution and call for endurance both continue literally. John is amazed by the mystery but immediately reassured by the interpreting angel: "I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with the seven heads and ten horns... The beast you saw was, and is not, and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was, and is not, and is to come" (7-9). The angel continues interpreting: "the seven heads are seven mountains... also, they are seven kings of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while" 9, 10). John's amazement in the beginning and the people's amazement here stem from different reactions: John is amazed as mystery unfurls; the people are amazed by what they are seeing immediately in front of them--the "was.. is not.. and is to come." As Rome is associated with the seven hills and thus the whore, so is Nero, who was expected to return to life, associated with the perplexity occasioned in the people. Interpretation usually associates the seven kings with Roman emperors, depending on how one counts, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero, the five who have fallen. One is, Vespasian? The other had not come--Titus? That the beast who was, is not, and is to come is more than just an earthly king connotatively derives from a similarity in language to God who is, was, and is to come. I find the inversion of language interesting here: "was" seems to suggest historical reality while "is" describes God's continuing presence in history. Remember that for the Hebrew, the future is past--simply because it is not known; the past is future because it can be known. God here is present, future-past, and past-is to come. The beast is future-was, not present now, and past-is to come. Actually, I'm not sure I understand time in Revelation except to note that when the eternal exists in time, the existential recognizes paradox. In Revelation, the writer anticipates a difficulty on the part of his listeners and readers; he knows that he can be understood only in the spirit with which he has written the book. He tells his listeners, "Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches" (3.6). He repeats exactly the same admonition in 3.22. After the appearance of the second beast, the reader is told, "This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast..." (13.18). Much the same call for spiritual discernment is found in the middle of John's vision of the great whore: "This calls for a mind that has wisdom..." (9). Such wisdom is not to be equated with human logic which pales in comparison with what can be understood rather than known. Even as was the case with Pharaoh, the anti-God forces serve the purposes of God in God's over-ruling: one recalls that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 8.14, 32), but tellingly, with time, "the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh" (9.12). This is repeated in 10.20 and 11.10. The angel tells John that the beast and the kings (as well as the multitudes and nations) will devour the whore's flesh, "For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by agreeing to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled" 15-18). The point to be made is simply that God controls divine purposes and outcomes and uses both the forces of commitment and resistance. The kings in Revelation 17 unite to make war on the Lamb, but the John and his readers are assured, "the Lamb will conquer them, for he is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful" (14). The "are called" here parallels the names "not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" (17.8). God's omniscience overrules the boundaries of human space and time, rendering determinism and indeterminism the boundaries of human logic.
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