A figure of the illicit connection between the church and the world or between the church and the state. The church should be married to her Lord, but when she seeks the support of the state, she leaves her lawful spouse. By her new connection she commits spiritual fornication. Compare on Eze. 16:15; James 4:4.

 The figure is probably borrowed from Jer. 25:15, where Jeremiah is bidden to “take the wine cup of this fury ..., and cause all the nations ... to drink it.” But wrath is not Babylon’s object in offering the wine to the various nations. She contends that drinking of her wine will bring peace to nations (see on Rev. 13:12). However, the drinking of it brings down on men the wrath of God.

Some suggest that the word here translated “wrath” (thumos) should be rendered “passion.” The passage could then be translated, “she has caused all nations to drink the wine of her passionate immorality” (cf. RSV). However, elsewhere in the Revelation thumos seems to have the meaning “anger,” “wrath,” and that meaning should probably be adopted here also.

A figure describing the acceptance of the false teachings and policies of Babylon. Coercion is suggested in the phrase “made all nations drink.” Religious elements will bring pressure to bear upon the state to enforce their decrees.

 The universal nature of the apostasy is here described. The substitution of human laws for the laws of God and the enforcement of religious decrees by the state will become universal (see on ch. 13:8; cf. 6T 18, 19, 395; 7T 141).

 The adjective “great” is applied to Babylon consistently throughout the book of Revelation (see chs. 16:19; 17:5, 18; 18:2, 10, 21).

 Textual evidence may be cited (cf. p. 10) for the omission of the second “is fallen.” The passage seems to echo Isa. 21:9, where in the LXX textual evidence is divided between reading “is fallen” once or twice. The Hebrew repeats the term. Repetition lends emphasis to the message. Babylon is a comprehensive term that John employs to describe all religious bodies and movements that have fallen away from the truth. This fact requires us to view this “fall” as progressive and cumulative.

 This prophecy of the fall of Babylon finds its last-day fulfillment in the departure of Protestantism at large from the purity and simplicity of the gospel (see on Rev. 14:4). This message was first preached by the advent movement known as Millerism, in the summer of 1844, and was applied to the churches that rejected the first angel’s message concerning the judgment (see on v. 7). The message will have increasing relevance as the end draws near, and will meet its complete fulfillment with the union of the various religious elements under the leadership of Satan (see on chs. 13:12-14; 17:12-14). The message of ch. 18:2-4 announces the complete downfall of Babylon and calls upon God’s people who are scattered throughout the various religious bodies comprising Babylon, to separate from them.

 The ancient, literal city by this name was already largely a desolate ruin in John’s day (see on Isa. 13:19). As with so many other terms and expressions in the Revelation, the significance of this name (see on Acts 3:16) may best be understood in terms of the role of its historical counterpart in OT times (see pp. 867-869; see on Isa. 47:1; Jer. 25:12; 50:1; Eze. 26:13; Rev. 16:12, 16; Additional Note on Chapter 18). The designation “mystery, Babylon” in ch. 17:5 specifically identifies the name as figurative (see on Rom. 11:25; Rev. 1:20; 17:5; cf. on ch. 16:12).

 In Babylonian the name Bab-ilu (Babel, or Babylon) meant “gate of the gods,” but the Hebrews derogatorily associated it with balal, a word in their language meaning “to confuse” (see on Gen. 11:9). The rulers of Babylon doubtless called their city the “gate” of the gods in the sense that they chose to think of it as the place where the gods consorted with men, to order the affairs of earth (see on Judges 9:35; Ruth 4:1; 1 Kings 22:10; Jer. 22:3). The name thus seems to have reflected the claim of the Babylonian kings that they had been commissioned to rule the world by divine mandate (see Vol. II, p. 157; PP 119; see on Gen. 11:4).

 Babylon was founded by Nimrod (see on Gen. 10:10; 11:1-9). From the very beginning the city was emblematic of disbelief in the true God and defiance of His will (see on Gen. 11:4-9), and its tower a monument to apostasy, a citadel of rebellion against Him. The prophet Isaiah identifies Lucifer as the invisible king of Babylon (see on Isa. 14:4, 12-14). In fact, it would appear that Satan designed to make Babylon the center and agency of his master plan to secure control of the human race, even as God purposed to work through Jerusalem (see Vol. IV, pp. 26-30). Thus, throughout OT times, the two cities typified the forces of evil and good at work in the world. The founders of Babylon aspired to set up a government entirely independent of God, and had He not intervened, they would eventually have succeeded in banishing righteousness from the earth (PP 123; cf. on Dan. 4:17). For this reason God saw fit to destroy the tower and to scatter its builders (see on Gen. 11:7, 8). A period of temporary success was followed by more than a millennium of decline and subjection to other nations (see Vol. I, pp. 136, 137; Vol. II, p. 92; see on Isa. 13:1; Dan. 2:37).

 When Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon it became one of the wonders of the ancient world (see Additional Note on Dan. 4). His plan to make his kingdom universal and eternal (see on Dan. 3:1; 4:30) was a success to the extent that, in splendor and power, the new Babylonian Empire surpassed its predecessors (see Vol. II, pp. 92-94; see on chs. 2:37, 38; 4:30). However, it also became haughty and cruel, (see Ed 176). It conquered God’s people and threatened with defeat His purpose for them as a nation. In a dramatic series of events God humbled Nebuchadnezzar and secured the submission of his will (see Vol. IV, pp. 751, 752). But his successors refused to humble themselves before God (see Dan. 5:18-22), and eventually the kingdom was weighed in the balances of heaven, found wanting, and its mandate revoked by the decree of the divine Watcher (see on Dan. 5:26-28). Later Babylon became one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, but it was partly destroyed by Xerxes (cf. Vol. III, pp. 459, 460). Over the centuries the city gradually lost more and more of its importance and eventually, toward the close of the 1st century A.D., virtually ceased to exist (see on Isa. 13:19; Rev. 18:21).

 Ever since the fall of ancient Babylon Satan has sought, through one world power after another, to control the world, and would probably long since have succeeded had it not been for repeated instances of divine intervention (see on Dan. 2:39-43). Undoubtedly his most nearly successful attempt to subvert the church has been through the papal apostasy of the Middle Ages (see Vol. IV, p. 837; see on Dan. 7:25). But God intervened to prevent the success of each subsequent threat to the ultimate accomplishment of His purposes (see Rev. 12:5, 8, 16), and the nations have never been able to “cleave” together (see on Dan. 2:43). Evil is inherently divisive. However, near the end of time Satan will be permitted to achieve what appears, briefly, to be success (see on Rev. 16:13, 14, 16; 17:12-14).

 Apparently toward the close of the 1st century A.D. Christians were already referring to the city and empire of Rome by the cryptic title Babylon (see on 1 Peter 5:13). By that time the once magnificent literal city of Babylon lay, almost, if not altogether, in ruins, an uninhabited waste, and thus a graphic illustration of the impending fate of mystical Babylon. The Jews were again in exile under the merciless hand of Rome (see Vol. V, pp. 69-80; Vol. VI, p. 87), even as they had once been exiled by Babylon, and Christians also experienced repeated sporadic persecution at her hand (see Vol. VI, pp. 61, 83, 84, 87). Among Jews and Christians alike, Babylon thus became an appropriate and incriminating term to describe imperial Rome.

During the early Christian centuries the cryptic designation Babylon for the city and empire of Rome appears commonly in both Jewish and Christian literature. For instance, Book V of the Sibylline Oracles, a pseudepigraphical Jewish production dating from about A.D. 125 (see Vol. V, p. 89), gives what purports to be a prophecy of the fate of Rome closely parallel to the description of that of mystical Babylon in the Revelation.

 Speaking of Rome as a “wicked city” that loves “magic,” indulges in “adulteries,” and has a “bloodthirsty heart and a godless mind,” and observing that “many faithful saints of the Hebrews have perished” because of her, the writer predicts her eventual desolation: “In widowhood shalt thou sit beside thy banks.... But thou hast said, I am unique, and none shall bring ruin on me. But now God ... shall destroy thee and all of thine” (vs. 37-74; R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2, p. 400; cf. Rev. 18:5-8). In 2 Baruch, another pseudepigraphical work of the 1st or 2d century A.D., the name Babylon is used of Rome in the same way as in the Revelation (ch. 11:1; Charles, op. cit., p. 486). Similarly, the writer of the Jewish Midrash Rabbah, on S. of Sol. 1:6, says, “They called the place Rome Babylon” (Soncino ed., p. 60). Tertullian, who lived at the close of the second century, specifically declares that the term Babylon in the Apocalypse refers to the capital city of imperial Rome (Against Marcion iii. 13; Answer to the Jews 9; see also Irenaeus Against Heresies v. 26. 1). Among the Jews of early Christian times Edom was another cryptic designation for Rome (see Midrash Rabbah, on S. of Sol. 1:6, p. 60; also Talmud Makkoth 12a, Soncino ed., p. 80). Babylon, both literal and mystical, has thus long been recognized as the traditional enemy of God’s truth and people. As used in the Revelation the name is symbolic of all apostate religious organizations and their leadership, from antiquity down to the close of time (see on chs. 17:5; 18:24). A comparison of the many passages of the OT where the sins and fate of literal Babylon are set forth at length, with those in the Revelation descriptive of mystical Babylon, makes evident the appropriateness of the figurative application of the name (see on Isa. 47:1; Jer. 25:12; 50:1; Rev. 16:12-21; 17; 18; see Additional Note on Chapter 18). A perusal of these and other passages reveals the importance, also, of a thorough study of the OT with respect to literal Babylon as a background for understanding the import of NT passages relating to mystical Babylon.

 The first and third angels’ messages are proclaimed with a “loud voice” (vs. 7, 9). The message concerning the fall of Babylon is later proclaimed with a loud voice (see on ch. 18:1, 2).

Textual evidence attests (cf. p. 10) the inclusion of the word “second.” In some manuscripts the word for “second” stands in place of the phrase “another angel”; in others, as an addition to the phrase; still other manuscripts read “a second angel” instead of “another angel.”

 Gr. akoloutheō, “to accompany,” “to follow” (see Matt. 19:27, 28; Mark 1:18, where the word has the idea of accompanying Jesus personally). It seems to have both meanings in this text. In point of time the second angel follows the first, but it is also true that the first angel continues his ministry when the second angel joins him. In this sense the second angel’s message accompanies that of the first.