Revelation Chapter 18
2026 - Note how this corresponds with the messages of the three angels. The first proclaimed the gospel. In 17 we see the scarlet woman, the FALSE religion. The second said Babylon is fallen, as we see here in 18. The third says don't take the mark. In 19, Jesus, on a white horse returns. You know, that little idea, which just came to me yesterday, really really works right here!
2023 - Vs 1 starts with "after this". The angel has just shown the judgment of the great prostitute, and explained to him all the symbols. So this was another icon of what is to come. It is "sign" and "vision". It is a stained glass window to remind us of the ultimate end of devoting our lives to what the scarlet beast and the prostitute are all about. So. AFTER this explanation, another angel. This seems to be moving us from that iconography back into the narration.
2022 - In my ESV, the majority of this chapter is in "prose format". There are stanzas, with sort of an introduction before each of the...7 stanzas. That there are 7 should be no surprise at this point. Whether the 7 are significant or are instead man made divisions, we will see as we read. I further note that in the NASB, we do not see this format. But I do think it notable that this chapter has a different kind of construction than those that came before.
2022 - In 18:1, "another angel" - perhaps the single most powerful angel that we have yet seen, and with great authority - so surely from the very presence of God - comes down from heaven and makes an announcement. This angel is so nearly perfect that he is giving off his own bright light, bright enough to light not just his immediate surroundings but "the earth was made bright". Remember, the sun's brightness and the moon's have been greatly reduced. So this angel lights the world. His announcement is set off in prose format.
Another angel declares that Babylon is fallen. She is to be paid back double for all her sins.
2022 - Where did "double" come from? I do not see it in either ESV or NASB, at least not the word double. So why did I put it here? It does say "Fallen, fallen...but if prose, just a device perhaps, or it just might be emphasizing the extent of Babylon's destruction. The Greek word for fallen is "pipto". The word appears twice. So it is not constructed as "She is double fallen..." I probably interpreted it this way because of the double punishment of the Jews. God is just, and it would seem just for the wrath to be double during these last days. BUT, the word is NOT here. Check that! Double is mentioned in s 6, and I think balances the double punishment of Israel with the double punishment of the rest of the world in the end times!
We get a word picture of those taking refuge in this last city on earth. Demons, unclean spirits, unclean birds and beasts. It seems strange to me that birds and animals would be inside the city, unless they are brought in for food. Even angels/demons have to eat. Since the law was abrogated by Christ, all food is acceptable to the saved...but the church left a long time ago, and I believe it is almost exclusively Jews that make up those saved and preserved during t/gt. Or perhaps this is just John's way of describing that anything that might be food has been brought into the city.
I think we also need to see that "fallen", though it looks "past tense" to us, is actually in the aorist tense,which English does not have. The aorist means that there is no attempt to assign this action as past present or future. Sort of a "was, is, and/or will be" fallen. Point is, it does not mean that as the announcement is made, the city is already leveled and gone.
2023 - I believe the above is wrong. Babylon is a dwelling place for all these demons because it is fallen, desolate, wiped out. It is no longer the splendorous city but a haunt of demons where no man wants to go. If the chronology is resuming, remember that the 7th bowl has just been poured out, and it has devastated all the "civilization" of man, it has wiped out the last of the constructions for the administration of power and control that Satan had put in place here. Including all that Babylon stood for.
2024 - All those demons living in Babylon...the seat of the kingdom of the beast? Inhabited by both men and spirits. Who knows the depths of immorality and depravity to which they might sink? And the false prophet is there too. So Babylon is a place where the physical and the spiritual overlap. It is the seat of Satanic power trying to wrest the planet from God's plan. A place where sex is combined with mysticism and wealth in a most effective strategy to lure mankind away from God. It is a place of concentrated decadence and self-indulgence.
2022 - Vs 3:
"For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living."" [Rev 18:3 ESV]
The reason for the fall is announced. Here, again, I think we are seeing that Babylon is symbolic of the "way of Balaam", of a religious strategy that uses immorality and the basest aspects of desire to attract its devotees, to separate them from their money, and to enrich those in authority within the church.
2023 - Much as I hate to say it, this sounds very much like Epstein's island, doesn't it? The richest, most powerful men and women in the world went out there to a place where there was no law at all, and there they indulged in the basest conduct they could imagine. With no repercussions, shoulder to shoulder with others there for the same things. That island was a good example of the Babylon we are discussing here. For all we know, they had their own Satanic rituals while they were there, thinking to enhance their personal power and presence. You know, that shouldn't be any surprise at all in light of this verse! Lavayne may have this right after all. It is just so horrendous that the "best" of men would be the "lowest" of men. It just refuses to be credible.
Priests and wealthy men working together to pull as much money as they can in offerings from those who have so very much less than themselves. To be blunt, the Catholics pull money from dirt poor subsistence farmers the world over to support the Vatican, and the trappings of religious power that characterize cardinals and popes. The Catholic church does not promote the abuse of women, but it elevates one woman as the mediator of prayers offered to God. She decides what he will hear. Islam offers uncountable virgins in heaven for those who are loyal, and allows much immorality while its devotees are on earth. Rape during war is specifically allowed in the Quran. Wouldn't that entice men to WANT to go to war? Mormons allow polygamy to bring in those who crave power and possession and immorality. Mixing sex and religion is a potent combination. I think this is what Babylon is about in these last day references. And in this case, since Jerusalem was the home base of the Antichrist, this is where the remaining pilgrims are concentrated.
2023 - I did not remember that I had written these things down. I don't remember that I even put these together before. I thought yesterday when it hit me that it was the first time. This ought not be forgotten. This Balaam inspired Babylon is here with us now, thriving, as it always has. That beast yesterday that was and is not and is coming again for a sort time...that demon will take this to a level not seen in thousands of years. But he will win over many, and send them to their deaths at Armageddon in their lust for more of the same.
2022 - Then the second stanza is introduced by another angel in vs 4. (2023 - just says "voice". Probably an angel, but it does not say angel.) We see here in vss 4, 5 that there are some people of God still in the city also. They are warned by a "voice from heaven" - it doesn't specifically say angel this time - to get out of the city. If we consider the actual events, the widespread destruction that has been going on in the world during the bowl judgments, then anyone would run into the last city standing on the planet. But that is going to be about the worse place you could be in just a "few minutes", so get out.
2024 - look at the call to come out here and compare to Zechariah 4! How are they not the same?
Babylon is a port city, per 17b - 20.
2026 - Look at these!
6 Up! Up! Flee from the land of the north, declares the LORD. For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares the LORD. [Zec 2:6 ESV]
6 The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country, the white ones go after them, and the dappled ones go toward the south country." ... 8 Then he cried to me, "Behold, those who go toward the north country have set my Spirit at rest in the north country." [Zec 6:6, 8 ESV]
2026 - Vs 4
Don't participate in her plagues...Look at the Bowl judgments. They are plagues. This is a warning to God's people scattered in the world, part of the system, that is all about to receive the wrath of God undiluted.
Here is vs 6, and the double punishment:
"Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed." [Rev 18:6 ESV]
Seems to be little doubt that the punishment will equal twice the crime. Not only is there no mercy in what is about to happen, there is double severity. There are both people and demons in this city, and I suspect the punishment will be appropriate for all those who decide they would rather be faithful to Babylon than submit to the true God.
2023 - I think we have to see vss 4-8 as looking back to the 7th bowl. If this is back on chronology, these vss are a bit of a lament for fallen Babylon, even though it is expressed in English in present tense. Did a quick check and all the verbs in vs 6 are aorist. So that disconnects us from a specific time. The aorist is most often expressed as past tense in English. In this case, it sort of fits that it IS past tense, but the aorist sort of keeps us in "vision" language also.
2023 - If 70 AD was the "second portion" of Jerusalem's double punishment, then perhaps this fall of Babylon - which may indeed be Jerusalem - is the second portion of the fall of the Gentiles. We had 2000 years - so far - with no requirement but faith in God, and look at the mess we've made. Why would we expect a lesser punishment than Israel? So here, after the 7th bowl - or perhaps before since it is aorist tense - those who have survived the devastation of whole planet, since Gentiles inhabit the whole planet, it ends with the destruction of the city of Babylon. Here, all the "greatest men and women", those able by wealth and power to insulate themselves from much of what has happened, are concentrated and confined, and contained, and here they will die with the city that supported them.
2022 - Then this verse:
Note that the first stanza ended with vs 3 with the reason for what was coming. Now this stanza ends the same way:
"For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her."" [Rev 18:8 ESV]
Like Sodom went down in a single day. Sodom went with fire. Consumed in a day.
2026 - The Bowl judgments do indeed seem fast. Perhaps they all come in a single day! Or vs 10... a single hour???
2022 - Vss 9,10 seem to tells us of the effect this destruction in a day will have on those still hiding out in other places on the planet, who realize that the religious/economic system that enriched them during t/gt has come to a complete end.
"They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, "Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come."" [Rev 18:10 ESV]
Compare this prophetic verse from Isaiah:
"And behold, here come riders, horsemen in pairs!" And he answered, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground."" [Isa 21:9 ESV]
These OT quotes now begin to come faster and faster. I think John is telling us that what is happening was prophesied even the OT, and that we can fill in even more details about the end times by "connecting" these OT passages with Revelation.
Merchants will morn. This is the end of commerce for profit, of the greed that makes men rich, of the compromises that men will make in order to be rich. Trade will no longer be a thing because nothing has value anymore in the face of these torments?
The fall of Babylon is final. It will never be inhabited again. The language is that nothing joyous, nothing productive, no commerce will ever be here again.
2024 - The merchants wail and mourn, but we must incorporate that the beast hated Babylon and brought it down. What is the connection here? And why is the destruction so swift? A single day.
2022 - We have this one verse stanza, a poem really, saying that what is now lost will never come again. Neither MSB or TCR reference this little poem as a quote from elsewhere in the Bible. It is only here.
2022 - The stanza of Vss 15-17a are the "words" of the merchants as they realize that what has just gone will never come again.
2022 - Vss 19, 20, More mourning by those who were enriched by the corruption of Babylon.
2022 - The last stanza is introduced in vs 21, with a visual sign. A mighty angel throws a huge stone into the sea, and compares that to the fall of Babylon. The prose of vss 21b-24 describe a world without a Babylon.
And it says that in her was found the blood of the prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth. This sounds like Babylon is the root of all evil that ever occurred. It is the motivator of killings, of greed, of hatred of God, and so on. She kills and destroys in any possible way because she hates righteousness, and will substitute all material things, and political power, and indeed any sort of power, for righteousness, and make men believe that they are doing right by giving anything and everything to obtain it. They disdain family, love, honor, morality (abortion!), intelligence, knowledge (they know socialism won't work), in order to gain the power to make themselves gods.
JM's book on revelation says Babylon is the social and economic system set up by Anti-Christ during that last 3.5 years.
So here is our dilemma, after this last stanza, saying that Babylon will be no more. We have shown, I believe convincingly, that Babylon is Jerusalem. It has been absolutely, finally, and for all time wiped off the face of the earth. So...from where will Christ rule the Millennial Kingdom? Where will we find his throne and his Temple? It may be that we have to backtrack some...but we won't do that just yet. Perhaps it means that the things that were built on this religion, this corrupt economic system, the joy and celebration and busy commerce based on that system, will never come again, because Antichrist and the Satanic world government and world religion are wiped out with the last bowl judgment. But a new, pure, just Jerusalem will rise to replace forever the Babylon set up by Satan. We'll just have to keep reading and see.
2023 SUMMARY OF 18 - With the pouring out of the 7th bowl, the earth, and all the infrastructure that organized and motivated worldly men - kings, merchants, traders - comes to an end. No more favors from governors. No more false scales for selling goods, no more buy low where it's common and sell high where it's rare. All these things are the trappings of earthly power and earthly wealth production/accumulation. These are the things that led inevitably and always to oppression of the poor by the rich, and the pretense of just government. Satan though, is the one that invented all these things. Israel was to circumvent all that with a theocracy ruled by priests and the consciences of devout men bringing sacrifices to the God of the universe, rather than the taxes to the King for all they had accumulated. This is the contrast. These that weep from far off have just seen all that they "worshiped" destroyed in an instant at the last bowl. Nothing is left. No trade routes to control, no king to bribe, no ships to sail. The judgment of Babylon that we saw in 17 is therefore corroborated as another icon, and 18 is a reminder that if our treasure is in earthly things, the end of that is weeping and mourning, because THAT will all pass away.