Babylon the great, Mother of harlots. Revelation 17:3

 I am jumping off my commentary on the Gospel of John to point something out.

One of the so-called “watchmen” that goes by “generation 2434” went on a bit of a rant, saying.

“I, 100%, stand against the teaching that “Mystery Babylon” could be Jerusalem because it goes against God’s word.”

He went on to say,

“There are many scriptures that prove this… but here is the short and firm answer.”

“Mystery Babylon is destroyed and will NEVER be a city again.”

If you search for the phrase “mystery Babylon,” you will NOT find it. The closest thing we have to mystery Babylon is Revelation 17:5. Here is the KJV.

(I have intentionally broken up the passage so that aspects could be emphasized.)

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment.”

(Judgment is that which originates from God and, in general, would be deemed “the great tribulation”; once again, this is an inappropriate term.)

“of the great harlot”

(Momentarily, we will see that BABYLON, THE GREAT, and THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS are the same thing, and Jerusalem is included.

Here is a huge assumption: If there is a great harlot, can there be lesser harlots?

Since we know that Babylon is one and Jerusalem is another, there is the possibility of others.)

“who sits on many waters,”

(Waters is representative of the nations.
Telling us that this “great harlot sits on many waters indicates that “she” has influence over multiple locations simultaneously.
If this were a human, this kind of influence could only be accomplished by having others fulfill their wishes; this conversation fuels the idea that this being is demonic.

Remember that Satan took a third of the angels, an uncountable number, to earth in his rebellion. It is the reason that Satan can have such an influence. )

“with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality,”

(Perhaps it is best to think of this harlot as wickedness, evil, transgressions, and general darkness.

The question to ask yourself is, against whom?

The answer is that these acts of evil are generally perpetrated against the masses who can do little to defend themselves.)

“and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”

(God is showing John, and subsequently us, the punishment of the harlot and who she has had an impact upon; this is an aspect of God’s wrath. It is important to recognize that by the time we read this, the collapse of their empires and national relationships because of the immoralities associated with the harlot will just about be complete.)

Consider what Revelation 17:3 tells us.

“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness;”

(When God showed Abram how committed He was to this covenant that He was asking Abram to follow, the entirety of the dream, although it sounded like reality. What the Apostle John passes on to us is no less vivid and real. In Acts chapter 8, we see the disciple, Philip, run and catch up with an Ethiopian eunuch, who is riding in a chariot while attempting to read the scroll of Isaiah. I have so many questions about this scenario. Having, a few moments later, baptized the Eunuch in some standing water, Philip is translated; perhaps we can say he was carried away in the Spirit.

Did this happen to John? I cannot say, however, that it sounds like John’s experience was more like Abram’s.)

(Wilderness should be a familiar term as we saw Jesus driven into the wilderness – Matthew 4 - to commune with the Father and to be tested by Satan. The wilderness is typically bleak, foreboding, and lacking water.)

“and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names,”

(If I saw anyone riding on a “beast,” I would assume they believed they were in control of that animal. I had an opportunity to ride a horse when I went to Oklahoma. That horse, for the majority of the time, did what it wanted to do. Finally, as the horse was standing in about a foot of muddy water, a man led some young riders out by me and told them clearly to let their horses know who was in control and told them how to do that. Unfortunately, I don’t remember how to do that, but I applied my momentary education to the situation, got the horse out of the muddy lake, and got the horse to run on a sprint. By the way, this is when the ride smoothed out, but the thought occurred to me that this horse could run in front of an oncoming vehicle.)  

(It is the woman’s head that is full of blasphemous names, and she is riding the scarlet beast, and the beast is speaking blasphemies.

Let’s focus on the blasphemous names for a moment.

Blasphemy is the Greek word blasphēmia and carries meanings of slander, defamation, vilification, and verbal abuse against someone. The WSD conveys that it is the wounding of someone’s reputation by evil reports. We are not given the names, but if you can understand what they are intended to do, you can comprehend the focus of those words – they are meant to demean God and those who represent Him.)

“having seven heads and ten horns.”

(If you search for “seven heads,” you will only find the phrase in the Revelation.)

- Revelation 13:1 TLV  Then I saw a beast rising out of the sea that had ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten royal crowns, and upon his heads were slanderous names.

(I am constantly reminding you that our Biblical study is concentrated on Israel and the Mideast; with that in mind, these ten horns and seven heads are defined in Daniel 7 as ten kings. In Daniel 7, he desired an explanation.) The passage that follows is one of those responses.

- Daniel 7:23-24 BSB says ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on the earth, different from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour the whole earth, trample it down, and crush it.  24  And the ten horns are ten kings who will rise from this kingdom. After them, another king, different from the earlier ones, will rise and subdue three kings.

(Question: Of the nations in the Middle East, how many are NOT Muslim? Not many.)

The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality,

The description conveys that the participants are motivated by wealth and comfort. Soon, they will be subject to God’s wrath, and their money won’t do anything for them.

And on her forehead, a name was written, a mystery,”

Before we go any further, I want to explore this word mystery. I am NOT an expert in English grammar; I pay dearly to have my work edited by “Grammarly’s” document editor. With that said, I noticed that the word mystery ends with a comma. This indicates that there is a pause worthy of contemplating, in this case, the context of the paragraph. While the implications involved with Babylon are significant, we are not given this information for us to be confused because the name Babylon is a mystery.

The word mystery, as used in Revelation 17:5, is the Greek word mustḗrion, and it carries the implications of a person initiated into sacred mysteries. The word mustḗrion is a derivative of the Greek word muéō (G3453) and means to initiate, learn a secret, or some esoteric knowledge. It also denotes something hidden or not fully manifest.

If you are familiar with the Free Masons or the Illuminati, you are already acquainted with the terminology used to describe being initiated into the sacred mysteries.

The prophet, Daniel, revealed this piece of information, somewhat deflating the mystery.

“But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase.” Daniel 12:4 NASB

(God has seen fit to open the eyes of those who have an interest in end-times prophecy.)

And this is what was written upon her forehead.

“BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
Revelation 17:5 NASB

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the description seen on the harlot’s forehead is the mystery. It is also an analogy to the centralized system progressively taking over the world.

In an attempt to understand what this mystery is, let’s look at what Revelation 17:18 says.

“And the woman that you saw is the great city exercising kingship over the kings of the earth.” Revelation 17:18 TLV

God calls Babylon the great city, but the problem is that Babylon is no longer there. To add to the confusion, Jerusalem is also called that great city. There are multiple references to the destruction of Babylon in the Old Testament and Revelation. Jeremiah 51:8 is one of our examples.

With all that history, God still has the initiative to use the term suddenly.

“Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; Wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; Perhaps she may be healed.” Jeremiah 51:8 NASB

We find the beginnings of Babylon when we find Nimrod and the tower of Babel. It is from this that Nebuchadnezzar brought about his Babylonian kingdom.

An excerpt from www.worldhistory.org.

“Babylon was founded at some point prior to the reign of Sargon of Akkad (the Great, 2334-2279 BCE) and seems to have been a minor port city on the Euphrates River until the rise of Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BCE), who made it the capital of his Babylonian Empire. After Hammurabi’s death, his empire quickly fell apart. The city was sacked by the Hittites in 1595 BCE and then taken by the Kassites who renamed it Karanduniash. The earliest mention of the city comes from an inscription from the time of Sargon of Akkad. It was briefly ruled by the Chaldeans (9th century BCE), whose name became synonymous with Babylonians to later Greek writers (notably Herodotus) and biblical scribes, and then was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (912-612 BCE) before being taken by Nabopolassar (r. 626-605 BCE), who established the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Babylon fell to the Persians under Cyrus II (the Great, r. c. 550-530 BCE) and was a capital of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE) until it fell to Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. It continued as a trade center under the later Seleucid Empire (312-63 BCE), Parthian Empire (247 BCE to 224 CE), and Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE) but never attained the heights it had known under Hammurabi or the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605/604-562 BCE). The city declined after the Muslim Arab conquest in the 7th century CE and was finally abandoned.” (https://www.worldhistory.org/babylon/#:~:text=Babylon%20was%20founded,was%20finally%20abandoned.)

Jeremiah 51:37 also speaks to the cessation of Babylon, a place where no one will ever live again, much like the coming prophecy against Damascus.

Not that long ago, I watched an archaeologist as he visited the site of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. The foundations that mark the perimeter of Babylon still exist, but no one, to this day, lives within those boundaries.

“Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, An object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants.”
Jeremiah 51:37 NASB

Consider this: Babylon, acting on behalf of God, in time, took the majority of Israel captive. It is possible that the prophets Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and Obadiah were taken captive alongside Daniel.

One of the ways we can look at the original Babylon is to see it as a protective force.

Did everyone obtain untouchable protection?

No, and we see an example of this when we read about King Zedekiah, the King of Judah (the Southern kingdom. Read Jeremiah 39:1-9), but others, such as Daniel and the other three young men that were taken captive, enjoyed God’s protection.

If you read about Daniel, you learn that he was thrown into the lion’s den for maintaining his routine of worship. King Darius, who had been tricked, fought to save Daniel, but his own edict was against him. Daniel came out of this sure death unharmed. Read all this in Daniel, chapter six.

Since we can understand that Babylon is gone, this discussion about Babylon, which is deemed a mystery, has to be more spiritual in nature and in the future. Needless to say, that future is now.

And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.”
Revelation 11:8 NASB

When God talks about the two witnesses who stand in the streets of Jerusalem, He refers to Jerusalem as that great city, merely clouding the issue.

So, when I or anyone else talks about false teachers and how they can lead you astray, someone speaking authoritatively can drag you into confusion by insisting that Babylon must be rebuilt. Clearly, that is not the case. To combat that happening, you must become a student of the Word of God; that means you read and write with the express purpose of gaining insight into how God thinks and feels.