Revelation 17

Revelation 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 Revelation 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 Revelation 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" ( Jeremiah 51:13 ); Revelation 17:15 , below, explains the sense. The whore is the apostate Church, just as "the woman" ( Revelation 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 ( Revelation 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 ( Revelation 18:2 ) and the spiritual fornication ( Revelation 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" ( Revelation 2:4 ) to Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, and given its affections to worldly pomps and idols. The woman ( Revelation 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.