View source for Chapter 17: The Woman of Babylon the Great

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Chapters 17 and 18 are another inset describing the great Roman system that is destroyed at the end of chapter 16. These chapters give a somewhat more detailed picture of the large universal church. The picture includes her harlot “daughters” (Rev 17:5), which have helped to deceive all nations (Rev 17:1-2; 18:3).

Many end-time prophecies use terms like heads, horns, toes, kings, etc. Several whole chapters must be studied to make their meaning clear. They clarify the different revivals of the same Roman system.

Again, by comparing Daniel 7:1-28 with Revelation 13:1-18 and 17:1-18, it becomes clear that there are seven revivals of the Holy Roman Empire. Six have come and gone—and the last is now forming! This revival will last at least three and a half years, coinciding with the Tribulation (Matt. 24:21-22) and God’s Wrath.

Understand another important connection to these resurrections of the Roman system. Revelation 17:1-18 describes each as having “a woman sit[ting] upon [the] scarlet coloured BEAST, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns” (Rev 17:3). The seven heads are seven separate revivals, with a ten-horn (composed of ten kings) final revival.

It is this woman who spreads the “mystery of iniquity” spoken of by Paul in II Thessalonians 2:7.

Of this woman, Rev 17:5-6 state, “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” Rev 17:1 calls her a “great whore that sits upon many waters…”

Let’s pause and ask: What are the “many waters”?

This is a classic example of allowing the Bible to interpret itself. Fourteen verses later, the term is explained: “And he said unto me, The waters which you saw, where the whore sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (Rev 17:15). This shows that the whore’s influence encompasses the earth.

In this case, the term was not immediately explained, but simply continuing to read on revealed what it means. The Bible interpreted itself!

Rev 17:5-6 are a graphic description of a great Gentile church that is a modern-day descendant of Babylon. She is a “mother” of many “harlot” daughters, who came out of her in protest because they disagreed with a few of her abominations. This is not a small church, but rather a “great” church ruling many peoples. Rev 17:2 speaks of her “fornication” with the “kings of the earth.” 

And Rev 17:18 speaks of the woman as “that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.” This is a huge church that has sought to influence nations and world events. Only one city fits this description.

A very different woman, as we saw described in Revelation 12:1-17 as God’s Church, has been persecuted by this great false church for almost 2,000 years (Rev 17:6). It is her ministers that have “crept into” God’s Church (Jude 3-4) as “wolves” speaking “perverse things” (Acts 20:29-30) and seeking to pull people back into the “mystery” of false Christianity.

Daniel 7:19-20 sheds more light on what happens when the saints return with Christ. Their first responsibility is to replace what Daniel calls the “fourth beast” (the final world-ruling empire), which rules with the assistance of a “little horn.” 

This little horn is a religious kingdom and is the same as the woman who rides the beast of Revelation 17:1-18. This religious kingdom has ruled over all of the previous resurrections, or revivals, of the Holy Roman Empire.

The saints will have endured tremendous persecution at the hands of this “little horn”—thewoman. But eventually the faithful saints will be rewarded in an incredible way: “I beheld, andthe same horn [the Babylonish system of Rev. 17:5-6] made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom” (Dan 7:21-22).

Chapters 17 and 18 reveal that God will destroy this whore and her harlot daughters, once and for all, by turning the beast she rides against her (Rev. 17:16). But first she must “ride” the final resurrection of the Babylonian Holy Roman Empire!

Little time remains before this last revival appears, with the wonderful kingdom of God to appear soon after (Rev. 19:11-16).