Revelation 17: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

One of the seven angels with the seven bowls shows John the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters. John sees a woman dressed in purple and scarlet, holding a golden cup, drunk with the blood of God's people, riding a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns, and named Babylon the Great. The angel then explains the vision piece by piece: the heads are seven mountains and seven kings, the horns are ten kings who give their power to the beast and make war on the Lamb, the waters are peoples and nations, and the woman is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth. The angel also says the ten kings will turn on the woman and destroy her, because God put it in their hearts to carry out his purpose.

Claim by Claim

1. 17:1
   • One of the seven angels who had the seven vials came
   • The angel talked with John
   • The angel said to John, Come here
   • The angel said he would show John the judgment of the great whore
   • The great whore sits upon many waters
2. 17:2
   • The kings of the earth have committed fornication with the whore
   • The inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication
3. 17:3
   • The angel carried John away in the spirit into the wilderness
   • John saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet colored beast
   • The beast was full of names of blasphemy
   • The beast had seven heads
   • The beast had ten horns
4. 17:4
   • The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
   • The woman was decked with gold and precious stones and pearls
   • The woman had a golden cup in her hand
   • The cup was full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication
5. 17:5
   • A name was written upon the woman's forehead
   • The name was MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH
6. 17:6
   • John saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints
   • John saw the woman drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus
   • When John saw her he wondered with great wonder
7. 17:7
   • The angel said to John, Why did you marvel?
   • The angel said he would tell John the mystery of the woman
   • The angel said he would tell John the mystery of the beast that carries her
   • The beast has the seven heads and ten horns
8. 17:8
   • The beast that John saw was, and is not
   • The beast shall ascend out of the bottomless pit
   • The beast goes into perdition
   • They that dwell on the earth shall wonder
   • The names of those who wonder were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world
   • They shall wonder when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is
9. 17:9
   • Here is the mind which has wisdom
   • The seven heads are seven mountains
   • The woman sits on the seven mountains
10. 17:10
    • There are seven kings
    • Five of the kings are fallen
    • One king is
    • The other king is not yet come
    • When the other king comes, he must continue a short space
11. 17:11
    • The beast that was, and is not, is himself the eighth
    • The beast is of the seven
    • The beast goes into perdition
12. 17:12
    • The ten horns that John saw are ten kings
    • The ten kings have received no kingdom as yet
    • The ten kings receive power as kings for one hour with the beast
13. 17:13
    • The ten kings have one mind
    • The ten kings shall give their power and strength to the beast
14. 17:14
    • The ten kings shall make war with the Lamb
    • The Lamb shall overcome them
    • The Lamb is Lord of lords
    • The Lamb is King of kings
    • Those who are with the Lamb are called, and chosen, and faithful
15. 17:15
    • The angel said to John, The waters you saw, where the whore sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues
16. 17:16
    • The ten horns that John saw upon the beast shall hate the whore
    • They shall make her desolate and naked
    • They shall eat her flesh
    • They shall burn her with fire
17. 17:17
    • God has put in their hearts to fulfil his will
    • God has put in their hearts to agree
    • God has put in their hearts to give their kingdom to the beast
    • This lasts until the words of God shall be fulfilled
18. 17:18
    • The woman John saw is that great city
    • That city reigns over the kings of the earth

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

17:1

The King James "vials" does not mean narrow glass tubes. The Greek word is for a wide shallow bowl, the kind used for pouring out wine or incense, and these are the seven bowls of chapter 16. "Whore" translates a word meaning prostitute. Calling a city a prostitute was a standard figure in the Hebrew prophets for a city that had broken faith or sold itself, used of Tyre and Nineveh and of Jerusalem itself. "Sitteth upon many waters" repeats Jeremiah's description of ancient Babylon, a city set among the canals and branches of the Euphrates; verse 15 turns the image to a different sense.

17:2

"Committed fornication" translates a verb for sexual immorality in general. The prophets used it for a nation's dealings with other nations and their gods, so the figure covers trade, alliance and worship as much as sex. Being "made drunk" with her wine is the same figure: the peoples are besotted rather than literally intoxicated.

17:3

"In the spirit" describes the state John is in, carried off in vision rather than bodily. "Wilderness" means empty, unfarmed country, not woodland. The Greek behind "blasphemy" covers any insulting or slanderous speech, and here the insults are aimed at God; Roman coins and inscriptions gave emperors titles such as divine, lord and savior. The beast with seven heads and ten horns is the beast of chapter 13, and the picture of horned beasts standing for empires goes back to Daniel 7.

17:4

Purple and scarlet were the two most costly dyes in the ancient world, purple squeezed from a sea snail and scarlet from a crushed insect. Both marked wealth and office, and purple in particular was the color of Roman magistrates and emperors. "Decked" simply means adorned. "Abominations" translates a word for what is detestable, used throughout the Greek Old Testament above all for idols.

17:5

The capital letters are the King James way of showing an inscription. "Mystery" does not mean a puzzle: the Greek word means a secret now being disclosed, and it may be part of the written name or may be a label telling the reader that the name is symbolic. Babylon was the empire that destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in 587 BC; by the first century both Jewish and Christian writers used the name as a cover word for Rome, which had destroyed the temple again in AD 70. Roman writers mention prostitutes wearing a headband with their name on it.

17:6

"Saints" translates a word meaning those set apart for God, that is, ordinary members of the churches, not a special class of heroes. "Martyrs" translates a word that at this date simply meant witnesses, people who testify; because so many who testified were killed, the word later narrowed to its modern sense. "I wondered with great admiration" has reversed since 1611: admiration then meant amazement or astonishment, not approval. John is staggered, not impressed.

17:7

The King James calls this a "mystery." In this book that does not mean a puzzle with no answer. It means a secret that is now being explained.

17:8

The "bottomless pit" is the abyss, pictured in this book as a shaft or prison under the earth. "Perdition" in the King James means ruin or destruction, the outcome rather than a place. "The book of life" is a register of citizens, a civic image familiar from ancient cities that kept rolls of who belonged. The phrase "was, and is not, and yet is" is built to echo the way God is described earlier in the book, "which is, and which was, and which is to come."

17:9

"Here is the mind which hath wisdom" is a signal that a riddle follows, the same marker used at 13:18. The Greek word translated "mountains" equally means hills, and Rome was known everywhere as the city on seven hills, a fact celebrated in Roman poetry and stamped on Roman coins. The next verse reads the same seven as kings, so the riddle is meant to carry both senses at once.

17:10

To first readers "kings" would mean Roman emperors. Which five have fallen depends on where the count starts, with Julius Caesar or with Augustus, and on whether the three short lived emperors of AD 69 are counted; the text gives no key, and the ambiguity is in the original. "A short space" means a short time.

17:11

The King James "is of the seven" renders a phrase meaning out of the seven, so the eighth both belongs to that series and is not simply the next one in it.

17:12

"Have received no kingdom as yet" means they do not rule anything at the time of the vision. "One hour" is a figure for a very brief and fixed stretch of time, not sixty minutes; Roman readers knew the pattern of client kings who held power only as long as the empire allowed it.

17:14

"Lord of lords, and King of kings" is a Hebrew way of forming a superlative, meaning highest lord of all and king above every king. The Old Testament uses it of God, and Persian and other eastern rulers claimed it for themselves.

17:15

The King James says "tongues." Here a tongue means a language that people speak.

17:16

Stripping a woman bare in public is the punishment the prophets describe for an unfaithful wife, as in Ezekiel 16 and 23. Burning was the penalty set in Leviticus 21:9 for a priest's daughter who prostituted herself, and burning was also what Rome itself did to captured cities. "Eat her flesh" echoes the death of Jezebel, whose body was eaten by dogs in 2 Kings 9. Where the King James has the ten horns "upon the beast," the oldest Greek manuscripts read "the ten horns and the beast," which makes the beast one of those who turn on her.

17:18

"Reigneth" is present tense, pointing at a power ruling as John writes. To his first readers, the one great city that ruled the kings of the earth could only be Rome.