Babylon the Great

The Text of Revelation

"Babylon the great" is the name the Book of Revelation gives to a city that sets itself against God and is judged.

• 14:8: A second angel cries, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city."
• 16:19: When the seventh vial is poured out, "great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath."
• Chapter 17: The great whore, who rides a scarlet beast, bears on her forehead the name "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT" (17:5). The woman is identified as "that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth" (17:18).
• Chapter 18: The fall of Babylon is proclaimed, and the kings, merchants, and seafarers of the earth lament over her. Verse 4 contains the call "Come out of her, my people." In verse 21 an angel casts a stone like a great millstone into the sea.
• 19:1–3: A heavenly multitude cries Alleluia over the judgment of the whore.

Background

Babylon was the capital of the empire that destroyed Judah and carried its people into exile (the Babylonian captivity). Several Old Testament passages are echoed in the language of Revelation.

• In Daniel 4:30, Nebuchadnezzar boasts, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?"
• Isaiah 21:9 cries, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen."
• Jeremiah 51 contains a golden cup (v. 7), the call "My people, go ye out of the midst of her" (v. 45), and a scene in which a stone is bound to a book and cast into the Euphrates (vv. 63–64). These passages share language with Revelation 18.

By the time Revelation was written, ancient Babylon had long since declined. The name is therefore read as a symbol characteristic of apocalyptic literature. The reference in 1 Peter 5:13 to "the church that is at Babylon" is likewise commonly understood as a veiled reference to Rome.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

In the Old Testament, Babylon was a proud power that oppressed God's people. Some interpreters also connect it with the account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Revelation takes up this imagery and portrays worldly power in three aspects:

• Idolatry
• Wealth amassed through luxury and commerce
• Violence that shed the blood of the saints (17:6; 18:24)

This city of the whore stands in contrast to the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb, in chapter 21.

Interpretations and Debates

• Preterism: Identifies Babylon with the Roman Empire of John's day. The "seven mountains" of 17:9 are often linked to Rome, the city built on seven hills. Some preterists identify Babylon instead with Jerusalem.
• Historicism: Reads the text as prophecy spanning the whole of church history. During the Reformation, an interpretation linking Babylon with the papacy became widespread among Protestants. Martin Luther also drew on Babylonian imagery to criticize the papacy in On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520). The Seventh-day Adventist Church, in its interpretation of the second angel's message in chapter 14, regards Babylon as apostate religious power.
• Futurism: Regards Babylon as an actual city or world system that will appear in the end times. Some dispensationalist interpreters have expected a city to be rebuilt on the site of ancient Babylon.
• Idealism: Reads Babylon not as a specific city but as a symbol of the social, economic, and religious systems opposed to God that exist in every age.

Many interpreters combine several of these approaches. The text does not specify which present-day nation or organization Babylon represents; identifying any particular entity as Babylon is the interpreter's own claim.

In the Korean Church

In preaching, 18:4 is often applied as an exhortation to turn away from materialism and the pursuit of pleasure. By contrast, Shincheonji is known to teach that established churches are Babylon. Counselors who work with members of heretical groups criticize this interpretation as a means of drawing believers away from their existing churches.