Revelation 18

This chapter belongs to the latter part of the Book of Revelation, in the section dealing with the final judgment. Babylon, portrayed as the great harlot in Revelation 17, falls in this chapter, and in the following chapter, Revelation 19, heaven resounds with praise.

Outline

• Verses 1–3: Another angel with great power comes down and cries out, "is fallen, is fallen," proclaiming the destruction of the great city Babylon.
• Verses 4–8: Another voice from heaven calls God's people to come out of the city. It calls for Babylon's pride to be repaid double and declares that her plagues will come in one day.
• Verses 9–10: The kings of the earth see the smoke of her burning from afar and mourn.
• Verses 11–17a: The merchants (rendered sanggodeul in the Korean Revised Version) weep as they recite a list of wares ranging from gold and silver to slaves and the souls of men.
• Verses 17b–19: Shipmasters and sailors cast dust on their heads and raise a lament.
• Verse 20: Heaven, the saints, the apostles, and the prophets are called to rejoice.
• Verses 21–24: A mighty angel casts a stone like a great millstone into the sea. The sounds of music, labor, and marriage, along with the light of the lamp, cease in the city, and it is declared that the blood of the saints was found in her.

Key Verses

• Revelation 18:2: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen." This proclamation sums up the theme of the entire chapter.
• Revelation 18:4: "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins." Set within a proclamation of judgment, this verse is often cited as an exhortation to believers.
• Revelation 18:21: "Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." The angel's act dramatizes the completeness of the destruction (see Revelation 18:20–21).

Characters and Places

• Angels: The chapter features an angel who proclaims the destruction and a mighty angel who casts the stone.
• Babylon: Originally the capital of the empire that carried Judah into captivity. In this chapter the name serves as a symbol for the powers that oppose God.
• The kings of the earth, merchants, and seafarers: Those who shared in Babylon's wealth and power. They mourn the city's fall.

Points to Consider When Reading

• What Babylon represents: Interpretations differ. Preterism identifies it with the first-century Roman Empire. Futurism, particularly dispensationalism, reads it as an actual city or world system that will appear at the end of the age. Idealism understands it as a symbol of the economic and political systems opposed to God that arise in every era. During the Reformation, some Protestant interpreters identified it with the Roman papacy.
• Old Testament background: The chapter's language echoes the proclamation of Babylon's fall in Isaiah 21:9, the call to "flee out of the midst of Babylon" and the act of casting a stone into the river in Jeremiah 51, and the lament over Tyre in Ezekiel 27.
• "Double unto her double": This expression in verse 6 is sometimes read as a command to take vengeance. Many commentators regard it not as a call for personal revenge by believers but as an idiom of apocalyptic literature describing God's righteous judgment.
• Connections within the book: The cry "is fallen" was already anticipated in Revelation 14:8. The "souls of men" at the end of the list of wares (v. 13) is frequently noted as an indictment of exploitation that extended even to the buying and selling of human beings.