The destruction of Babylon is announced in Rev. 14:8 and then described in great detail in chapters 17-19. But the question to ask is, “What is Babylon?” And commentators are no more in agreement on that point than they are concerning any other portion of this difficult book. So below I have attempted to wade through the various major opinions and group them according to their answer to the question just posed: What in the world is Babylon? Or is it even in this world?
But first, we need to recognize that the above chapters in Revelation are the same as the rest of the book in being permeated with allusions to the Old Testament (see my post “Old Testament in the Book of Revelation”).
Thus, much of the description of Babylon's downfall is similar to the curses and taunt songs regarding the nations and found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Especially close to the language in Revelation are the predictions regarding Tyre found in Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 26-28.
Nineveh, Tyre, Samaria and Jerusalem are called “the great whore” elsewhere in Ezekiel.
The phrase “many waters” identifies the literal Babylon in Jeremiah 51:13.
Isaiah 21:9 talks about the downfall of the gods of Babylon.
Nineveh is called “the great city” in the Book of Jonah, and Phillip Cary points out that both Babylon and Nineveh were well known persecutors of Israel.
The prediction of literal Babylon's fall is described in the Book of Daniel.
The whore of Babylon may have Queen Jezebel in mind as her prototype according to several commentators.
But similarities such as above are not definitive by any means since it is obvious that the Book of Revelation utilizes much OT language without actually saying that these events will be fulfillments of anything found in the OT. So here are the major options for identification of “Babylon” in Revelation 17-19. I have listed them in order, starting with what I personally believe to be the least likely possibilities and ending with my own vote for the most likely interpretation.
The Capital of a Future World Empire
This is the usual explanation given by some futurists and almost all dispensationalists. This world empire was definitively identified by Hal Lindsey years ago as the EU since its 10 nations at the time represented the 10 horns on the beast in Daniel. Of course, that union now includes 27 nations at last count, proving that Lindsey's stated method of using the newspaper to interpret the Bible is somewhat flawed. In addition, Beale points out that it is just as logical to equate the seven heads on the beast (Rev. 17:9) with the total of seven heads found on the beasts in Daniel 7:3-7, obviously representing a span of years, so that “the seven mountains and kings represent the oppressive power of world governments throughout the ages.”
One of the main dispensationalist leaders, John Walvoord, is a little less sensationalist than Lindsey when he says that Babylon will be the name of the “seat of power of the great world empire which will dominate the second half of the last seven years before Christ's return.” That allows him to retain a “literal” meaning for the designation Babylon since “ancient Babylon will be rebuilt as the final capital city of the beast's empire.”
John Phillips provides another example of typical dispensationalist reasoning: multiple fulfillments. He admits that the OT prophecies of Babylon being destroyed were mainly fulfilled millennia ago, but that is not the same as all of the prophecies being literally fulfilled. Thus, he points out that predictions of Babylon's destruction in Isaiah 13 did not involve the disturbances in the sky predicted in verses 6, 9-10, and 13.
But his explanation falls flat on at least two counts. It totally ignores the typical poetic, hyperbolic, and symbolic language associated with OT prophetic and apocalyptic writings. It also ignores the well accepted fact that time periods being referred to in the prophets often collapse or telescope near events with far distant events. One obvious example is Peter's quotation from Joel on the Day of Pentacost when he said that the coming of the Holy Spirit predicted in that passage had been fulfilled. However, Peter stopped right before verses in Joel mentioning disturbances in the heavens since that was going to happen at a much later date.
Jerusalem
Equally unlikely is the identification of Babylon as Jerusalem, but that interpretation has been proposed by several commentators. For example, P. W. L. Walker thinks that the language in Revelation 18 “appears to reflect the recent fall of Jerusalem.” That may be true, but the same could be said concerning the decline of any other important city or empire in the past. After citing a number of literal events in ancient Rome that have parallels with the “Babylon” in Revelation, J. M. Ford surprisingly expresses the opinion that Babylon is in fact Jerusalem. The reason for that identification mainly stems from the fact that Ford feels most of the Book of Revelation was written by John the Baptist. But she is practically alone with that opinion. Beale cites Chilton, who agrees with Ford that the Babylon of Revelation 17-19 is Jerusalem. Finally, the city in Revelation 11 appears to be Jerusalem, and it is also called “the great city.” But others such as J. Munck feel that the city in that chapter is more likely to be Rome since the two witnesses who are martyred there are obviously Paul and Peter.
However, Beale counters that their attempts to describe Jerusalem as a major economic power in the Mediterranean region (as portrayed in Revelation) are highly unconvincing.
The Apostate Church
Due to the obvious correspondences between Rome and the Babylon of Rev. 17-19, some commentators, especially those of earlier generations, saw a direct parallel between Babylon and the Roman Catholic Church. One is, however, much less likely today to hear of that exact correspondence, especially since the drastic weakening of the Catholic Church's sway over politics and economics in Europe.
Rome
This seat of the powerful political and economic powerhouse, the Roman Empire, would seem to be by far the most natural candidate for “Babylon.” And there is much supporting evidence behind that identification. For one thing, Peter passes on greetings in I Peter 5:13 from “she [your sister church] who is in Babylon,” which most scholars feel is a veiled reference to Rome. Similarly, Babylon was used as a secret code-word for Rome in other Jewish writings from around the first century AD such as 2 Esdras 3:1-2; 2 Barnabas 11:1; and the Sibylline Oracles 5. The reason for such an indirect reference was to be able to criticize Rome without getting into trouble with the authorities.
Mounce states that Babylon was chosen as the designation for Rome because it “has always been symbolic of opposition to the advance of the kingdom of God.” More specifically, both Babylon and Rome destroyed Jerusalem. The prominent evangelical scholar F.F. Bruce similarly equates Babylon to Rome.
Beasley-Murray explains that “Rome was, to John, the quintessence of the anti-God spirit manifested in earlier ages but now come to the full. As such it was the last Empire over which the devil should hold sway.” Hobbs strictly applies these chapters to Rome of that day. Both he and Payne say that Revelation 17-19 predicted the fall of the Roman empire in 476 AD.
Ideal, or Symbolic, View
Many commentaries will point out the similarities between the description of Babylon in these chapters with historical events related to the historic Roman Empire, even down to the exact succession of rulers listed. But Beale points out that it is in reality difficult to get the details to match up exactly. So considering the wide range of allusions throughout Revelation to both current and historic events, it is not surprising that a number of influential commentators take a basically idealist view of the book. In other words, everything found in it is symbolic of a more important theological point. Here are some comments from those scholars:
Hoekema: “Babylon stands for the worldly city – the forces of secularism and godlessness which are in opposition to the kingdom of God.”
Robbins: “This is world power...still present today in the organized evil of the world against the church.”
Seebass: “Although Babylon the Great has some of the features of historic Babylon and Rome of the time and contemporary power, she “is the type of worldly power in rebellion against God and the antitype of the heavenly Jerusalem.”
The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: “Babylon stands not for a specific power but more generally for world power in opposition to God – the empire where God's people live in exile.”
Rome as the Prime Illustration of Opposition to the God Over the Ages
Although the idealist view appears to be the most satisfactory one, it is still missing a nuance found in this final approach to the text. The part not wholly accounted for by some idealists is the wealth of references to historic Rome of the time of John's writing. Thus, we have the following clarifications from the authors cited below.
Leon Morris: “For John, Babylon is the great city, the symbol of man in community opposed to the things of God...though doubtless to men of the first century there was no better illustration of what Babylon means than contemporary Rome. John is looking forward to the overthrow of all the evil that Babylon stands for.”
Beale: Babylon “is the entire corrupt economic-religious system...Nevertheless the wicked religious-economic culture of the evil Roman world system is the focus.” “The invasion of the Roman Empire by the Goths and Huns in the fifth and sixth centuries are not fulfillments of but only illustrations and adumbrations of the last conflict narrated in Rev. 17:16.”
W. Hendricksen: Babylon is a symbol which “indicates that which allures, tempts, seduces, draws people away from God, the heathen center of wickedness, the world as center of industry, commerce, are, culture, etc.” “Its form changes; its essence remains.” Thus, he explains, in John's day it was typified by Rome.
Ellul criticizes those scholars who simply treat Babylon as a secret code ford for Rome used so that the political authorities could not understood what was said. By contrast, Ellul says, “Babylon is not the symbol of Rome; it is Rome, a historical reality which is transformed into the symbol of a more profound and polymorphous reality of which Babylon has traditionally been the expression.” This includes “the perfection of political power,” “the city, concentration of the culture and work of man,” “being in communication (by sacred prostitution) with the religious and spiritual powers, with the satanic sources,” “commerce and wealth,” and “the one who kills the saints.”
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