16 In their war against Christ, the raging nations turn
against the Harlot, because of her connection with Him. 19 The
angel portrays this new enmity toward the Harlot by a fourfold
description: The peoples of the Empire will hate the Harlot and
will make her desolate and will make her naked, and will eat her
flesh and burn her up with fire (cf. Jer. 13:26; Lam. 1:8-9; Nab.
3:5). Jerusalem had committed fornication with the heathen nations,
but in A.D. 70 they turned against her and destroyed her,
making her desolate (the same word is used in Matthew 24:15, -
Mark 13:14, and Luke 21:20, reflecting the Greek version of
Daniel 9:26-27: the abomination of desolation). One of the punishments
for a convicted adulteress in the ancient world was the
public humiliation of being stripped naked (cf. Isa. 47:2-3; Jer.
13:26; Lam. 1:8; Ezek. 16:37, 39; 23:29; Hos. 2:10; Nab. 3:5).
Another connection with “Jezebel” (2:20; cf. on 17:5) is
made here: The nations eat her flesh, as the dogs (cf. 22:15) had
eaten the flesh of the original Jezebel (1 Kings 21:23-24; 2 Kings
9:30-37). The prophets who spoke of Jerusalem as the Whore
had said that just as a priest’s daughter who became a harlot was
to be “burned with fire” (Lev. 21:9), so God would use Jerusalem’s
former “lovers,” the heathen nations, to destroy her and
burn her to the ground (Jer. 4:11-13, 30-31; Ezek. 16:37-41;
23:22, 25-30). Russell observed that “Tacitus speaks of the bitter
animosity with which the Arab auxiliaries of Titus were filled
against the Jews,20 and we have a fearful proof of the intense
18. Luke goes on to list some of these nationalities: “Parthians and Medes
and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus
and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around
Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and
Arabs” (Acts 2:9-11).
19. The destruction of the Harlot by her former “lovers” is inexplicable
apart from the hypothesis that she is Jerusalem. There is clearly a contextual
connection between the nations’ war against Christ and their war against the
Harlot. Their opposition is, first and foremost, against Him; their destruction
of her is represented as an aspect of their attempt to destroy Him.
20. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories, v. 1.
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