pt2
The Identity of the Harlot (17:1-7)
1 And one of the seven angels who had the Seven Chalices came and spoke with me, saying: Come here, I will show
you the judgment of the great Harlot who sits on many waters,
2 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and those who dwell on the Land were made drunk with
the wine of her fornication.
3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a Woman sitting on a scarlet Beast, full of
blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the Woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having
in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her fornication,
5 and upon her forehead a name written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE
HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE LAND.
6 And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And when I
saw her, I wondered with great wonder.
7 And the angel said to me, Why do you wonder? I will tell
THE FALSE BRIDE
1. The failure of the priesthood, and the consequences of this for the Bride, are recurring themes in Scripture.
17:1
you the mystery of the Woman and of the Beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
1-2 The vision of the Seven Chalices continues: One of the seven angels who had the Seven Chalices shows
St. John the fall of the Great Harlot who sits on many waters. St. John’s readers have already been told of a
Harlot-City named “Babylon the Great” (14:8; 16:19), and the Harlot’s resemblance to the original Babylon is
underscored by the information that she sits on many waters, an image taken from Jeremiah’s description of
Babylon in his famous oracle of judgment against her (Jer. 50-51). The expression many waters of Jeremiah
51:13 refers both to the Euphrates, which ran through the middle of the city, and to the canals surrounding it. Ultimately, it refers to the blessings which God had bestowed on Babylon, and which she prostituted for her
own glory. Thus St. John describes the Great Harlot of his day in terms of her prototype and model. Later, in
17:15, we are informed of one aspect of the symbolic meaning of the “many waters,” but for now the point is
merely the identification of the Harlot with Babylon.
At the same time, however, we must recognize that at every other point in Revelation where the expression
many waters is used, it is set within a description of God’s covenantal relationship and liturgical
interaction with His people. We have noted that the Voice from the Glory-Cloud sounds like many waters,
and that this Voice is produced by the innumerable angels in the heavenly council (Ezek. 1:24). Similarly,
in Revelation 1:15 Christ’s Voice is “like the sound of many waters” (cf. Ezek. 43:2); in 14:2 St. John again
hears the Voice from heaven as “the sound of many waters”; and in 19:6 the great multitude of the
redeemed, having entered the angelic council in heaven, joins in a song of praise, which St. John hears
as “the sound of many waters.” The expression is thus reminiscent of both God’s gracious revelation and His people’s liturgical response of praise and obedience.
Given the Biblical background and context of the phrase, it would come as no surprise to St. John’s
readers that the Woman should be seen seated on “many waters.” The surprise is that she is a whore. She
has taken God’s good gifts and prostituted them (Ezek. 16:6-16; Rom. 2:17-24).
The Harlot-City has committed fornication with the kings of the earth. This expression is taken from
Isaiah’s prophecy against Tyre, where it primarily refers to her international commerce (Isa. 23: 15-17);
Nineveh as well is accused of “many harlotries” with other nations (Nahum 3:4).2 Most often, however, the
image of a city or nation playing the harlot with the kingdoms of the world is used in reference to the
rebellious Covenant people. Speaking against apostate Jerusalem, Isaiah mourned:
How the faithful City has become a Harlot,
She who was once full of justice! Righteousness once lodged in her, But now murderers. (Isa. 1:21)
The imagery of Israel’s adultery is fairly common in the prophets, as they bring God’s Covenant Lawsuit against
the Bride who has abandoned her Husband.3 Jeremiah spoke against Israel as the Harlot, seeking after the false
gods of the heathen in place of her true Husband:
For long ago I broke your yoke
And tore off your bonds;
But you said, “I will not serve!”
For on every high hill
And under every green tree
You have lain down as a harlot. . . .
You are a swift young camel entangling her ways,
A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,
That sniffs the wind in her passion.
In the time of her heat who can turn her away?
All who seek her will not become weary;
In her month they will find her. . . .
Your sword has devoured your prophets
Like a destroying lion.
O generation, hear the Word of the LORD.
Have I been a wilderness to Israel,
Or a land of thick darkness?
Why do My people say, “We are free to roam;
We will come no more to Thee”?
Can a virgin forget her ornaments,
Or a Bride her attire?
Yet My people have forgotten Me
Days without number.
How well you prepare your way
To seek love!
Therefore even the wicked women
You have taught your ways. . . .
God says, If a husband divorces his wife,
And she goes from him
And belongs to another man,
Will he still return to her?
Will not that land be completely polluted?
But you are a harlot with many lovers;
Yet you turn to Me, declares the LORD.
Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see;
Where have you not been violated?
By the roads you have sat for them
Like an Arab in the desert,
And you have polluted a land
With your harlotry and with your wickedness.
Therefore the showers have been withheld,
And there has been no spring rain.
Yet you had a harlot’s forehead;
You refused to be ashamed. (Jer. 2:20-24, 30-33; 3:1-3)
Israel’s adulteries, Hosea said, took place “on every threshing floor” (Hos. 9:1): The picture is that of a
woman prostituting herself for money in the grain house in harvest-time. This carries a double meaning.
First, Israel was apostatizing into Baal-worship, seeking harvest blessing and fertility from false gods (forgetting
that fertility, and blessing in every area, can come only from the one true God). Second, the Temple was built
on a threshing floor (2 Chron. 3:1), symbolizing God’s
171 2. It is noteworthy that Tyre and Nineveh – the only two cities outside of Israel that are accused of harlotry – had both been in covenant with God. The kingdom of Tyre in David and Solomon’s time was converted to the worship of the true God, and her king contracted a covenant with Solomon and assisted in the building of the Temple (1 Kings 5:1-12; 9:13; Amos 1:9); Nineveh was converted under the ministry of Jonah (Jon. 3:5-10). The later apostasy of these two cities could rightly be considered harlotry.
3. For a brief survey of the harlot motif in Scripture, see Francis Schaeffer’s excellent little book
17:1-2 action throughout history in separating the chaff from His holy wheat (Job 21:18; Ps. 1:4; 35:5; Isa. 17:13;
Luke 3:17). The threshing floor is also symbolic of the marriage relationship: The union of Boaz and Ruth
took place on his threshing floor (Ruth 3), and the action of grinding at a mill is a Biblical image of sexual
relations (Job 31:10; Isa. 47:2; Jer. 25:10).4 Thus, instead of consummating her marriage to God through
worship at His threshing floor, the Bride went whoring after every other threshing floor, prostrating herself
before strange gods and alien altars.
Apostate Jerusalem is the Harlot-city; this theme becomes even more prominent in the prophecy of
Ezekiel, particularly in Ezekiel 16 and 23, where it is clear that her “adulteries” consist of religious-political
alliances with powerful heathen kingdoms (see, e.g., Ezek. 16:26-29). The people of Jerusalem in Ezekiel’s
day had abandoned the true faith and had turned to heathen gods and ungodly nations for help, rather than
trusting in God to be their protector and deliverer. It is important to note that while Israel herself seems to
have regarded these relationships in primarily political terms, the prophets emphasized that the religious issue
was central. The reliance of the Covenant nation on heathen powers could not be viewed as mere political
expediency; it was nothing less than harlotry. Using language so graphic and explicit that most modern
pastors won’t preach from these chapters,5 Ezekiel condemns Jerusalem as a degraded, wanton whore:
“You spread your legs to every passerby to multiply your
harlotry” (Ezek. 16:25).
Ezekiel’s sarcastic portrayal of Israel’s adultery is sharp and vivid: She lusts after the
(supposedly) well-endowed Egyptians, whose sex organs are the size of donkeys’ genitals, and who
produce semen in such prodigious amounts that it rivals that of a horse (16:26; 23:20). Her adulterous desire
(inflamed by pornographic pictures, 23:14-16) is so great that she is willing to pay strangers to come to her,
rather than the other way around (16:33-34); she even masturbates with the “male images” she has made (16:
17). Ezekiel’s prophecy was crude, and he most certainly offended many of his listeners; but he was
simply giving them a faithful description of how offensive they were to God. In the view of the all-holy
God who spoke through Ezekiel, nothing could be more obscene than the Bride’s apostasy from her divine
Husband.
The same was true of Israel in the first century. At the very moment when the promised Bridegroom arrived,
Israel was fornicating with Caesar. The sight of her true Husband only drove her further into adulterous union
with “the kings of the earth.” Rejecting Christ’s kingship (cf. 1 Sam. 8:7-8), the chief priests cried: “We
have no King but Caesar!” (John 19:15).
