Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Revelation · About this commentary
Babylon the Great, Mother
Revelation 17:4-6
4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth. · WEB
The prostitute's wardrobe parodies the sanctuary, her cup is gold outside and abomination inside, her name is on her forehead, and she is drunk on martyr blood.
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth.
The wardrobe is a double parody, and both halves are deliberate. Purple, scarlet, gold, precious stones — the high priest's own materials Exodus 28:5–6 Exodus 28:17: a religious system dressed in the sanctuary's colors without the sanctuary's holiness — the vestments of mediation worn by the anti-mediator. And the same inventory anticipates the bride's opposite: the New Jerusalem's gold and jewels are a city's structure Revelation 21:18–19, the Lamb's wife's linen is the righteous acts of the saints Revelation 19:8; the prostitute's riches are costume over corruption.
Her instrument is the cup: golden outside — Jeremiah's very image, Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh's hand, that made all the earth drunken Jeremiah 51:7 — and inside, abominations and impurities: the packaging precious, the contents poison; form magnificent, doctrine defiling. The book's whole warning about appearances Revelation 13:11 in one vessel.
And on her forehead a name was written: "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" Revelation 17:5.
The forehead again — the book's anatomy of allegiance Revelation 7:3 Revelation 13:16 Revelation 14:1: the woman wears her identity where the saints wear the Father's name. Mystery — her Babylon-hood is not the old city on the literal Euphrates but the thing that city always was, unveiled: Babel's project Genesis 11:4 in its final religious form. And mother of the prostitutes — she has daughters: a family of systems reproducing her method, faithlessness with her features, the apostasy franchised.
I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great wonder Revelation 17:6.
The portrait's last stroke is the indictment the bowls answered Revelation 16:6: drunk — not merely guilty of the saints' blood but intoxicated on it, persecution as her cup's own vintage, the long era's martyrs Revelation 6:9–10 Revelation 13:15 her drink. And the seer wondered with great wonder — John himself staggered by the sight: a woman in sanctuary colors, drunk on the blood of the people of God. The amazement is the danger the vision exists to cure — the angel's next words will dismantle it: why do you wonder? Revelation 17:7.
held with reason What this mark means