What the Bible says about Babylon as Israel
(From Forerunner Commentary)
The elegant clothing, jewelry, and precious metals illustrate her wealth. It is a wealth as among nations, not merely a church. As a group, the Israelitish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, grew to control around 60% of the world's wealth at the height of their prosperity.
Nobody else on earth is in the position to influence, persuade, and guide as Israel is. Through the misuse of these gifts, Israel has risen to worldly greatness in terms of evil too. Despite its material greatness, it is unfortunately also spiritually great in its immorality, great in its confusion, great in its deviance from responsibility, great in its polluted influence—so great in its power only it can hold the Beast in check and make it do its bidding until God's time comes.
In recent history, Israel—represented primarily by the Joseph tribes—has brushed the world aside politically and economically. No other nation of people on earth today fits the characteristics given in Revelation 17 and 18.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Eight): God, Israel, and the BibleRelated Topics: Abraham, Descendants of | Babylon as Israel | Beast, Relationship with Woman | Descendants of Israel | Descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob | Great Harlot | Great Whore | Israel as Great Whore | Israel as Harlot | Israel's Worldliness | Joseph as Fruitful Bough | Joseph Running over the Wall | Joseph's Descendants
In the past, we have been taught that this refers to the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, does this truly refer only to a church, or is it something more politically, economically, and militarily powerful and influential? Notice her identification contains the name "Mystery." (I Corinthians 2:7-9 also uses this term.)
A biblical mystery is something that God must reveal for one to understand. It is not something right on the surface that anybody looking into Revelation can stumble across and quickly understand. This Woman's identification is not something easily seen. Of "mystery," William Barclay's The Letters to the Corinthians says: "The Greek word musterion means something whose meaning is hidden from those who have not been initiated, but crystal clear to those who have" (p. 26). Thus, commentaries are of virtually no help in identifying the Woman of these chapters.
Protestant biblical commentators pay little or no attention to the end-time twelve tribes of Israel. To them, that Israel does not exist! Conversely, evangelical writers and a few mainstream groups focus exclusively on the tiny nation of Israel in the Middle East. However, the Mystery Woman of Revelation 17 and 18 is much more than what that nation displays.
Commentators wholly disregard God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to make Israel into a populous, powerhouse nation both physically and spiritually—promises that affect both race and grace. Ignoring the race aspect altogether, they teach that the promises of grace were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
However, God, as a blessing to His church, revealed the knowledge of the end-time location of Israel to Herbert Armstrong through other men who were seeking to find the "lost ten tribes." God did this so the church can make better sense of what is happening regarding the fulfillment of prophecy as the return of Christ approaches. In Daniel 12:10, God promises that the wise would understand, and the wise are those who keep the ways of the Lord (Hosea 14:9).
Almost all Protestants claim, as Herbert Armstrong did, that the Woman is the Roman Catholic Church, against which they have a prejudice. But Revelation 17 and 18 are a continued revelation of the same Woman, Israel, who appears in chapter 12!
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Five): The Great HarlotRelated Topics: Babylon | Babylon as a Spiritual Entity | Babylon as a Woman | Babylon as a World Power | Babylon as Israel | Babylon the Great | Babylon, End-Time | Babylonish System | Covenant Relationship | Covenant, Rejecting God's | Great Harlot | Great Whore | Israel | Israel as Babylon | Israel as Great Whore | Israel as Harlot | Israel as Prostitute | Israel as Woman | Israel's Apostasy | Israel's Faithlessness | Israel's Immorality | Israel's Rebelliousness | Israel's Rejection of God | Israel's Rejection of God's Law | Israel's Relationship with God | Israel's Unfaithfulness | Israel's Worldliness | Jerusalem as Sodom and Egypt | Mother of Harlots | Musterion | Mystery | Woman as Symbol | Woman as Symbol of Israel | Woman as Symbol of System of Beliefs | Woman as Symbol of Babylon | Woman in Revelation 12 | Woman of Revelation 17-18 | Woman Riding the Beast
Is it really wild, unjust, and perhaps outright wrong that God could refer to Israel as a great prostitute, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots? Notice, however, Revelation 11:8: "And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." In the same book, He calls Jerusalem "Sodom and Egypt"! Both were despicable places. God is providing evidence to solve the identity of the prostitute by comparing Jerusalem—representing all Israel—to Sodom, noted in history for its sexual sins, and Egypt, known to biblical students for its harsh slavery of the Israelites and as a type of the anti-God world we must come out of.
These are two stunning and dramatic comparisons of Israel's immoral characteristics! Why should God not also compare her to Babylon? God reserves His harshest judgments for those who should know better but waste their gifts on prideful self-indulgence. Jesus says, "For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 12:48; see Amos 3:1-2).
In Ezekiel 16:46-51,56, God not only compares Jerusalem to both Samaria and Sodom, but He judges it to be more immorally vile than even those two well-publicized examples of ancient sin run wild! God portrays them as sisters under the skin! We all know the perversity of Sodom's sins. God goes so far as to say that Samaria had not committed half the sins that Jerusalem had. These verses put Israel's conduct into a perspective that we find difficult to accept, but it is true nonetheless—it is God's own judgment and testimony! That God calls Israel "Babylon" gives evidence of the magnitude of Israel's unfaithfulness to her Husband and Benefactor, God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Five): The Great HarlotRelated Topics: Babylon | Babylon as a Spiritual Entity | Babylon as a Woman | Babylon as a World Power | Babylon as Israel | Babylon the Great | Babylon, End-Time | Great Harlot | Great Whore | Israel | Israel as Babylon | Israel as Great Whore | Israel as Harlot | Israel as Prostitute | Israel as Woman | Israel's Apostasy | Israel's Faithlessness | Israel's Immorality | Israel's Rebelliousness | Israel's Unfaithfulness | Israel's Worldliness | Sodom | Sodom and Egypt | Sodom and Gomorrah | Sodom as a Type of the World
The phrase "mother of harlots" in Revelation 17:5 might be misleading and therefore misinterpreted because of the Bible's peculiar practice of frequently using terms such as daughters, sons, harlots, thieves, adulterers, and idolaters collectively, fully intending both genders. In other words, sin is not limited to one gender.
In collective usage, the term "daughters" includes males; the word "sons" includes females; and words like "harlots," "adulterers," "idolaters," and "thieves" include both males and females. This practice is what the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery calls a "double metaphor": one word, which may have a specific gender because the context demands it take that gender, but which actually includes both genders. Thus in Revelation 17:5, "harlots" is to be understood as including men involved in what the Bible specifies as harlotry.
Therefore, "mother of harlots," in Revelation 17:5 specifically refers to unfaithfulness within a covenant relationship with God, not a specific, human, sexual sin. The Protestant churches that revolted from the Catholic Church were certainly not unfaithful to God as His churches. They never made the Old Covenant with God, entering into a figurative marriage; they, as an entire nation, had never vowed to keep His laws. Nor were the Protestant and Catholic churches unfaithful to God as a church because neither ever had a New Covenant relationship with God as churches. However, the citizens of the nations of Israel were certainly unfaithful to God within a covenant relationship. Revelation 17 and 18 are describing a city/nation, not a church.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Five): The Great HarlotRelated Topics: Babylon | Babylon as a Spiritual Entity | Babylon as a Woman | Babylon as a World Power | Babylon as Israel | Babylon the Great | Babylon, End-Time | Babylonish System | Great Harlot | Great Whore | Israel | Israel as Babylon | Israel as Great Whore | Israel as Harlot | Israel as Prostitute | Israel as Woman | Israel's Apostasy | Israel's Faithlessness | Israel's Immorality | Israel's Rebelliousness | Israel's Rejection of God | Israel's Rejection of God's Law | Israel's Unfaithfulness | Israel's Worldliness | Jerusalem as Sodom and Egypt | Mother of Harlots | Sodom | Sodom and Egypt | Sodom and Gomorrah | Sodom as a Type of the World
Within the practical realities of international political, economic, and military affairs, the Beast may be resentful and unwilling to do as the Woman directs. As a wild animal would, it will undoubtedly buck and resist, but until God is ready, it ends up most of the time doing what the Woman wants. The Beast submits to the Woman because she possesses power greater in certain areas than the Beast, a power the Beast resents, envies, and plots to have for itself.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Eight): God, Israel, and the BibleRelated Topics: Babylon | Babylon as a Woman | Babylon as a World Power | Babylon as Israel | Babylon the Great | Babylon, End-Time | Babylonish System | Beast of Revelation | Beast, Relationship with Woman | Beast, The | Competition | Competitive Spirit | Competitiveness | Great Harlot | Great Whore | Israel | Israel as a Vine | Israel as Great Whore | Israel as Harlot | Israel as Prostitute | Israel as Woman
Babylon the Great is clearly the economic nerve-center of world trade, not of religion. Notice, first the kings of the earth bewail her destruction, and then the businessmen follow suit. It is hard to imagine both the kings of the earth and hardheaded businessmen bewailing the destruction of a church! These leaders are bewailing the destruction of an entity in which their power and wealth are involved, placing them in grave danger of overwhelming loss because Babylon is no longer able to consume their products.
Notice in Revelation 18:3, 7, 19, and 23 how clear the inferences and direct statements are regarding wealth, not only of Babylon itself, but also of those who trade with her. How can these scriptures apply to a church? Modern Israel has been largely responsible for causing the prosperity of Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and now China through trade.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Ten): Babylon the Great Is a Nation
Revelation 18:7 provides us with three of Babylon's important characteristics: that she glorified herself; that she lived extravagantly; and that she proclaimed herself a queen, not a widow, and would see no sorrow. We are looking for an end-time city/nation that is exceedingly wealthy, influential, disdainful, contemptuous, and mocking. She is portrayed as proud to the point of arrogance, self-confident in her security, thinking she has produced the power by her own means. She lives extravagantly relative to the levels of other nations, seeking further gratification while simultaneously compromising with known standards.
We see three remarkable characteristics: arrogant pride; satiety ("fullness of bread," as God calls it elsewhere, a super-abundance of all the good things in life); and avoidance of suffering, a compromising, self-absorbed, self-indulgence.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beast and Babylon (Part Five): The Great HarlotRelated Topics: Arrogance | Babylon as a Woman | Babylon as Israel | Beast of Revelation | Harlot, Israel as | Israel as Babylon | Israel as Great Whore | Israel as Harlot | Pride | Satiety | Self Absorption | Self Centeredness | Self Indulgence