15Then the angel said to me, "The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. 16The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. 17For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God's words are fulfilled. 18The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth."
Dig Deeper
If you grew up in America in the 1980’s then you’re probably at least familiar with the classic ‘80’s movie, Can’t Buy Me Love. The movie depicts a young nerd who desperately wants to be part of the cool crowd. He does everything in his power to accomplish that, eventually paying a popular cheerleader to pretend to date him. This finally got him into the popular crowd, but in the process he abandoned his friends, his morals, and everything else that was important to him. What he didn’t realize though was that the popular crowd that he desired so desperately to be a part of, didn’t really like him. Once he was exposed as not really being cool, they quickly turned on him and were more than happy to ignore and even persecute him.
As silly as that example is, it does help us to understand the dynamic that we being described between Israel, the great prostitute, and the beast of the Roman Empire. On the surface, the two were never very friendly and didn’t seem to be allies, but Israel had desired to be like Rome in so many ways, that she lost her true identity in pursuit of being like Rome. Rome put up with Israel for a while but never embraced her as a friend, so when situations changed, Rome was more than ready to turn on Israel and destroy her. The very country that Jewish leadership had crawled into bed with and wanted so badly to be like, would now be the agent of God’s judgment on them for their rebellion against Him.
17:15 - Now the angel explains the primary significance to the symbolism of the woman sitting on the waters. The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, in multitudes, nations, and languages. It is put in terms of a fourfold description, thus signifying the entire world. Identifying the pagan, ungodly nations with the waters or that sea is a familiar concept in the Bible. (See Isa. 17:12-13; Isa. 57:20-21; Rev. 13:1 for a few examples). Jerusalem could be described as sitting on "many waters" because of the great influence that Jews had in all parts of the Roman Empire before 70 AD. The spread of Jews can be seen at the day of Pentecost when Jews from every nation came back to Jerusalem (Acts 2:5). By 70 AD their was a synagogue in nearly every city in the Roman Empire.
17:16 - In their war against God, the enraged nations will turn against Jerusalem because of her self-proclaimed connections with Him. The description of their hatred toward the Prostitute is, again, in a fourfold description: The Beast and her allies will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire (cf. Jer. 13:26; Lam. 1:8-9; nah. 3:5). Bring her to ruin is actually a word that means ‘desolation’ and is the same word Jesus used in Matt. 24:15, Mark 13:14, and Luke 21:20, connecting it to Daniel’s abomination of desolation in Dan. 9:26-27. One of the common punishments for a convicted adulteress in the ancient world was to be stripped naked (cf. Isa. 47:2-3; Jer. 13:26; Lam. 1:8; Ezek. 16:37, 39; 23:29; Hos. 2:10; Nah. 3:5). Another connection is made with Jezebel as it is said that the Empire will eat her flesh, just as the dogs had eaten the flesh of the original Jezebel (1 Ki. 21:23-24; 2 Ki. 9:30-37). Just as the Old Testament called for a priest’s daughter that became a prostitute to be burned (Lev. 21:9), so would God’s kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6) turned prostitute would be burned to the ground (Jer. 4:11-13, 30-31; Ezek. 16:37-41; 23:22, 25-30). In The Parousia, J. Stuart Russell notes, "Tacitus speaks of the bitter animosity with which the Arab auxiliaries of Titus were filled against the Jews, and we have a fearful proof of the intense hatred towards the Jews by the neighbouring nations in the wholesale massacres of that unhappy people perpetrated in many great cities just before the outbreak of the war. The whole Jewish population of Caesarea were massacred in one day. In Syria every city was divided into two camps, Jews and Syrians. In Scythopolis upwards of thirteen thousand Jews were butchered; in Ascalon, Ptolemais, and Tyre, similar atrocities took place,. But in Alexandria the carnage of the Jewish inhabitants exceeded all the other massacres. . . Fifty thousand corpses lay in ghastly heaps in the streets." Truly the Beast and the ten horns. . . . will hate the prostitute.
We should realize that the Beast destroyed Jerusalem as part of the war against Christ. They not only wanted to end the Jewish rebellion but to put an end to Christianity. Sulpitius Severus writes that the Roman General "Titus himself thought that the temple ought specially to be overthrown, in order that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might more thoroughly be subverted; for that these religions, although contrary to each other, had nevertheless proceeded from the same authors; that the Christians had sprung up from among the Jews; and that, if the root were extirpated, the offshoot would speedily perish." The Beast, inspired by the Dragon, thought it could get rid of the prostitute and the Bride of Christ in one fell swoop. Instead, Jerusalem would lay in ruins and the Church was revealed as the new and glorious Temple of God.
17:17 - For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by giving the Beast power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled. These nations thought they were acting on their own behalf, but the reality of the situation was they were merely the instruments that God used to enact the curses of the Covenant (Deut.) on the Covenant-breakers.
17:18 - The angel now confirms that the woman, the prostitute, is the great city, a term that John has already used for Jerusalem, the city where Jesus was crucified. This is the city that rules over the kings of the earth. This verse has confused many into supposing that the woman is Rome (this of course doesn’t make much sense of verses like v. 16). How can it be said that Jerusalem held such worldwide political power? The answer is simple. Revelation is not about political power, but about Covenant. Jerusalem did reign over the nations covenantally; she was to be the Kingdom above all kingdoms, the Kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6) that interceded on behalf of the world. The destruction of the prostitute was the final sign that this Kingdom had been transferred to God’s new people, the Church (Matt. 21:43; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 11:19; 15:5; 21:3).
Devotional Thought
Israel had failed to be the Kingdom of priests that God had called them to be. Now it is the Church that is called to that function. Do you act like you are part of a Kingdom of priests that should be transforming and influencing the world, or do you act more like you are ashamed of your Christianity, keeping it quiet most of the time? What does Romans 1:16 mean to you personally?
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