Revelation 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore the final book of the Bible#Christian Bible, Christian Bible. Written in Greek language, Greek, ...

or the Apocalypse to John in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

of the

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. The book is traditionally attributed to

John the Apostle John the Apostle (; ; ), also known as Saint John the Beloved and, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Saint John the Theologian, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he ...

, but the identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter describes the judgment of the

Whore of Babylon Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and a place of evil as mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17:5 as "Mystery, Babylon ...

("Babylon the Harlot").

Text

The original text was written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

. This chapter is divided into 18 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are among others: * Papyrus 47 (3rd century; extant verses 1-2) *

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

(330-360) *

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early ...

(400-440)

New Testament references

* : (and also )

The vision of the harlot (17:1–6a)

After being mentioned only briefly in Revelation 14:8 and , Babylon is given a full description in this section.

Verse 1

:''Then one of the seven angels who had the

seven bowls The seven bowls (, ''phialas'' (acc. pl.), nom. sing. φιάλη, ''phialē''; also translated as cups or vials) are a set of plagues mentioned in Revelation 16. They are recorded as apocalyptic events that were seen in the vision of the Reve ...

came and talked with me, saying o me “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters,"'' *"One of the seven angels": provides a characteristic literary link to the previous chapter. German theologian

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (16 October 1752, in Dörrenzimmern – 27 June 1827, in Göttingen) was a German Protestant theologian of the Enlightenment and an early orientalist. He was a member of the Göttingen school of history. Education and ...

suggested that the ''first'' of the seven angels with the seven bowls is intended: is equivalent to .

Heinrich Meyer Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer (10 January 1800 – 21 June 1873) was a German Protestant divine. He wrote commentaries on the New Testament and published an edition of that book. Biography Meyer was born in Gotha. He studied theology at Jena, was ...

disagrees: "It is in no way to be conjectured which of the vial-angels it was". The words "to me" do not appear in

or in the

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

translation.

Verse 2

:''with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”'' Lutheran

Pietist Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life. Although the movement is ali ...

theologian Johann Bengel notes a parallel with Tyre, which "committed fornication with the kingdoms of the earth" in .

Verse 5

:''And on her forehead a name was written:'' ::MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, ::THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS ::AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS ::OF THE EARTH. The

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...

New King James Version The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English, working as a revision of the King James Version. Published by Thomas Nelson, the complete NKJV was released in 1982. With regard to its textual basis, the ...

, and

Young's Literal Translation Young's Literal Translation (YLT) is a translation of the Bible into English, published in 1862. The translation was made by Robert Young, compiler of '' Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible'' and ''Concise Critical Comments on the New Te ...

(1862) include the word 'mystery' (or 'secret' - YLT) within her title, but in many other English translations the word is descriptive of the name: "a name of mystery" (

Revised Standard Version The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation is a revision of the American St ...

English Standard Version The English Standard Version (ESV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published in 2001 by Crossway, the ESV was "created by a team of more than 100 leading evangelical scholars and pastors." The ESV relies on recently pu ...

), "a name that has a secret meaning" (

Good News Bible Good News Bible (GNB), also called the Good News Translation (GNT) in the United States, is an English translation of the Bible by the American Bible Society. It was first published as the New Testament under the name ''Good News for Modern Ma ...

Verse 6

:''I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.'' :''And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.'' This verse contains two descriptions of Christians which seem to refer to the same group (not two groups) of people.

The interpretation of the harlot (17:6b–18)

In response to John's astonishment at the vision of the harlot, an interpretation is given as much about the beast as about the harlot, because 'her fate is closely related to the career of the beast'.

Verse 6

:''I could see that she was drunk—drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus she had killed. I stared at her in horror.''

Verse 7

:'' Then the angel said to me, “Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast, with the seven heads and the ten horns, that carries her.''

Verse 8

:''The beast, which you saw, was, and is not, and is to ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to destruction. Those who dwell on the earth whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see the beast that was, and is not, and is to come.'' Whereas one of Revelation's key designations for God is the term 'the one who was and who is and who is to come' ( 1:4, 8), in this verse the beast is twice described in a similar term, but with the significant different in the middle which is negative: 'is not', because unlike God, the beast is not eternal and his second coming "will prove a fraud" and "''go to destruction''".

Verse 9

:''Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.'' *"Seven mountains": The definition of the mountains with the seven heads makes an unequivocal identification with

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, 'which is famous for its seven hills'.

Verse 10

:''There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time.'' *"Seven kings": is better to be recognized as the number of completeness, because the attempts to use this passage to identify the ruling Roman emperor when the Book of Revelation was written fail due to the impossibility to know 'from which emperor the counting should begin or whether all emperors should be counted'. It represents 'the complete sequence of kings', but not yet quite at the end because there is 'one short reign' still to come. *"A short time": or "a little while": is 'the conventional period of eschatological imminence' (cf. 6:11; Heb 10:37).

Verse 11

:''The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.'' *"Perdition": or "destruction".

Verse 16

: ''And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.'' *"

Naked Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. While estimates vary, for the first 90,000 years of pre-history, anatomically modern humans were naked, having lost their body hair, living in hospitable climates, and not ...

": compare to allusions in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

: ; .

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges is a biblical commentary set published in 56 volumes by Cambridge University Press between 1878 and 1918. Many volumes went through multiple reprintings, while some volumes were also revised, usually by ...

Revelation 17
Accessed 28 April 2019.

Verse 17

: ''For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.''

Verse 18

: ''And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.'' NKJV

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

* King James Bible - Wikisource
English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate

''Online Bible'' at GospelHall.org
(ESV, KJV, Darby, American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English)
Multiple bible versions at ''Bible Gateway''
(NKJV, NIV, NRSV etc.) {{Book of Revelation 17 Whore of Babylon

Text

Textual witnesses

New Testament references

The vision of the harlot (17:1–6a)

Verse 1

Verse 2

Verse 5

Verse 6

The interpretation of the harlot (17:6b–18)

Verse 6

Verse 7

Verse 8

Verse 9

Verse 10

Verse 11

Verse 16

Verse 17

Verse 18

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links