A Commentary in Simple English on Revelation

CHAPTER 17

The Woman on the Wild Animal

This chapter has three parts. The first is verses 1 and 2. The second part is the main part (verses 3-14). Then verse 15 begins the third part. This is just verses 15-18. Verse 15 begins: 'Then he (the angel) said to me...' Any reader will find that it helps to look at these last three verses first.

1 Verse 18 tells us who the Woman is. She is 'the great city'. She rules over the kings of the earth. She is Rome. Old Rome with its great sin has gone now, although today Rome is still an important city. The point is this. The Woman is not only Rome. It is any great, proud city, which is full of sin.

2 Then in verse 15, John explains what the 'waters' are. Babylon had one river, the Euphrates, but the river split up into many streams. (See Jeremiah 51:13.) Rome has only one river. It is called the Tiber. But John makes it clear that the 'waters' here mean great crowds of people. These are the crowds in cities like Babylon or Rome.

3 Then verse 16 tells us what the end of the story of the Woman will be. The 'wild animal' will destroy her. This is the first 'wild animal' from 13: 1. In other words it is the Roman Empire.

4 Then verse 17 tells us why this will happen. It is God's will.

In Chapters 2 and 3, John tells us about the seven churches in the cities of Asia. Then in Chapters 4 to 15 he told us how God separates His church from the cities. Chapters 17 and 18 tell us of the city without the church. It is the city that is 'of this world'. Then from Chapter 19 onwards John will tell us about the Church without the city. Indeed, the church becomes the city. The city then is not 'the city of this world'. It is the New Jerusalem. It is the city of God.

Verses 1 and 2 John and an angel

This chapter (verse 1), begins with one of the angels who had the seven bowls of God's anger. This angel tells John to come with him. In 21:9 it is another of these angels who tells John to come with him. He will then show John 'The Bride, the wife of the Lamb'. So John wants us to think about these two cities. There is the sinful, loose woman in Chapter 17. And there is the pure, holy Bride of Christ in Chapter 21. It has been called 'A Tale of Two Cities'.

In the Old Testament, the Jewish people are often pictured as the wife of God. (See Isaiah 54:1,4,5,6 and Hosea 2:19,20 for example.) When the Jewish people sinned they were like a woman who is not faithful to her own husband. Their sin was often the worship of false 'gods'. This was 'adultery'. It was as though the Jews had sex with other 'gods'. This thought runs all through the Book of Hosea. Other cities and nations were not the 'wife' of God. (See Isaiah 23: 17 for the city of Tyre or Nahum 3:4 for Nineveh.)

The sin of these cities was mostly to do with trade. Trade is good, if it helps both the buyer and the seller. But if we sell something that is good and for it we are made to buy something which is no good, then trade is bad. Arms are no good. Many nations sell their goods and buy arms, which can do no good. They only destroy. The trade in drugs is all bad. So the prophets said that the trade of cities like Tyre and Nineveh was bad. John will say this about 'Babylon' in Chapter 18. But in this chapter he speaks about the sins of sex. And by this he mostly means the worship of false 'gods'.

The angel tells John that he will show him how God has decided to punish the woman. Your English Bible may call her a 'whore', a 'harlot' or a 'prostitute'. These words all mean a woman who will have sex with any man, and who will take money for this from the man. John uses a word that really means she is very dirty. We will use the word 'harlot', although this is rather old English. (See Isaiah 23:17.) The 'harlot' sits on a royal seat, or a 'throne'. She rules like a queen. She rules over great crowds of people (verse 15); they are here called 'many waters'. Verse 18 tells us that the woman was the city of Rome.

In verse 2 'the kings of the earth' are the Romans. They 'committed adultery' with her. (See Nahum 3:4.) They joined in the worship of false 'gods'. Such worship often led to people getting drunk. John does not mean here that the Romans were drunk with wine or beer. They had so much power that they behaved badly like men who were drunk.

Verses 3-14 The 'Harlot' and the Wild Animal

In verse 3, the angel takes John away to a lonely place, away from the city. It is a dry place. John will not see 'many waters' here! But he does see a woman. The last time we read about a woman in a lonely place, 'the wilderness', was in 13:14-16. But this woman rides on a wild animal. This has seven heads and ten horns. [17.1] It is the first wild animal that John saw in 13:1. Now John says it is red as blood. We know that the first wild animal is a picture of the Roman Empire. It is covered with 'blasphemous names'. This is because both Rome and Caesar said that people should worship them. The true and living God has the right to all worship. Any worship that we give to anyone else takes away God's honour and glory from Him.

So in verse 4. John had come with the angel to see the woman. Now he tells us about her. Her clothes are 'scarlet and purple'. These were dark red colours. Kings and men who held high offices wore them. Other people could not find enough money to buy them. So she is dressed like a queen. She had fine clothes and a cup that was made from gold was in her hand. But what was in the cup was not clean. It was just dirty. And everything she did showed just what a bad woman she was (Jeremiah 51:3).

Then in verse 5 John tells us that she had a message with a secret meaning. She had this on her forehead. This said that she was 'Babylon the Great'. (See 14:8 and 16:19.) She is the 'mother' from whom the 'harlots' come. 'Harlots' here means people who worship false 'gods'. And she is the 'mother' from whom come all the sinful, cruel things that go on in the world. Then verse 6 adds that the 'harlot' is drunk. The blood of Christians who have been killed for their faith excites her. [17.2] John says that when he saw the woman, it was a great shock to him. We can suggest several reasons for this.

1 John could only see that the 'harlot' was as bad as she was if he saw her in a lonely place.

2 It was because the 'harlot' rode the wild animal. The city of Rome was so bad that it ruined the whole of the Empire.

3 Then the angel had said that he would show John 'the judgment' of the 'harlot'. But John sees her; and God has not yet judged her. Perhaps this was a shock to him.

4 Or John may be so shocked because he sees that she is like the woman that he saw in Chapter 13.

Perhaps the angel means -'You should not be so shocked'. But there are times when it is good for Christians to be shocked by what is really bad. So in verse 7 the angel promises to explain to John what it all means. It is as though he says to John: - 'You have questions in your mind. I will answer those questions for you.' The secret or 'mystery' is of the 'woman and the wild animal'. It is the two together.

a) First, in verse 8, the 'wild animal' was once alive; now he is not alive. He is about to come up out of the 'abyss', that is the hole which has no bottom. Only then he will go to destruction. Sin and the devil have no present. Men have no past. We 'were not' until we were born. We only have this life. Then comes death, and we 'are no longer', except that God by His grace gives to us eternal life. But God always was, is now, and always will be. So the words in verse 8 mean that the first 'wild animal' tries to be as good as God. But he cannot do it!

b) Then in the rest of verse 8, we are told again what we read in Chapter 13. Christians are on a journey to the City of God. God has already written our names in His book, which lists those who will have life. This lists the names of all those who have the right to go into the City of God. (22:14). So we are on the move. But other people just 'sit on the earth'. They go nowhere. They are not on their way to God's glory. Their names are not listed in God's book of life. And it comes as a shock to them when they see the first 'wild animal'. 13:3 tells us why they are so shocked.

c) Now in verse 9, the angel says: 'Sharpen up your brain!' The seven heads of the first 'wild animal' are seven hills. Rome was famous as the city that was built on seven hills. [17.3] On these seven hills the woman, the 'Harlot', sits like a queen. The seven heads also mean seven kings. The first six Roman Emperors were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero and Vespasian. So Vespasian is the one who 'now is'. Titus is the seventh. He is the one who 'must remain for a little while'. (AD 79-81 - only a couple of years). So Domitian (AD 81-96) is the 'one who has not yet come'. He is the eighth. [17.4]

'He belongs to the seven' means that he is as bad as Nero had been. In fact, the Emperors after Domitian ruled the Roman Empire better than any of these people except Augustus. It was almost two hundred years later that the Church suffered so badly from bad Emperors.

Anyone who wants to find out more about what these verses mean can look at Daniel 7. The 'ten horns' there (verse 24) mean much the same as they mean in verse 12. The Roman Empire fell about 400 AD. A tribe called the Goths led by a man named Alaric took the city. This was in August 410 AD. The Empire broke up, and ever since has been made up of smaller 'states' or kingdoms. [17.5] It is divided, but still it is united in its hatred of Christ (Verse 13).

So in verse 14 we learn that the ten 'horns' or kings will fight against the Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ. (See 11:7; 16:14-16; 19:11-21.) They cannot win. Jesus is 'King of Kings'. This does not mean King of the 'ten kings'. All real Christians are kings. And Jesus is their King. And they are 'with Him'. (See 14:1; Matthew 25:10 and 1 Thessalonians 4:17.) Then this verse says three wonderful things, which are true about all real Christians.

a) They are 'called'. It is God Himself who has called them to follow the Lamb, the Lord Jesus. God promises to give His Holy Spirit to all whom He calls (Acts 2:39). God's call comes to us from heaven. It is also a call to us to go to heaven (Philippians 3: 14).

b) Then they are 'chosen'. God Himself has chosen them. We know that this is so when God calls us. (Romans 8:28-30) Now God did not choose us because we were good. We were sinners; we were not good at all. (Romans 5:6-8) He did not choose us because we were strong or clever. He chose us just because He loved us so much.

c) Then Christians are 'faithful'. They do what God tells them to do. They hear the teaching of Jesus and they do what He said. They will not worship false 'gods', even if they have to die. They are faithful, and when the Lamb 'overcomes', they will be with Him, and share His glory and honour. [17.6].

Verses 15-18 The angel explains

We said before that these verses help us to understand the rest of the Chapter. It is verse 15 that explains that the 'waters' are great crowds of people. The 'harlot' sits like a queen, and she rules the people. In verse 16, the 'wild animal' and the ten horns had worked well with the 'Harlot'. But now they get tired of her. They turn against her. They make her into a 'wilderness' (verse 3) or lonely place. They shame her; they take her grand clothes from her. She is no longer like a queen. Remember 16:15! They leave her 'naked'. John says that they will eat her 'fleshes'. And then they will 'burn her with fire' (18:8). In the Old Testament, only a very bad woman was punished in this way (Genesis 38:24; Leviticus 20:14 and 21:9).

There are three things for us to learn from this chapter.

1 Bad men quarrel with each other. They are divided. Luke 1:51 tells us that God has 'scattered' proud men. He throws them about. They cannot work together. So in the chapter, the 'wild beast' and the ten kings get tired of the great city, Babylon.

2 God uses bad men to do His will. It has been said that after all, even the devil is God's devil! So verse 17 says that God put the idea of destroying Babylon into the hearts of the 'ten kings'. (See Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27,28.) The 'woman' had power to rule the nations. The 'ten kings' give this power to the 'wild animal'. But this is not for ever. It is only until all that God has said will happen, has happened.

3 The 'ten kings' had an easy success when they destroyed the 'great city', Babylon. This makes them brave to fight against the Lamb. Then God destroys them. The forces behind what is wrong often have some easy successes at first. But God will destroy them in the end.