“Babylon the Great”: Interpreting the Book of Revelation

Revelation is highly dependent on the Old Testament and rarely uses new imagery that has not already been utilized in earlier Scriptures.

Our church has been studying the book of Revelation over the past three summers, and one of our main theses of interpretation has been that Revelation is describing events that happened in the first generation of Christians—in the forty years from 30 AD to 70 AD. In particular, the section we have studied this summer (chapters twelve to nineteen) is mainly focused on the final seven years of that generation. During those years, the first great persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire took place under the emperor Nero, the Jewish Wars raged from 66-70 AD, and, ultimately, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in 70 AD (as Jesus had predicted in Matt. 24:1-2, 34).

Revelation has been interpreted in so many ways historically; how can we be confident that this interpretation is the right one?

Scripture Interprets Scripture

In the Westminster Confession of Faith, we are given one of the most important principles for a responsible interpretation of Scripture. It could be summarized as “Scripture interprets Scripture”:

The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it may be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. (WCF, 1.9)

Whenever we come across a passage of Scripture that is confusing to us, our first instinct should be: “Is there anywhere else in the Bible that talks about this?” Very often, there are other places in the Bible that are clearer and shine light on the more confusing passages.

Revelation is highly dependent on the Old Testament and rarely uses new imagery that has not already been utilized in earlier Scriptures.

This rule of interpretation is especially important in reading Revelation. Unfortunately, many Christians have looked to current events in the newspaper instead of other parts of the Bible to help them understand the imagery of Revelation. But Revelation is highly dependent on the Old Testament and rarely uses new imagery that has not already been utilized in earlier Scriptures.

Babylon Is Jerusalem

Any careful reader of the Old Testament will know that one of the most important topics of the OT Prophets (like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) is the fall of Jerusalem in the sixth century BC under the Babylonians. Jesus’s pronouncements against the Jews in Jerusalem in the final Passover week before his crucifixion are very similar to the warnings Jeremiah gave Jerusalem before the invasion of the Babylonians in his day. Jesus, as the final prophet (the Son of God), comes as the greater Jeremiah to warn Jerusalem of her impending doom.

This Old Testament background is helpful in deciphering a key interpretive question for Revelation: What is “Babylon the great” (Rev. 14:8; 17:5; 18:2)? When 18:2 says, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!”—what is the historical referent for this (if there is one)? The answer to this question, in many ways, becomes an anchor for interpreting the rest of the book. Christians have answered that in a variety of ways. Some say it is the Roman Empire in the first century. Some Reformers thought it was the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval times. The Left Behind series thought it was some future world city.

Since the rule for interpretation is “Scripture interprets Scripture,” I want to offer three other clearer Scriptures that point to Babylon being Jerusalem:

1) Revelation 11:8

“And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.”

This is the only other time “great city” is mentioned, and in this case, the great city is clearly Jerusalem, the city in which “their Lord was crucified.” Also, this verse uses the names of other godless cities to name Jerusalem “Sodom and Egypt.” The Old Testament gives a long list of cities whose wickedness resulted in their destruction: Babel, Sodom, Egypt, Jericho, Nineveh (Assyrian capital), and Babylon. In Revelation, the irony is that the Lord’s holy city has now become one of the cities in this long list—first called Sodom and Egypt and, in the end, Babylon.

2) Ezekiel 16:3, 15

“Say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem . . . you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his.”

In Revelation 17, Babylon the great is depicted as the great prostitute. In the Old Testament, without a doubt, the great prostitute city—the unfaithful one, the whore—is Jerusalem. This verse from Ezekiel is one of the more graphic renderings of this metaphor, but it is a theme repeated by the other prophets as well (e.g., Jer. 3:3). So when we ask the question, “Who is the great prostitute in other parts of the Bible that are more clear than Revelation 17?” —the answer is clearly Jerusalem.

3) Matthew 23:36-38

“Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate.”

Lastly, Revelation 17:6 describes Babylon the great this way: “And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” If we ask what city in the Bible is the one that shed the blood of prophets, saints, and disciples of Jesus, clearly Jesus says the answer is Jerusalem. The most glaring example is the crucifixion of Jesus himself, but we also read about the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7:54-60. In Matthew 23, Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Revelation 18 describes the fulfillment of that prophecy forty years later.

What these passages confirm to us is that Revelation is describing the spiritual significance of the events leading up to and following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. With that anchor in place, we are then set to interpret the pastoral intent of the rest of the book to its original readers, who would have to endure the tribulation of those tumultuous years. We begin to see that the Lamb on the throne in Revelation 5 is Jesus’s ascension. We see that the sea beast of Revelation 13 is the Roman Empire under the emperor Nero just a few years before the fall of Jerusalem. And we see that the 144,000 “firstfruits” of Revelation 14 are those who would be martyred in the years leading up to the destruction of the great city. Revelation goes just as Jesus said: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matt. 24:34).

If anyone is interested in reading more about this interpretation of Revelation, here are a few helpful resources:

Peter Leithart, Revelation 1-11

Peter Leithart, Revelation 12-22

Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation

Douglas Wilson, When the Man Comes Around: A Commentary on the Book of Revelation