Revelation 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of R ...

or the Apocalypse to John in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

of the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

. The book is traditionally attributed to

John the Apostle John the Apostle ( grc, Ἰωάννης; la, Ioannes ; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ;) or Saint John the Beloved was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebedee a ...

, but the precise 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 place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17 (verse 5) as "Mystery, Babylon the Gr ...

("Babylon the Harlot").

Text

The original text was written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

. This chapter is divided into 18 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are among others: *

Papyrus 47 Papyrus 47 (''P. Chester Beatty'' III), designated by siglum (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beat ...

(3rd century; extant verses 1-2) *

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts) ...

(330-360) *

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...

(400-440)

The vision of the harlot (17:1–6a)

After appeared only briefly in Revelation 14:8 and , Babylon is given full description in this part.

Verse 1

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

seven bowls The seven bowls (, ''phialas'', 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 Revelation of Jesus Chr ...

came and talked with me, saying

o me O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...

“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: grc-x-biblical, εἱς is equivalent to grc-x-biblical, πρῶτος.

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, ...

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 (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

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, including a social concern for ...

theologian

Johann Bengel Johann Albrecht Bengel (24 June 1687 – 2 November 1752), also known as ''Bengelius'', was a Lutheran pietist clergyman and Greek-language scholar known for his edition of the Greek New Testament and his commentaries on it. Life and career Be ...

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, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

New King James Version The New King James Version (NKJV) is an English translation of the Bible. The complete NKJV Bible was published in 1982 by Thomas Nelson, now HarperCollins. The NKJV is described by Thomas Nelson as being "scrupulously faithful to the origin ...

, 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 Tes ...

(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 itself is a revision of the Ameri ...

English Standard Version The English Standard Version (ESV) is an English translation of the Bible. 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 published critic ...

), "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 Man'' ...

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 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 , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, '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. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

": compare to allusions in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated 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 writings by the Israelites. The ...

: ; .

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges is a biblical commentary set published in parts by Cambridge University Press from 1882 onwards. Anglican bishop John Perowne was the general editor. The first section published was written by theologian ...

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