Judgment on Babylon will come a second time. God’s judgment once came upon the literal Babylon of antiquity, and soon the same will happen to the global spiritual Babylon. Isaiah described this in his day and Revelation 18 confirms this for the near future.
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Judgment over Babylon – Isaiah 47 as a template
As is “usual”, the templates for the larger or even global things in the New Testament can be found in the Bible in the Old Testament. This is particularly true of the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Revelation is a description of events from the first church to the “grand finale” and even beyond.
Chapter 18 of Revelation describes the judgment of Babylon (Info). A spiritual Babylon that takes ancient Babylon as its model. Paganism in its many facets. This primarily includes the worship of a pantheistic world of gods, with a sun god as the highest. There are also a whole series of rituals and celebrations that are still an everyday tradition in the Roman Catholic Church today as liturgy in Christian garb.
The essential model for chapter 18 can be found in the Old Testament in the book of the prophet Isaiah. Chapter 47 describes the fall of the once literal Babylon. The judgment of God on this ancient “idolatry sling.” The following is an excerpt from Isaiah 47, verses 7 to 12. Of course, as always, it is important not just to take note of excerpts or even just individual verses, possibly with an idiosyncratic interpretation, but rather to examine the connections and the context on your own responsibility. The spiritual Babylon of modern times consists of the dragon, the beast (from the sea) and the false prophet (Info).
Isaiah 47:7-11
“7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.
8 Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:
9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.
10 For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.
11 Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.“
Parallel unmistakable
The woman represents a church community (Info). And this woman has children. An image of what also describes modern, spiritual Babylon. A woman reduced to a whore and her many daughters. This whore is the mother of all whores. The Roman Catholic Church and the once Protestant churches that clung to it (Info).
This parallel can be seen particularly well in Isaiah 47:8 and Revelation 18:7:
“How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.“
This whore and her children will not be able to escape the judgment of God. Their fate has long been sealed. For what was prophesied has always come to pass and what is still pending will also come true. This also applies to those who joined this whore and became drunk on her poisoned wine (Info):
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Revelation 18:9
Bible verses from King James Version (1611)
