Repetitions, abrupt transitions
and paradoxes in Revelation (Babylon)
3) The fall of Babylon (14:8, 16:17-21, 18:1-3, 19:1-4)
Babylon (a second magnificent woman) represents a great city and a harlot (14:8, 16:17-21, 17:1-18:24). She may have many incarnations but the text indicates she is destroyed only once in Revelation. There are four references to her destruction: the second of the three angels who follow the Lamb when he appears on Mt Zion announces ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the great!’ (14:8); armies gather at the sixth bowl and John witnesses the storm, earthquake and hail that destroy Babylon and its satellite cities when the seventh bowl empties (16:17-21); the angel with ‘great authority’, whose presence lights up the whole earth, also announces ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the great!’ (18:1-3); and heaven celebrates her fall (19:1-4). If this fall is a unique event, what happens before and after each account will be compatible.
Before Babylon falls (at 14:8), people who do not worship the dragon/ satan and his first beast, and carry the beast’s ‘mark’, will be killed by the second beast (13:15-17). Before Babylon falls (at 16:17-21), people and the environment are plagues and demons gather armies for war at the Euphrates when bowls one to six empty (16:2-16). By 18:1-3, Babylon has become a haunt for demons and impure spirits so the angel’s announcement of the fall is probably made to demons. In heaven, the sanctuary is open and the bowls of God’s wrath are prepared (15:1-16:1). After Babylon falls, the earth is warned of coming judgement and it is harvested (14:9-20). An explanation of what Babylon and the beasts represent is given to John by one of the bowl angels (17:1-18) and another voice from heaven pleads for the faithful to leave Babylon, even after her fall (18:4). The reasons why Babylon fell are explained, but some people lament her fall (18:4-24) and ignore a heavenly plea to rejoice (18:20). Heaven celebrates the fall (19:1-4) and then a voice from the throne turns attention away from Babylon to preparations for the wedding of the Lamb; the Bride (a third magnificent woman) is prepared and invitations to the wedding are distributed (19:5-10).
Events surrounding Babylon’s fall and the subsequent events are described by John in a few consecutive verses and this creates a literary spiral overlying the two Creation to New Order dramas (16:12-21:9). How the references relate to one another is illustrated in the following diagram (this is the separate Macrostructure Model webpage, Figure 4).
The Lamb, imminent war and fall of Babylon: time-parallels 8b to 11
The four references each tell part of the story of Babylon’s collapse and what happens before (i.e. demonic terrors) and afterwards (i.e. judgement) in each space are compatible. Babylon is accused of the same crime by the second of three angels (14:8) and the angel with ‘great authority’ whose presence lights up the whole earth (18:1-3): ‘all the nations drink/ have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication’.[1] Almost certainly the illumination enters the dark caves and spaces commonly associated with entrances to below-the-earth in the first century A.D. This suggests the same event is announced to two different audiences (demons and people), probably at the same time, and the second of the three angels may be the angel with ‘great authority’. Announcements to earth (14:8) and her fall on earth (16:17-21) supports the proposal made in the previous section that there are two representation of earth in Revelation: the physical-spiritual and biblical earths. The total destruction of Babylon on the physical-spiritual earth, compared to on the biblical earth, suggests Babylon may be a spiritually-corrupted physical city rather than only a more abstract metaphor (the harlot). This may be why Babylon is physically destroyed but not thrown into the fiery lake, along with satan and his beasts.
Babylon’s inter-dimensional fall endorses the proposal made in this study that Revelation’s spaces reflect John’s interpretation of the cosmos. Babylon illustrates how cross-boundary events occur simultaneously in each space and, at the same relative time in the story, useful information may be gleaned by interpreting events in one time-line through the lens of its companion texts. Literary observations that the harlot Babylon is a parody of the heavenly bride or celestial mother are clear, but the proposed macrostructure indicates that the descriptions of the three magnificent women are text-parallels, unrelated to their spatial or temporal locations. Babylon is the most structurally important woman in this spatio-temporal analysis because she is the only one referred to in every cosmic space. The proposed reconciliation of the four references to Babylon’s fall is illustrated in Figure 4. The possibility that John witnessed these events from a vantage point near to or in Jerusalem is considered in Section 5c.
[1] Other ancient authorities read ‘She has made all nations drink’ for both verses (NRSVA note, 18:3).
Page updated 4 November 2024