REVELATION 17:1

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come here; I will show you the judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters:

Come here; I will show - The stage is now set for a judgment to be revealed which will prove to be the decisive judgment in the revelation of Yehoshua as the Mashiach of Israel, as we see in Revelation 19.

There are two questions here for which we seek answers.  We look for G-d given understanding, (1 John 5:20), of both the question and the answer, in each case.  The first question is what is it in the world, exactly, that is represented by the designation, "the great whore that sits upon many waters"? The second question is, what exactly is the judgment of this entity and how exactly will it take place? Much evidence as to the answers to these questions is given in the text itself.  It will help, however, to begin by stating a few observations about the questions in a general way.

The great whore is associated with Babylon, the starting point of the captivity of Israel since the time of the destruction of the first Temple.  However, there is a mysterious aspect to this particular association, which means that it requires clarification.  The four entities described in the Book of Daniel which take and hold Israel captive through the centuries, while they are each nations, are all more than nations.  They are empires.  As such, they have both great earthly and heavenly forces underlying them, (Ephesians 6:12-13).

Each of these empires is composed of two distinctly different kind of elements.  All four of these empires, indeed every empire, has both a religious-ideological side and a military side.  One thing that seems most pronounced in the description of the great whore in the text, (see chapter 18), is the economic aspect.  It seems to be described like a world market, or a world trading-empire.  What underlies each imperial economy its religious-ideological base.  The economy informed by the ideology of any empire, however, could never establish itself were it not for its military power.  So there are these two sides to an empire.  This is the first observation and it leads to a deeper one.

All the nations of this world, and especially the empires, are to be found somewhere on a scale of commitment to building and establishing this world on a basis that denies G-d's rule over the world and judgment of the world. But specifically, the empire of Babylon and its direct offspring empires derive their power from the decree of G-d that they should be the place and power for the captivity and chastisement of Israel.  This is exactly parallel to the way that Egypt received power to become established before them, for the sake of the fulfillment of the covenant that G-d made with Abraham.  So, there are two sides to these empires, but the power came from the outset through the religious-ideological side when it was determined by G-d that Israel should be corrected through captivity among the nations of these empires.  From the worldly side this was always a mystery.  It could only be revealed through faith and by hearing the prophets of Israel. This is the overview.  In studying the text, we must bring even this overview into sharper focus.

REVELATION 17:2

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

committed fornication - Since we are not talking about two people and fornication taking place between them but are talking about kingdoms and empires, the fornication being referred to is a spiritual fornication.  It involves religion and ideology.  In order for there to be a spiritual fornication or adultery there must be an espousal or promise of espousal on this corporate human level.  There must be the possibility of a proper, G-d intended, spiritual union of G-d with the human family. The espousal that is understood here is the espousal of G-d and His nation Israel, which G-d promised in His covenant with Abraham.

How might there be some kind of spiritual, or ideological, union between the kings, the kingdoms, of the earth and the empires of Babylon and its three descendent empires?

REVELATION 17:3

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast - This is now the fourth beast of Daniel's vision, the third offspring of Babylon. While this is not the empire of Babylon, but instead the Roman empire, with a special focus on the final stage of the Roman empire, it still derives its power from the power that G-d granted to the Babylonian empire, that is the captivity of Israel. This is the core reason why there is mystery here, and this will need to be understood completely in order for it to be revealed why the woman is called the great whore, and who, or what, the woman of this vision represents.  

We will see that the two sides of the empire are explicitly divided out from one another in the form of this vision. While the woman who sits upon the beast represents the religious-ideological aspect and the beast itself represents the army and military government aspect of the empire. Although we will see the military aspect of the empire become, in the end, completely severed from the ideological foundation of the empire, we should not think that this leaves the military portion, the beast, simply as a natural military imperial government. This "beast", this final military empire, has through all the centuries, been entirely created through the influence of the "woman", which is the very source of its power. It is through this "great whore" that this Babylonian offspring empire has become a global civilization. We will see that it is G-d who puts it into the heart and mind of the beast to destroy the woman, but by doing this destroy its own source of power.

REVELATION 17:4

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

abominations and filthiness of her fornication:  By focusing in on the appearance, as a description, of the woman the narrative focuses on the question of who or what the woman is.  Who or what, exactly, does this vision of this woman represent?  We must again fill out the background.

Saying that Israel was taken into captivity to Babylon is to say, in prophetic Biblical history, that Israel's remaining degree of captivity to Egypt was brought to the surface. There was still something that was meant to be accomplished by Israel being given over to captivity to Egypt that remained unaccomplished.  A further captivity of Israel was required.

To say that Israel was taken into captivity to Egypt, in the first place, is to say that Israel was taken into captivity to the rebellious forces of Humankind and satanic forces in rebellion against the rule of the Creator of the universe, through the sin of Adam.  It was this rebellion against the True God that was represented by Egypt. When Israel’s captivity comes to a head in the latter days of its captivity, therefore, the issue of its redemption and exile from this captivity is the issue of human redemption from its own rebellion against God.

There are two sides to the human rebellion against God which correspond to the aspect of susceptibility to God’s influence and the aspect of hard hearted rebellion.  These two aspects are portrayed in the reaction of Pharaoh, when Moses says to him, "Let my people go!" In the vision of the woman riding upon the beast, these two aspects correspond to the woman representing religion and it struggle with the influence of God, on the one side, and the beast as the embodiment of alliance of the military, technology and science, in its outright defiance of God and its determination to build a world over which it is itself the only god.

Thus the picture of the woman riding the beast is the picture of the divided house of human sin and rebellion against the Creator.  That is to say, it is the final division which ultimately results from the original division of tribes, nations, kingdoms and empires all at war with one another to be the one that finally unites all as the army of the rebellion against God. 

When there is no division left but the division within  the global civilization between those who are open to God’s influence, who think they can compromise the Spirit of God, and those who simply believe, as the satan does, that they can directly overcome the Spirit of God, then the internal battle ends up being between these two groups.  From the point of view of the revelation of the King of Israel and the redemption of Israel from the civilization built on Adam's sin, the effort to compromise the Spirit of God is understood as spiritual harlotry. For this reason the woman is dressed as a harlot.

And in the end the group that is willing to come right out and openly worship the satan uses military and technological forces to destroy the other faction. Even though it is the power, the harlotry, of this woman, that is the power that has enabled this global civilization to be built by the combined efforts of the woman and the beast to become established.  We will see later in the chapter, in verses 16 and 17, that this is the core revelation of this chapter.

REVELATION 17:5

And upon her forehead [was] a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

MOTHER OF HARLOTS — it is written right out in the open on her forehead. She sells herself for money.  Who she is and what she does is right out in the open, yet it is a mystery, as if to say, she and her deeds are hidden in plain sight. But it does not remain a mystery to everyone. On the level of spiritual and moral corruption the influence of this specific force in civilization is felt by many, who follow its example and sell themselves also.

Why is she called Babylon the Great? We will see, as has been indicated, that she is not the political-military side of the original Babylonian empire, but is the spiritual, religious side, and as such that she sells herself to the kings and kingdoms of the earth to make money. It is in making this money, building this global economy, that she ultimately enables the rise of the final political-military power, the empire of the beast, which inherits the global civilization.  

When we talk about globalism and nationalism today, we are talking about the struggle to arrive at this endgame.  In the open, it is always advertised that it is moral values and virtues that build  the world of Babylon the Great and the beast, but, in truth, it is the abominations of immorality and corruption that build that empire.

REVELATION 17:6

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Yehoshua: and when I saw her, I wondered with great contemplation.

drunken with the blood of the saints:   It is not that only abominations and immorality and corruption are involved in building the imperial civilization of this world. On one side principles and values that have been deeply informed by the Bible, which are called liberal and progressive today, such as human rights and freedoms, are set, on the other side, against principles and values which are also deeply informed by the Bible, which are called traditional and conservative.  

It is, in truth, these substantive principles and values that give enduring strength to the imperial civilization of this world.  The violent processes through which these principles and values are built together into the imperial civilization, however, is a process arising from sin and not from the G-d of the Bible. It is the process which steals from the word of G-d and prostitutes its stolen goods through arrangements enforced through military strength and the politics arising from this.  This is the picture of the unnatural monster, the beast, and the great harlot who rides upon its neck.

To make this arrangement successful through the centuries the sanctified people of G-d, saints of G-d, who are the custodians of the word of G-d, its texts and true interpretations, have been suppressed, oppressed, and killed, in order to silence them.  As a result, the mystery woman, the counterfeit of Israel as pictured in chapter 12, has become drunk, permanently drunk in her last days, with the blood of G-d's martyrs.

REVELATION 17:7

And the angel said unto me, About what did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carried her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

I will tell you the mystery of the woman:  Yochanan, apparently, was impressed, once he saw fully how deceptive the system of the mystery woman and the whole system of the "mystery of iniquity", (2 Thess. 2:7), was.  The angel speaking with Yochanan sees this and says to Yochanan, in effect, it is not that hard to understand how this system works, and how it could be so deceptive.

We will see clearly that the only power that this system of iniquity has, to build itself into a global empire, is stolen power. It is power that it takes and perverts from the power that G-d grants to the empires of Babylon, Persia and Greece to hold Israel in captivity.  If there were no power to take or hold Israel in captivity given by God, 'Mystery Babylon', and therefore the fourth beast, could never have established themselves. Just as when G-d took Israel out of Egypt this led to the downfall of Egypt, so when G-d takes Israel fully out of captivity among the nations the empire built through the mystery of iniquity will fall.

Today, that the State of Israel has been established in the Land of Israel seems in some ways to be finally the complete fulfillment of God's covenant promise to Abraham.  However, we see as time goes on that even this state does not yet represent the full liberation from the captivity to the nations that began with Babylon. We will see how that the mystery of the Babylonian captivity was foreshadowed by the Assyrian captivity of the ten tribes, and then continued with the Persian and Greek power over Israel. Finally was sealed with the Roman diaspora but through the mystery of iniquity, not by the will of God.  This will be further explained.

The true mystery is not how the empires of the nations have built their global civilization through perversion and exploitation of the power that G-d gave them over Israel, and by marketing that stolen power from generation to generation.  That is to say, the true mystery is not the mystery of the prophetic image of the iniquitous woman or of the beast she rides. The true mystery is the mystery of the prophetic image of the virtuous woman of prophecy, who represents Israel, and of the one who comes as her redeemer.

The true mystery is how G-d will bring Israel out of the empire built on the structure of this mystery of iniquity.  How He will bring Israel to the repentance that it must come to in order to no longer require the correction of being subject to captivity among the nations.  It is the mystery of exactly what that repentance is and of how it will be corporately implemented in all Israel.  And then it is the mystery of how G-d will overthrew the empire of the global civilization of this world, as He did Egypt, so that both Israel and all the nations will know that He is the one true G-d, bringing salvation to all the world.

REVELATION 17:8

The beast that you saw was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is:  The Fourth Beast was because Rome received the imperial power from Greece to hold Jerusalem and Israel in captivity. It is not because it was defeated by the corporate atonement that Yehoshua HaMashiach made for Jerusalem and all Israel. As a result its own corporate head was put into the prison of the bottomless pit.  Mashiach is now sitting upon his throne in a heaven to which even now redemption and the work of a new creation is being applied.  Before God and before Mashiach in heaven, the Roman power, the Fourth Beast, is not.  And yet before the eyes and mind of the world it is, and the Beast, even from prison, through the Great Spiritual Prostitute, is creating the delusion and the oppression that is holding Israel in captivity, prolonging the Galut.

At the time of the giving of the revelation to Yochanan the beast "is not", because it is in the bottomless pit. This beast once was seen, when it was allowed to raise its head to crush the Temple of the Living God. Then it was consumed and concealed in the bottomless pit. But in the time to come, as revealed in the revelation given to Yochanan, the beast shall ascend out of the bottomless pit. And after this it shall go into perdition.  Those whose minds are only filled with the knowledge of this world and not with the knowledge of the new creation cannot know that the beast is presently in prison within the bottomless pit, nor how and why it will be allowed to ascend from that prison for a short time in the last days of the present world's history.

What and where is the bottomless pit?  In one aspect, it is in you and me; it is the Godlessness in every human sinner. It is at the centre of the infinite grip of God in which he constrains all things.  If there is an aspect of the bottomless pit that is also elsewhere, where there is a possibility for change, it is most centrally in sinful human hearts. It is there that the beast was concealed for a time and it is from there that it will emerge.  It is not so much that the beast will emerge from the bottomless pit as it is that the beast will emerge as the incarnation of the bottomless pit.

To be conscious and not to know God is a bottomless pit.  Unless we overcome the potential that is in us through sin to become the beast, that is, members of the body of the beast, while it is still possible, through receiving the love of the truth, we will in the end be locked into the delusion that there is no God other than ourselves. If we do not repent, the bottomless pit of being unconscious of God, caused by the great delusion of sin, will eternally overtake us.

Today there are people who are proud of being unconscious of God. Often they are not afraid, though they are in a bottomless pit of falling ever further from the knowledge of God. Perhaps they are unafraid of losing all sense of morality, or all sense of meaning, or of losing the blessings of life in any other way. All who remain unconscious of God long enough will loose all sense of morality and meaning.

Already their conscience is seared as with a hot iron concerning the knowledge of God's love and power.  They no longer feel the spiritual pain caused in the soul by sin, the pain of feeling distant from God, of not being able to find again the way back to full consciousness of God and communion with God. They no longer know or believe that they are falling...in a bottomless pit.

When the beast emerges, the wound in all who do not repent, the wound caused by their alienation from God, will be cauterized and they will have no spiritual pain at all to warn them that when the beast goes into perdition, the place of being sealed forever in alienation from God, their soul also, being a member of that beast, will go into perdition.  Still, at this time, repentance is possible in all the world. Still at this time it is possible to receive the love of the truth and live.

REVELATION 17:9

And here [is] the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits.

on which the woman sits:  The purpose of the angel is to explain to Yochanan why he is seeing a vision of the 4th beast from the Book of Daniel with the image of a woman, a woman such as this, riding upon it, as someone might ride a horse.  How did this woman come to be riding this terrible beast which represents the final empire in which Israel is held captive? Once and for all, who, or what, is this woman?

While the city of Rome may be said to sit on seven hills, while this is clearly no coincidence, it is not the ultimate meaning of the seven mountains in this prophetic word of interpretation.  Yochanan already knows, as did any student of the Book of Daniel, that Rome inherited the power of Greece, as Greece inherited the power of Persia, and as Persia inherited the power of Babylon.  

As the fourth beast in the vision in the Book of Daniel inherited the power of the third beast and as the third beast was identified as the Greek empire, there was never any question that Rome was going to be the fourth beast.  The question was what did this mean and how was it going to play out in history.  How was it going to lead to the last days of history?

That in the angelic interpretation of the visions to do with the four beasts in the Book of Daniel, the first three beasts are named as Babylon, Media-Persia and Greece, but the fourth beast is not named, is not just due to the time when these visions were given, when Rome had not yet taken its power over the captivity of Israel.  The fact that there was not yet any name for the fourth beast was emblematic of the mystery that would be involved with the fourth beast.  The unnatural nature and appearance of the fourth beast was also emblematic of this mystery.  We will see that we are to think about Rome, yes in a historical way, but also in an almost supra-historical way.

Ultimately, the mystery surrounding this fourth beast would be interpreted in the Book of the Revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach, through this very image of this woman, called the mother of prostitution, riding upon this beast, as if it were her beast. That this beast is here pictured as having seven heads and the seven heads are said to be seven mountains is stated as a key to unlock the mystery of how this woman came to be seated upon the beast.

We are meant to continue to understand the vision here in the same way as similar visions concerning the beast were explained by the angel to Daniel previously.  If this fourth beast, which in some expansive and expanded sense is Rome, and Rome is a world power, then its seven heads are seven focal points of that world power. To describe these seven heads, (that give rise to this final form, and this final act), of the beast in history as mountains is to say that, historically and spiritually, there are seven peaks in history, like mountains, that the power which keeps Israel captive in the end of days rests upon.

Yochanan has marvelled to see this woman called Babylon the Great and the Mother of Harlots riding, in a vision, the fourth beast of the visions of Daniel.  The angel begins then to explain to Yochanan that we must ask the question of where the power of the Roman beast comes from.  It comes from its seven heads, which are like seven mountains in the history of the fourth beast. In Daniel's vision of the ram and the he-goat we learned that the power of the final, little evil horn comes right out of Alexander's Greek empire.  So, we learn from all these visions that the first three mountains of power underlying the final beast are the first three empires which took and held Israel captive, Babylon, Persia and Greece.

Now we come to the mystery of the transition of power over Israel from Greece to Rome.  Babylon's power was passed almost seamlessly to Persia. And Alexander the Great virtually assimilated that power in order to establish the Greek empire.  But there was a mystery in how the power was passed to and taken by Rome.  To fully understand that mystery is to break the spell of 'Mystery Babylon'.

From a study of all relevant Scripture and from a study of the sages of Israel, we see that this mystery is embedded in the three way relationship between the Hasmonean dynasty and Antiochus Epiphanes, the great antisemite Seuclidean Greek and the Roman, Pompey, representing the end of the Roman Republic, to whom the Greek power over Israel was passed on.  This loci, this bridge between Greece and Rome, is the 5th head on which the fourth beast is built. This mystery of the time of the Maccabees is itself the fourth head.

And it is the nature of this fourth head to almost immediately produce the fifth head, which is the power at the head of the Roman Empire, the power of crushing the hope of Israel, crushing the Temple of God, crushing Jerusalem, and scattering Judah among all the nations.  Titus was a second Antiochus Epiphanes.  And there will yet be another.

The sixth foundation, the sixth mountain, the sixth resource from which the evil power of the beast is derived is the Roman Empire itself, as an empire.  As Pompey and Julias Caesar, Vespasian and Titus were the culmination and ending of the Roman Republic, so they were also represented the foundation, as the inheritors of the captivity of Israel, upon which the Roman Empire was built.  When the angel says to Yochanan in the next verse that there are seven kings, five fallen, one that is present at that time and one not yet come, the one present at that time is any king over the Roman Empire as a mountain, the sixth mountain, underlying the beast.  

REVELATION 17:10

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, [and] the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue a short space.

when he comes:   For the empire was not the first form that the Roman beast took and it would not be the last.  There would be another that was yet to come, the seventh.  This would be what we have come to call Western Civilization, which we might now better call Technological Civilization, as it now covers the globe in that form.  The British Empire, (with its source in the Roman Empire, through the European empires which came before it), began to introduce Western Civilization to the whole world.   And just as Western Civilization is Roman, or Greek-Roman, at its root, so we now see the vision of the unnatural, artificial looking beast sprouting ten horns across the globe.   Then there will be the eighth, all those seven compressed, as it were into one.

when he comes, he must continue a short space:  We have had the angel focus our attention here on the idea that there could be said to be one king, one ruler, representing each of the seven heads, or historic periods of time, like foundational mountains in history supporting the beast.  The kings to which the angel refers are more the seven, now to be eight, ruling spirits of the human kings than they are the human kings themselves.  All of this was designed to come to a head in one period when the nations would be gathered together to oppose the witness of the Jews and of Jerusalem to the truth of the one and only God and Redeemer of heaven and earth.  When the final head of the Roman beast as the leader of this opposition to God has accomplished this purpose all his power will be exhausted.

REVELATION 17:11

And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.

he is the eighth:   Just as we see with Antiochus Epiphanes and Vespasian/Titus, more than one evil human being can manifest the same evil entity, the same evil spirit. And more than one human being can rule at different periods of history by being personally ruled by the same evil spirit.

A deep and revealing aspect of the fourth head, or king, of the beast empire is that "he is the eighth".  This head is an embodiment of the eighth king, the evil little horn himself.  Even though the individual who will appear in the end as the world ruler, the little horn, will only then be allowed to openly boast against Hashem and His Mashiach, he will all along have been the same spirit as Titus and the true power of the Roman civilization and all that comes from it. However, he will be restrained by the word of God and concealed behind the front of the mystery of the ongoing force of the Babylonian captivity until the end comes. The force of this mystery is that it passed to Persia then to Greece and then to Rome.  The prophetic meaning of this was that the spiritual correction of the nation of Israel through the Babylonian captivity, although it was completed in certain aspects, was not entirely completed after the initial 70 years.  The Babylonian captivity itself came to complete what was not entirely completed in fulfillment of the covenant of the redemption of Israel from Egypt.  Although the covenant was kept and completed in certain aspects in the Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, the giving of the Torah and the crossing of the Jordan into the Holy Land, it was not yet then kept and complete in every aspect.  There was an element of weakness in faith and testimony, of the obedience of faith, that remained in need of maturity. Prophetically, the body of the Babylonian captivity began with the Assyrian exile of the Ten Tribes, and the heart of the Babylonian captivity was in the taking of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon. The whole of this process can be called the Galut and is working to serve the purpose of the Geula, the Redemption, which cannot be completed until the Ten Tribes are restored to their place in accordance with the covenant and Jerusalem embraces her Redeemer.

So then, even though we see the authorization for the captivity of Israel to have passed to Rome, it has done so in a mysterious way, where the true evil power of Rome is itself kept concealed in a spiritual prison.  He was not able to manifest fully in the form of Titus.  For the little horn was defeated, harnessed and controlled by God at the very time when the power of the Galut was passed from Greece to Rome.  That evil one will be allowed to manifest openly once more at the end of days, but for the sake of the salvation of God's chosen people, his time will be very short.

REVELATION 17:12

And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

 no kingdom as yet:  When the little horn, the beast of the end times, does receive a kingdom it will be through the alliance of 10 world leaders, 10 rulers of the leading ten nations on the earth in the generation in which Mashiach's redemption of Israel is fully enacted in the world.  We are told here very explicitly how it will happen. We are told in this vision that all the rulers and their peoples throughout the ages will have illicit economic and spiritual relations with the institution of the Great Spiritual Harlot, the mysterious, hidden, power of the ongoing power of the Babylonian captivity of Israel.  All the nations will profit from the diaspora of the Jews. But in the end 10 nations who have gained their wealth and power through this harlot will come together to turn against this corporate Spiritual Harlot, who had been riding the fourth beast right from the time of its defeat by Mashiach in Jerusalem.  

The essence of this spiritual harlotry is that the authority granted to Babylon to take Israel captive is turned into a lie. Although Israel returned to the Land of Israel and rebuilt the Temple after 70 years, the glory of the 2nd Temple was not as the first. There was a sense in which Israel still was being chastised by God, still remained under the control of Persia. And this situation remained even through the time of the empire of Greece.  However, it was not God's will that Israel should continue to be chastised after the time of Greece.  

There was a Torah-based mystery as to why Israel would have to go into captivity to Babylon in the fist place.  It had to do with how the children of Israel came into the possession of the Torah and then into the possession of the Land, in accordance with the covenant that God made with Abraham. They did not do so with no blemish to their faith.  The testimony of the entrance into the Land was not perfect, as the testimony of the exodus from Egypt was perfect.  

It was because, by the time of King David and King Solomon that repentance and rectification of this testimony had not been perfected that need for the correction of the testimony through the Babylonian captivity began to be revealed through the prophets. Israel would again be taken outside of the Land, and this time when they came back into the Land they would manifestly do so through a perfect testimony of faith.  This new stage of exile began to be manifested through the division of Israel into two kingdoms, and then of the exile of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians.  After this, Jerusalem itself, with all of Judah, would be exiled to Babylon.  Even so, there was not a complete return in faith after the 70 years.  The true Torah-mystery became vulnerable to an evil found in the nations, vulnerable to a false, anti-Semitic, political-religious interpretation of the captivity of Israel that was to follow.

It was not God's will that Israel should ever be corporately and spiritually in captivity to Rome. That this happened at all was a mystery, because it did not happen as a result of God's will.  It happened because the nations, using the Babylonian authorization of the captivity of Israel as a licence, determined to do evil to Jerusalem and keep the Jewish people in captivity forever.  As it is written, (Zechariah 1:15):

I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased [with Israel], and they helped for evil.   [JPS Tanakh 1917 adapted]

When the ten horns destroy the "city" of this lying system, they will do so like a vulture, destroy her completely, and destroying her, will attempt to take her power and give it to the beast openly and directly. In order to rule the world, the beast will no longer need to submit to being controlled by the restraints of the need to sell the spiritual merchandise of the Babylonian Harlot.  

The beast will come right out into the open and stand up against the God of Israel, the Creator and Judge of the world, and defy Him, saying that the human race, neither Jew nor Gentile, has need to fear or obey the God of Israel. The ten nations, being the ten horns of the beast, will declare that there is no longer any need to give lip-service, through 'Mystery Babylon', to the importance of the Torah or the Bible or the uniqueness of the Jewish people. This will then become the message of the False Prophet, who will declare that the global civilization is, and has been all along, the successful work of the human race itself, without God, in service of the beast, which, as being one with the luciferic dragon, should be worshipped as its true god.

There are several reasons that the ten nations pictured as the ten horns of the beast can be seen to be nations that arise in the last stage of the present world's history. First, they bring about the condition where all the nations of the world worship the beast. They represent a global civilization, something we can understand, as we see it taking form today. But primarily, their primary purpose is to utterly destroy the Great Spiritual Harlot, Mystery Babylon. They could not do so before.  The beast had need of her through all the ages, until finally in the last days his resentment of her because of this turns into hate and rage, because she fails him.  She is of no more use to him.  As much as the merchants and rulers of the earth want to continue to commit spiritual fornication with her, her lie can no longer be believed.  She is exposed by the truth and appears to all as a spiritual corpse.  Therefore the beast hates her and rages against her and his ten horns turn against her like a vulture against a carcass.

What is the truth that has exposed the lie of 'Mystery Babylon', the Mother of Spiritual Harlots?  It is the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah.  God has forgiven Israel, His people.  He has fulfilled His covenant with Abraham, establishing Jerusalem in the Land He promised to Abraham, and has justified life, thereby, for all the world.  This is the testimony of the Two Witnesses in Jerusalem.

REVELATION 17:13

These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

These have one mind:  This mind is the mind of defiance against G-d, the Creator and Redeemer of all things.  It is also a mind knowing that the historic source of their power is now cut off from them and that same source has become a burden hanging around their collective neck. That source is the Great Mystery Prostitute, the deceiver and seducer of the whole world. This corporate system, this spirit woman has pretended to be a good and pure and honest lover of the nations, who has brought them all the good of civilization.  But she is nothing other than one who has taken advantage of Israel's process of conversion to her God.  And in the end she will be exposed for being exactly what she is, and the leaders of the earth who were raised up by her will be let down by her. Therefore they will take their alligence away from her and give it to the beast.

It is the mind we see now manifest in our day in the amoral technological civilization in which we live, the mind that says that there is no God but only material forces, quantum forces, with our own human consciousness resting like a crown atop of them all.  We speak of the G8 or the G20 nations at the top of the global economy.  Here we have the G10, who want to become the B10, the 10 horns that violently take all their power from the mystery woman who rides the beast and give that power to the beast itself.

Because today the mystery of the prostituting of G-d's authority, of the authorization of the nations to take Israel captive, is still hidden, it is not seen clearly how our global civilization is dead set on defying the word of G-d.  G-d's word says that because of their sin Adam will have an end. The society of their children will not go on for any longer than a certain measure of time that G-d determines in order to lay a foundation for repentance.  

The civilization of this world shakes its fist at the word of G-d and says that it will not be subject to G-d.  Human civilization declares that it will not be stopped, that it will go on and on and cover the face of the earth with its cities, and even go to the stars.  This is the mind, the one mind, of the 10 nations that come in due time to dominate the global economy. They finally say that they no longer have any need to compromise with the authority of the word of G-d through the spiritual harlotry of the heirs of the Babylonian captivity of Israel.  With the same inspiration as Adolf Hitler, they will claim that they can deal with the Jews in any way they want simply on the basis of their own authority. They will deny, with one mind, that it is only G-d, having allowed them to take and keep Israel captive, that has enabled them to build their global civilization.

They will set about to destroy every historic connection that they have to the Bible, every true connection as well as every political and corrupt connection. In verse 16 we will see that these 10 nations will finally act on their resentment and hatred for the spiritual woman of political compromise with the word of G-d.  They will destroy her. From that time forward, in the name of human knowledge and power, they will give allegiance only to the demonic empire of the beast.

REVELATION 17:14

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him [are] called, and chosen, and faithful.

the Lamb shall overcome them:   Those who make war with G-d, having destroyed all their historical political connection to the word of G-d, will come right out and make it clear to all the world that their number one enemy is the Lamb of G-d who laid down his life as a prayer for the forgiveness and salvation of Israel. 

And when they come out fully into the open to make war with the Lamb, he will then overcome them.  And all who are with the Lamb will overcome the beast and his 10 horns and all who are with them. For he overcame the evil one fallen from heaven and the earthly one who would rise up in the fallen one's power at the very time when the power of the Galut was passed from Greece to Rome. He overcome the evil one by the act and the word of his prayer for Jerusalem and for all Israel.  The prayer of the Lamb for his people Israel has been heard.  Jerusalem will be established in her own Holy Land forever, in the Land that G-d promised for her to Abraham.

REVELATION 17:15

And he said unto me, The waters which you saw, where the whore sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

waters ... where the whore sits:   The heart of the mystery of why the force of the Babylonian captivity of Israel continues to this day is the mystery of iniquity, (2 Thess. 2:1-8). The place where the spiritual harlot sits is not some peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues, but is the place of all peoples, and multitudes, and nations and tongues. 

The mystery of iniquity is the process through which the spiritual harlotry system that arises out of the Babylonian captivity destroys the conscience of all the world concerning G-d and forms and prepares the whole civilization of the world to worship the beast, to become one world, one mind, as members of the beast.  The nature of the great spiritual harlot is that it is a world-wide system of illegitimately keeping Israel in spiritual captivity, although G-d Himself has provided a corporate atonement for Israel through the Lamb, the Righteous One. 

"Mystery Babylon" brings the strong delusion, (2 Thess. 2:11-12), that the whole world should believe the lie of the False Prophet of the beast, all those who did not receive the love of the truth through the Good News of the Torah of Israel's G-d. The mystery of iniquity is the heart of the mystery of the ongoing nature of the Babylonian captivity, how it carries on into the Roman captivity, to the captivity of the Jewish people among all nations. It goes back to the beginning of the war of the evil inclination against G-d's covenanted promise to Abraham.

The foundation of the mystery of iniquity is Ishmael, that is to say, what Ishmael represents spiritually. The superstructure built on that foundation, its full expression and power, is Esau, that is to say, what Esau represents spiritually.  The mystery built on Ishmael does not only involve the need for the rectification of the giving of the testimony of Abraham and Sarah, whose testimony to the revelation of the One True God temporarily failed when they turned to Hagar to produce Ishmael. This testimony was rectified in the testimony of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  It must likewise be expressed as the rectified testimony of Israel in the last days.  But there is more.

It is not only Ishmael, the spiritual meaning of Ishmael, reliance on our own resources, that must be rectified.  It is also that the testimony that Abraham and Sarah were meant to give, which they lost their original opportunity to give, must still be given.  This is the testimony that the promised seed of Abraham is the seed of Sarah, and not only of Sarah but of her dead womb.  It is Esau who stands in the way of this testimony being given perfectly and clearly in the way that is necessary for the full and final revelation of Israel's God as the Creator and Redeemer of heaven and earth.

When Abraham offered up Isaac on the mountain through an unblemished faith, he began to correct the lacking in his testimony and Sarah's testimony which led to Ishmael coming into the world.  Abraham and Sarah then began to give the testimony that they had been called to give.  They began to testify that due to the corruption of the nature of the first Adam through disobedience to the commandment of G-d in the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the evil inclination can be fully overcome in body and soul, in the end, only through a corporate justification of life by the promised seed of the woman and by the resurrection of the dead. The final witness to this would be given by Jacob, but Esau would attempt to twist the testimony and steal the blessing.

In the end of days, and in the centuries leading up to them, a world civilization has formed that is built on the foundation of the denial of the world to come.  It is a civilization built on the denial that it is necessary for there to be a corporate atonement for Adam's sin, provided for through the promised seed of Sarah. It is a denial as well of the need for a continual war against the evil inclination and, in the end, an eradication of the evil inclination through a corporate death and resurrection of Adam.

We will see in the study of the next verse of this chapter that it is when the truth of Abraham's testimony to the promised seed of Sarah is given by the Two Witnesses in Jerusalem that the power of the delusion of the great spiritual Harlot of Babylon will be exposed.  And when it is exposed, the children of Sarah will no longer be susceptible to being held captive to the present illegitimate Babylonian, Roman, Global captivity.  As we will read in chapter 18, they will come out of her, will not even touch her any longer, and will not be partakers with her in the judgment and destruction that will come upon her.  Through this judgment, the evil inclination represented corporately by both Ishmael and Esau will be made to serve the good.  For when the testimony is clearly corrected, in the end, all the world shall know Hashem, the God of Israel fully and in truth, as the waters fill the seas.

REVELATION 17:16

And the ten horns which thou saw upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

the ten horns ... shall hate the whore:  The time when the ten horns turn on the spiritual harlot can be identified in terms of the progression of the revelation of Yehoshua HaMashiach itself. After the message of the seven thunders is hidden and concealed from the world, by not being written down for the world to have access to, as is the rest of the revelation, the time soon comes for the Two Witnesses to give their testimony in Jerusalem.  Although the world does not have access to what the seven thunders said, the Two Witnesses do, for to them, and to all who are in their fellowship and a part of their testimony, the revelation of the seven thunders passes through the generations, by the Spirit, as an oral 'tradition'.

When the testimony of the Two Witnesses is given the final chastisement of Jerusalem comes as an accompaniment to that testimony.  As a result Jerusalem finally fully repents and receives the testimony of the Two Witnesses.  In receiving that testimony it receives the testimony of the Lamb, the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah.  The delusion of 'Mystery Babylon', the delusion of the present galut being the will of G-d, is once and for all exposed. The spiritual eyes of Jerusalem are uncovered and she sees the truth of Her own beloved, her own Moshe-redeemer, that he has never abandoned her nor forsaken her. Mashiach belongs to Jerusalem.  He is married to her. 

As a result of the  ירא (yara'), awe of Hashem, that the inhabitants of Jerusalem have, those who survive the chastisements at the time of the Two Witnesses, they come back full circle to the place of 'fear' where Israel was on Mt. Sinai, when they said, like the angels of G-d, "We will do and we will hear," which is to say, "We will first obey and through obeying we will learn." (See Revelation 11:13). It is in this place of full repentance and embrace of her Mashiach that Jerusalem also hears the seven thunders of Mashiach's revelation.

And it is as a result of this that 'Mystery Babylon' loses its ability to cast its spell in the world, to confuse the mind of the Jew and deceive the nations. No longer having this ability, she appears weak and powerless and pathetic in the eyes of the beast and its horns attack her and throw her off of its neck.  The beast has been able to come to power in on the globe through the lie of the spiritual harlot, the lie which denied the justification of life provided for Jerusalem and for Israel by Her Messiah.  Now, when this lie is no longer believed in the world, the beast will reveal itself in its true nature, the military-political technique, a human civilization built through the power of the blasphemy and defiance of the G-d of Israel, the true Creator and Redeemer of heaven and earth.  Therefore, as we saw above in verse 14, the horns of the beast will make war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will defeat them.  Therefore, in the progress of the Revelation, after the testimony of the Two Witnesses and the repentance of Jerusalem in chapter 11, we see a vision of true relationship between Israel, Her Messiah and the remainder of Her children. We see, in chapter 12, how the woman and her seed are saved from the beast's hatred of G-d, that hatred that underlies a world civilization that wants to defy the sentence of death, to obey its own mind and not G-d and to establish itself with pride, conquering the planet and the stars; we see how they are saved from the antisemitism of the beast, which feeds this evil inclination of the defiant human civilization.

Then, in chapter 13, we see how, because of Jerusalem's repentance in chapter 11 what is described here in this chapter takes place. The horns of the beast hate the spiritual harlot, who worked for so long to prevent the possibility of Jerusalem's repentance.  And when the "Mystery Babylon" is destroyed we see, in chapter 13, the beast come out exposing itself for what it truly is, an embodiment of the spirit of the dragon.

Therefore, having revealed all of these things, in chapter 18, immediately to follow, the Revelation will make clear that the power of the children of Jerusalem over the beast is their power to "come out of her", out of the system of the spiritual harlot, and to no longer touch the unclean thing.

How are we to come from where we are today to this place of spiritual victory?  We will discuss the answer to that question in notes upon the next verse.

REVELATION 17:17

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.

until the words of God shall be fulfilled:   Adam was created mortal but with the potential for immortality. This potential was based upon their connection to the one who would come as an offspring of Adam and Eve, who would be anointed with the Divine Presence of God, their Creator.  When Adam failed to obey the commandment of God given to them, a different world followed.  It was a world of sin and death, a world of God's curse and a world of redemption. In this world the one who was to come openly anointed by the Divine Presence as a child of Adam and Eve, had they obeyed God's commandment, now had to come under the cloud of of sin and death, under the curse.  He would come to be known as the Mashiach, the Anointed one of Israel.

When we read the phrase here, "until the words of God shall be fulfilled," allusion is being made to the whole plan of God's redemption of the world that the sin of Adam brought into the dominion of death.  The culminating blow that God will strike against the evil forces that worked from within and from without to corrupt Adam is this blow of turning the final empire holding Israel captive against itself.  As Yehoshua stated: "A house divided against itself cannot stand!" (See Matthew 12:22-28).  He said this to argue against his accusers that if he cast out devils and was himself from the house of devils, then he would be overthrowing his own house.  Here we see that this is exactly what his victory over the condemnation of devils against his people Israel, the Jewish people, forces the house of devils to do in the end. It forces that house to divide against itself.

How are we to come from where we are today to this place of spiritual victory? Only one thing is required.  All that is required for us to come from where we are today, subject to spiritual captivity to the civilization of nations that are in revolt against God, to the place of Yehoshua HaMashiach's eternal victory over the condemnation of the Jews, is that we open our hearts to his victory, open our eyes to his victory, learn to fully comprehend his victory and open our mouths to the confession of his victory.  For his life, which he freely laid down as the Lamb of God, was one complete prayer for the forgiveness of Jerusalem and of Israel and for the justification of Her life.  And his prayer was heard.  His prayer for the Jews was received and accordingly he was raised from the dead on the third day.  This is the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah.  It is the only eternal good news for Adam and for the whole world, for apart from this good news there is no redemption and no salvation.

By this self-sacrificial prayer of Yehoshua, Jerusalem has been espoused to him forever as his bride and Israel has been made the kingdom of God in a new and eternally righteous creation. When this good news of the kingdom is declared unto all the ends of the earth and confessed among all nations of the earth through word and deed, according to the commandments of God, then the end will come, (Matthew 24:14). 

Go To:    Special on Revelation 17:14&16

REVELATION 17:18

And the woman which you saw is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.

that great city:  Also that great civilization built over the course of time on the city of Rome.   Furthermore, it is indisputable that there have been and are certain key global cities that are most representative of the mystery Babylonian system that keeps Israel in its spiritual captivity, where it is unable to live according to the promises of the Torah in the Land.  

However, historically, it is also indisputable that all these cities are inseparable.  It may be that when the ten horns destroy this mystery system it will be because one economic-greed capital city, or more than one, is/are destroyed.  However, when the mystery system is exposed to all the ends of the earth — as holding Israel captive by force without the authorization of God, since the time of Yehoshua HaMashiach — it will be the whole foundation of that false civilization that is destroyed.

See how:  The mystery of God is directly opposed to the mystery of the Babylonian-Roman captivity.  Read more on this.

The Latin words behind the English "civil" and "city" are directly related.  The original difference between the Latin words behind "urban" and "city" was that the Latin word, "civis" placed more emphasis on the citizens of the city. Traditionally the idea of civilization emphasizes the civility of society. Today, the thought of human civilization most often brings to mind its science and technology. 

The apocalyptic harlot, who Yochanan (John) saw, rode the nations to the place where they were transformed into members of the anti-Messianic beast.  She did this by creating a civilization based on compromising morality and faith, counterfeiting religion and spirituality, turning these into a system, a pure technique, of greed.  In this way she ruled over the kings of the earth.  God allowed this.  For in the end she would be exposed and once exposed, the amoral, monstrous beast civilization, which she unnaturally gave birth to, would turn against her and hate her, due to her then having become useless, and, because she would still try to retain her power, would destroy her.  That monstrous  unnatural offspring, the beast, would then be left standing openly in rebellion against the Judge of all the earth with no cover and no defence, waiting to being defeated, taken captive and thrown into the Lake of Deconstruction.

In the following chapter, we will see that the joy of all the heavens comes when, as in the time when God took Israel out of Egypt, God calls His people the Jews, and all who are attached to them, out of the civilization of 'Mystery Babylon'.