Revelation 18 explained: The Fall of Babylon the Great

Fallen city announced (vv. 1-3)

The cry 'Fallen, fallen' echoes Isaiah 21:9 about ancient Babylon, the empire that destroyed Jerusalem, and many scholars think John's first readers heard the name as code for Rome. Demons and unclean birds picture a city left in ruins, and the sexual language (the translations use different words) pictures kings and nations seduced by her wealth and power.

Come out of her (vv. 4-8)

This echoes Jeremiah's call to God's people to flee Babylon (Jeremiah 51:45), and readers differ on whether it means leaving physically or refusing to share in her ways. The harsh call to repay her double may mean twice over or simply in full, and her boast that she is a queen who will never be widowed borrows Isaiah 47:8.

Kings weep from afar (vv. 9-10)

The rulers who shared her luxury mourn as they watch her burn, yet they stand far off, afraid of sharing her fate. Her doom comes 'in one hour,' a phrase used three times in the chapter to stress how sudden it is.

Merchants and sailors lament (vv. 11-19)

Traders and seafarers mourn lost business, and the long list of luxuries reads like the imports of a great imperial capital, echoing Ezekiel 27's lament over the trading city of Tyre. The list ends with human beings themselves, and though the translations word it differently, the Greek speaks of 'bodies and souls of people,' meaning slaves.

Heaven called to rejoice (v. 20)

While her partners grieve, heaven, God's people, apostles and prophets are told to rejoice over her fall, a call many readers find hard. The translations differ on the reason given: either God judged her as she had judged them, or God gave judgment for them against her.

Millstone into the sea (vv. 21-24)

Throwing a huge stone into the sea acts out a city sinking without a trace, echoing Jeremiah 51:63-64, where a scroll tied to a stone was sunk in the Euphrates. Music, work, lamplight and weddings fall silent, and the reasons given are that her merchants were the great people of the earth, that she bewitched the nations, and that the blood of prophets and God's people was found in her.

Key verse: Revelation 18:2

Where Christians differ

Christians differ over what 'Babylon' is: Rome in John's own day (the view of most modern scholars), a power still to come before the end, any proud and oppressive system in every age, or, in a reading many Protestants held after the Reformation and Catholics reject, a corrupt church.

Something to think about

When a whole system brings comfort to some people and harm to others, how responsible are those who simply benefit from it?