He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.” I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. (Rev. 17:3-6)
The Great Harlot that John sees riding the Beast is first century Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the home of the Temple of God. Let me show you the evidence.
The first line of evidence that Jerusalem is the Harlot is the perfect correspondence with Revelation’s theme. John writes Revelation as a prophecy of Christ’s judgment against those who “pierced him” (Rev. 1:7) The New Testament repeatedly emphasizes Israel’s covenantal culpability in Christ’s death. Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews (Phil. 3:5), observes regarding the Jews: they “Both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men” (1Thess. 2:15). Consequently, he notes “the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost” (1 Thess. 2:16).
We must understand that this theme of judgment on Israel is limited to first century Israel. Revelation specifically mentions the Treading down of her Temple---which no longer exists (it was destroyed in AD 70) and has not existed for 2000 plus years (Rev. 11:1-2; Luke 21:20-24).
Since the Harlot represents first century Jerusalem, this fits perfectly with John’s “must shortly come to pass” time statements (Rev. 1:1-3; 22:6, 10). This also perfectly fits Jesus’ denunciation of the first century Jews, when he calls them an “adulterous generation” (Matt. 12:39; 16:4; Mark 8:12, 38; Luke 11:29).
He repeatedly rebukes the first century Jews in “this generation” (Matt. 11:16-19) as an “evil generation” (Matt. 12:41-45), an “unbelieving and perverted generation” (Matt. 17:17), and “a wicked generation” (Luke 11:29).
He emphatically prophesies that “all the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God: yes I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation” (Luke 11:50-51).
In Revelation, the Harlot appears as “Babylon the Great” (Rev. 17:5). She is repeatedly called “the great city” (Rev. 16:19; 17:18; 18:10, 16, 18, 21).
Revelation 11:8: And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
Here, “the great city” is specifically tied to the place “where also their Lord was crucified.” This must refer to Jerusalem, for that is the historical site of Christ’s crucifixion (Luke 13:33; Matt. 23:34-37).
How lonely sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer! (Lam. 1:1)
John even uses Jeremiah’s widow imagery from Lamentations in his description of the Harlot:
To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning, for she says in her heart, “I sit as queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.” (Rev. 18:7)
Jerusalem fits the concept of a “great city” covenentally and historically. In Revelation, she appears as the “great city” and the “Great Harlot.”
John frequently presents the Harlot to his reader as “filled with the blood of the saints.”
In her was found the blood of prophets and saints and all who have been slain on the earth. (Rev. 18:24)
This same language appears in Revelation 16:6; 17:6, and 18:21, 24. John is apparently reflecting on a statement made by Christ to the leaders of Israel:
In order that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God, yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation. (Luke 11:50-51)
Not only is the language strikingly similar, but the time frames match: John speaks of events that “must shortly take place,” while Jesus speaks of this judgment occurring in “this generation.”
Israel’s persecution against Christians recurs throughout the Bible.
I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished. (Acts 22:4-5; see also the following chapters in Acts: 4-9; 11-14; 17-26).
Stephen denounces Israel with these words:
You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit. You are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. (Acts 7:51-52)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus mentions Israel’s persecution of the prophets:
Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt. 5:12)
The New Testament returns over and over to the theme of Jewish persecution of the prophets. (Matt. 23:29-37; Luke 6:23-26; 11:47-50; 13:34; Romans 11:3; 1Thess. 2:15; and Heb11:32-38) The Harlot’s being drunk on the blood of the saints and prophets well fits Israel’s history.
Stephen charged Israel with breach of covenantal Law: You “received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it” (Acts 7:53) In all of this, we must remember Jesus came to his own and his own did not receive him (John 1:11). This is Jesus’ message in Matthew 23:37-38:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! (Matt. 23:37-38)
The whole book of Hebrews lays out the heightened failure of the Jewish rejection of Christ.
Anyone who has set the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay. The Lord will judge His people. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb. 10:28-31)
Israel’s failure is so great that John presents her as the Great Harlot drunk on the blood of God’s people! So not only is she guilty of “piercing” the Messiah (Rev. 1:7), she is unrepentant and even exacerbates her rebellion by attacking His followers.
John provides two short, but revealing statements about the harlot’s garments.
The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality. (Rev. 17:4)
Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. (Rev 18:16)
Her dress reflects her covenantal status as a kingdom of priests, particularly reminding the first century reader of Jerusalem’s central Temple and its prominent High Priest (note his great authority in Acts 23:4). In Exodous 28 we read of the High Priest’s ritual attire:
These are the garments which they shall make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a tunic of checkered work, a turban, a sash, and holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons, that he may minister as priest to me. They shall take the blue and purple and scarlet material and the fine linen…the skillfully woven band, which is on it, shall be like its workmanship, of the same material: of gold, blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen. (Exo. 28:4-5; 8-9)
This attire also matches the décor of the Temple.
You shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twisted linen and blue and purple and scarlet material, you shall make them with the cherubim, the work of a skillful workman. (Exo. 26:1)
The Old Testament descrition of the Temple points out that the altar (which received the blood of sacrifices, Exo 24:6; 29:12; Lev. 1:5) was gold---like the cup from which the Harlot drank the blood of the saints:
The whole altar which was by the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold (1 Kgs. 6:22)
In fact, the Temple contained numerous gold utensils:
Let the gold and silver utensils of the temple of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be returned and brought to their places in the temple in Jerusalem, and you shall put them and them in the house of God. (Ezra 6:5)
The historian Josephus gives us an eyewitness description of the first century Temple, which parallels the Harlot’s dress.
The temple’s tapestry was Babylonian tapestry in which blue, purple, scarlet, and linen were mingled. (War 5:5:4)
The greatest part of the vessels that were put in them was of silver and gold. (War 5:4:5)
An interesting detail regarding the Harlot’s attire regards her headgear:
Upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlot’s and of the Abominations of the Earth. (Rev. 17:5)
John’s focus on her forehead is significant. In the description of the High Priest in the Old Testament, we read:
You shall make a plate of pure gold and shall engrave “Holy to the Lord”…It shall be on Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron shall take away the iniquity of the holy things which the sons of Israel consecrate, with regard to all their holy gifts, and it shall always be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord. (Exo. 28:36, 38)
John dresses the Harlot in a way that draws out attention to her forehead. When we look there we see the opposite of what appears on the forehead of the High Priest, showing John’s estimation of what the Holy City, Temple of God, and priesthood have become. Interestingly, Jeremiah also mentions the harlotrous forehead of Jerusalem in Jeremiah 3:3.
Among the prophets of Jerusalem, I have seen a horrible thing. The committing of adultery and walking in falsehood. They strengthen the hands of evildoers so that no one has turned back from his wickedness. All of them have become to Me like Sodom, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah. (Jer. 23:14)
John applies to Jerusalem names involving evil biblical associations:
Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified (Rev. 11:8).
Note that he calls this city “mystically” Sodom and Egypt, but that he actually locates it at the place, “where also their Lord was crucified,” which we know is Jerusalem (Luke 9:31; 13:33; 18:31; 24:18).
Later in Revelation, John calls Jerusalem, “Babylon.” He appears to do this because of the soon coming destruction of the Second Temple, the Temple of Jesus’ day. The first Temple had been destroyed by historical Babylon in the Old Testament (2 Kings 25:8-9; 2 Chr. 36:17-20; Ezra 5:12; Jer. 52:13). Now Jerusalem is aligned with Babylon as a Temple destroyer for causing the final destruction of the house of God.
John structures two major female images in Revelation as positive and negative images. He names the Harlot as “Babylon the Great” and presents her evil character in Revelation 17. John also presents her destruction in chapters 18 and 19.
He cried out in a mighty voice saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. (Rev. 18:2)
Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come. (Rev. 18:10)
A strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it in the sea, saying, Thus will be Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer. (Rev. 18:21)
John now introduces a new woman. She is called the holy city, the new Jerusalem.
I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. (Rev. 21:2)
Elsewhere the New Testament we have the same contrast of old and new Jerusalem:
This Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. The Jerusalem from above is free. She is our mother. (Gal. 4:25-26)
The writer of Hebrews encourages the professing Jews to remain faithful to the Christian conversion:
You have come to Mount Zion to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels. (Heb. 12:22)
John records for us his experience in witnessing both the Great Harlot and the Bride from heaven. One becomes the negative image of the other:
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters. (Rev. 17:1)
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said come here and said, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. (Rev. 21:9)
The positive-negative contrast continues with the old and new Jerusalem. The angel in both instances carries John, but to radically different environments:
He carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. (Rev. 17:3)
He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. (Rev. 21:9)
