Revelation 17

Chap. XVII. Ver. 1. The great whore.—Doddridge and Woodhouse, “harlot.” [Whoredom in Scripture frequently denotes idolatry; and how many kings and nations has Papal Rome intoxicated with the wine of her fornications!” By the most subtle insinuations and politic management, she hath obtained and preserved her ascendancy; attaching them to her wretched authority in blind submission, inducing them to conform to her solely an intoxicating and odious yoke, and multitudes, by their zeal for that church, see their unoffending neighbours destroyed by tens of thousands!]—B after many waters.—This is spoken in allusion to the literal Babylon situated on the Euphrates. Compare (Jeremiah 51:12-13). Explained in ver. 15 to mean peoples, &c. is fallen.” So in (Revelation 16)ver. 17; a voice from the throne of the vision, “reigned over the kings of the earth,” was undoubtedly Rome; and, from its origin, it has, in different ways, accomplished this object to the present time.—Bagster.

Chap. XVIII. Ver. 2. The habitation of devils.—Greek, “Demons.” [That is, she is become a scene of utter desolation, and the habitation of hateful birds and beasts of prey. It is evident, that no desolations have yet left Rome in this condition; unless any choose to say, that it has “become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird,” ever since the popes and cardinals have made it their residence.]—Bagster. Compare with this verse (Isaiah 13:19-21). (Jeremiah 51:37).

Notes on the verses

Ver. 3. Wilderness.—[The desolate state of the true church of Christ.]—Bagster.—Scarlet coloured beast—i.e. a wild beast, as the word usually signifies. [Doubtless the church of Rome, as she sits upon, or rules over the beast, which is the Latin empire, or the temporal power by which she is supported.]—Bagster.

Ver. 4. Purple and scarlet colour.—[The distinguishing colours of popes and cardinals, as well as of emperors and senators; and who can find adequate language to describe the pride, splendour, and magnificence of the church of Rome!]—Bagster. Having a golden cup.—See (Isaiah 51:7). In the Table of Ceres, is represented a fair, beautiful, and false woman, having a cup in her hand. She is called Deceit, and seduceth all mankind.

Ver. 5. Mystery, Babylon—i.e., Mystic Babylon. Woodhouse does not take this word for part of the inscription, but an intimation that this name was to be mystically understood. He renders it—“And upon her forehead was a name written, a mystery, Babylon,” &c. Scaliger affirms, that this name was inscribed upon the front of the Pope’s mitre, till some of the Reformers noticed it. See Newton, who remarks, that this term can with no propriety be attached to ancient Rome; and that St. John’s admiration must imply the same, for he would not be surprised that a heathen city should persecute.

Ver. 6. Drunken with the blood of the saints.—Charles IX. of France, a Roman Catholic prince, laid a snare for the destruction of the Protestants, by offering his sister in marriage to a Huguenot (a Protestant) prince of Navarre.

All the chief men of the Huguenots were assembled in Paris at the nuptials; when on the eve of St. Bartholomew’s day, August 21, 1572, at the ringing of a bell, the massacre commenced. An unparalleled scene of horror ensued. The Roman Catholics rushed upon the defenceless Protestants. Above five hundred men of distinction, and about ten thousand others that night slept in Paris the sleep of death. A general destruction was immediately ordered throughout France, and a horrid carnage was soon witnessed at Rouen, Lyons, Orleans, and other cities. Sixty thousand perished—and when the news of this event reached Rome, Pope Gregory XIII. instituted the most solemn rejoicing, giving thanks to Almighty God for this glorious victory over the heretics!

According to the calculation of some, about two hundred thousand suffered death in seven years, under Pope Julian; no less than a hundred thousand were massacred by the French in the space of three months; the Waldenses who perished, amounted to one million; within thirty years, the Jesuits destroyed nine hundred thousand; under the Duke of Alva, thirty-six thousand were executed by the common hangman; a hundred and fifty thousand perished in the inquisition; and a hundred and fifty thousand by the Irish massacre; besides the vast multitude of whom the world could never be particularly informed, who were proscribed, banished, starved, burnt, buried alive, smothered, suffocated, drowned, assassinated, chained to the galleys for life, or immured within the horrid walls of the Bastile, or others of their church or state prisons.

According to some, the whole number of persons massacred since the rise of Papacy, amounts to fifty millions!

Ver. 8. The beast that thou sawest.—Compare this beast with the first beast, described in (Revelation 13)Also with the fourth beast in Daniel, (Revelation 7)The chief difference between this beast, and that in Chap. xiii, seems to be in the omission of his similitude to the lion, the bear, and the leopard, which represented monarchies, described by three separate animals in Daniel, but long since ceased: this regards only the Roman government.

Ver. 9. Seven mountains—Namely, the Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Celian, Esquiline, Viminal, and Aventine hills. See note on ch. xiii. 1.

Ver. 10. Seven kings—(Or, seven forms of government, which subsisted among the Romans. The “five fallen” are kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes; the sixth, the one that is, is the power of the Caesars, or emperors; and the seventh is probably the exarch of Ravenna, or the dukedom of Rome. If this be reckoned a distinct form of government, then the beast is “the eighth,” but if it be deemed too inconsiderable to be reckoned a distinct head, he “is of the seven;” but whether the seventh or eighth, he is the last form of government in that idolatrous empire, and “goeth into perdition.”]—Bagster.

Ver. 12. Ten horns.—The number of kings, or states, which support the harlot, have, at different times, much varied.

So the apostles were still the twelve, though Judas hanged himself. See note on (1 Corinthians 15:5)—i.e. a same hour.—Lowman. So, ver. 13, one mind is certainly “the same the principal instruments in the destruction of popery, and the ruin of Rome.

Ver. 18. That great city, which reigneth, &c.—This necessarily determines Rome to be the place intended. So Lowman. [The city which, at the time Ver. 3. Delicacies.—Doddridge, “luxuries.” Ver. 5. Laid ane See a pummemeeas actions. Ver. 6. Double unto her double.—See (Isaiah 40:2). Ver. 7. Lived deliciously.—Doddridge, “in luxury.” So verse 9.—Jett a queen.—See (Isaiah 47:5, 8, 9).