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§18 The Aftermath of Babylon’s Destruction (Rev. 18:1–19:10)

In chapter 18, John describes a variety of responses, from heaven (18:1–8, 20) and on earth (18:9–19), to the shocking news of Babylon’s destruction. These responses constitute the climactic scene of the seventh trumpet-plague and the “third woe” that precede the inbreaking of God’s reign on earth. Drawing upon biblical “doom-songs” and laments that were written of other city-states (cf. Beasley-Murray, Revelation, p. 262), John composes a dirge about Babylon’s destruction which deepens the significance of his prior message about the evils of the secular order and God’s triumph over them. It is incorrect in our view to interpret Babylon’s fall as a “celebration,” an occasion for vengefulness of the oppressed against former oppressors; the tone is much too somber for this. Neither does this portrait comprise an unconnected collection of “taunt-songs”; the evocative images (more than the themes) are too coherent in their final form. The reader is invited to enter into the considerable pathos that attends this material to consider the final responses of a failed people, who have refused to turn and give glory to God, and their fallen institutions.

Boring is correct to call attention to the importance of the pastiche of prophetic passages to which John alludes in this chapter (Revelation, pp. 185–86). For John, this eschatological event is the fulfillment of God’s promised vindication of the Christian gospel. Further, there is a pattern by which God executes justice against the enemies of God’s people within their ongoing history. In this sense, the destruction of Babylon is consistent with prophecies leveled against other evil city-states—such as the biblical Tyre (Ezek. 26–28; Isa. 23:1–18), Babylon (Isa. 13:19–22; 47:7–9; Jer. 50–51), and Nineveh (Zeph. 2:14–15; Nah. 3). John’s audience can readily find hope (or reason to repent) in their own difficult situation from the prophetic oracles found in their Bible.

The chapter is divided into three parts, each with a particular function. (1) The angelic annunciation of Babylon’s doom is reported as a dirge over the city (18:1–3). Included in this dirge are the two fundamental reasons for God’s indictment of the city-political self-interest and materialism (18:3). Both idolatrous dispositions result in antagonism toward God’s reign and to its witness in God’s people. (2) The heavenly speech that follows (18:4–20) is bracketed by the two imperatives which inform the church’s response to Babylon’s evils in light of God’s call to holiness. The church should “come out of her … (and) not share in her sins” (18:4), and the church should “rejoice” in God’s vindication (18:20). The various laments in between indicate the values of the social order which the faithful are to renounce in that they lead a people away from God’s salvation and toward God’s judgment. It is striking that the imperative is not for engagement against but for separation from the sociopolitical order. (3) The concluding action performed by the “mighty angel” (18:21–24) repeats in reverse order the two reasons for condemning Babylon, announced earlier by the “angel with great authority” (18:1): “Your merchants were the world’s great men./By your magic spell all the nations were led astray” (18:23). These concluding words repeat the central theme of this chapter that describes responses from “people-on-the street” to Babylon’s demise: secular power, conceived of in political or economic terms, is self-corrupting because it forms a functional atheism that denies the sovereign rule of God.

18:1 / John envisions yet another angel coming down from heaven, bearing God’s indictment of earthly Babylon. The importance of his message is expressed by its visage, for this angel had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. The glory of the angel’s coming is in stark contrast with the gloom of its message. Yet, John’s most critical theological point is embedded within this contrast: the yield of Babylon’s gloom is God’s glory. The gospel is that the Lord has triumphed over the likes of Babylon and that God has liberated the Lamb’s faithful from Babylon’s evils to serve God forever.

18:2–3 / The great angel’s dirge begins by an ironical summary of the great event: Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! (cf. 16:19). That Babylon lies in ruins is indicated by its occupation by demons … every evil spirit … every unclean and detestable bird—all symbols of death and desertion (cf. Isa. 13:20–22; 34:11–15; Jer. 51:37; Luke 11:24–26).

The reasons for its fall suggest its former greatness. It brokered political power with nations … and the kings of the earth. Yet, its relationship with them was profane and illicit in that Babylon demands submission to its secular agenda and interests rather than to God’s reign. The image of adultery to characterize this relationship is an allusion to the familiar prophetic typology of Israel’s idolatry. John’s point, however, is a political one: it is idolatry whenever political values are legitimized by claims of national sovereignty. Only God is sovereign over the affairs of nations. In John’s world, Rome’s political greatness led to its arrogant refusal to submit its aims and purposes to the will of God and to its choosing instead the emperor cultus as the true and approved religion of God.

Babylon’s functional atheism is detected in the economic sphere as well. There the merchants of the earth profited from excessive luxuries. The word for excessive (strenos) occurs only here in the NT and lacks any precise equivalent elsewhere. Beckwith understands it as “self-indulgence with accompanying arrogance and wanton exercise of strength” (Revelation, p. 713), which seems true to the immediate context. The will of the social order and its ruling elite dominates in a world where “might makes right.” Merchants value economic profit, even as kings value national security. Such is the nature of idolatry, which results in self-destruction and divine judgment. Moreover, since God’s judgment is due in part to Babylon’s treatment of God’s people (18:24), John’s point interprets the church’s experience of powerlessness and poverty as well. The eschaton is for those who are now marginalized, whose political and economic conditions will be reversed in revelation of God’s righteousness (cf. Luke 1:51–53).

18:4–5 / The second major section of the dirge is spoken by another voice from heaven, presumably angelic, which first addresses God’s people (18:4–5) and God’s executioners (18:6–8), before rehearsing the laments of Babylon’s friends (18:9–19) and finally concluding with an exhortation for God’s people to rejoice in God’s vindication (18:20).

The opening citation of a familiar divine command, Come out of her, my people (cf. Gen. 12:1; Num. 16:23; Jer. 50:8; 51:6, 45; Isa. 48:20; 52:11; Zech. 2:6–7), may very well reflect the sectarian tendencies of the Johannine community. Not only is there an ideological imperative to resist the secular materialistic values and convictions of the surrounding social order, John may well have intended to call his audience to remove itself physically from society in order to live in a segregated community, consecrated to God and to one another.

The command to form a consecrated community is issued for two reasons: (1) so that the community will not share Babylon’s sins, and therefore, (2) not receive any of her plagues from God who has remembered her crimes (cf. 16:19). Some scholars (e.g., Charles) criticize John for confusing his readers, since here he speaks of Babylon’s future destruction when he has just spoken of its past destruction in verse 2. Yet, the form of John’s composition is a poetic dirge-song of Babylon’s destruction and not a discursive narrative about it. We should be able to give John a poet’s (or seer’s) license!

18:6–8 / The heavenly voice turns from God’s people to Babylon’s executioners, already identified as the evil beast and its liege of ten kings (17:16–17), with the demand to Give back to her as she has given. In light of the accusations leveled against Babylon in verse 3, the retributive justice of God is framed by the OT, which stipulates double (or capital) punishment for the sins of political and economic exploitation (cf. Isa. 40:2).

The plagues that will destroy the city are then enumerated: death, mourning and famine … and fire, which is a paraphrase of the oracle against Babylon found in Isaiah 47:7–9. However, the oracle of plagues is centered by the reversal of Babylon, which can boast, “I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn” (cf. Rev. 3:17). But in one day it will be destroyed by plagues. Such is the frailty of secular power. Such is the greater power of God, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.

18:9–10 / With this third subunit of the second section of the dirge John gathers together a series of three laments from Babylon’s friends. As with every lament, there is considerable ambivalence expressed by the kings of the earth. On the one hand, they … weep and mourn over Babylon; yet, on the other hand, they helped to bring about the city’s end because they committed adultery with her and shared her luxury.

These kings are not those of 17:16 who participate in Babylon’s destruction; they keep their distance. Thus, while their distress seems genuine, they do not help save the city but rather announce its judgment. Perhaps they are political realists. While recognizing Babylon as a great city … a city of power, they view its doom as inevitable. The phrase, in one hour, is repeated throughout the lament to indicate the obvious: God’s power will quickly overwhelm the evil city to judge it justly for its “one hour of authority” (17:12) during which its ruling elite persecuted the Lamb (17:13–14). Fair is fair!

18:11–17a / Like the kings of the earth, the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over Babylon (cf. 18:9). The class of merchants (cf. 18:3) appears in John’s vision for the first time. In part this reflects John’s dependency on Ezekiel’s dirge-song against Tyre, which also catalogues the wares of merchants (Ezek. 27:12–24; cf. Isa. 23). Yet, it also reflects the current situation of John’s audience, which apparently has been either marginalized (cf. 2:9) or compromised (cf. 3:17) by the economic structures of the Roman world. At the very least, believers faced enormous economic pressures to participate in the Roman culture and its values in order to enjoy its material benefits. These values, however, are anti-Christian. While the distress of “kings of the earth” was over the city’s torment, the merchants mourn because they are losing profits and customers as the city burns. As Beasley-Murray says, “The merchants … are concerned neither for the miseries of the innocent nor for the sufferings of the city, but solely for the loss of trade” (Revelation, p. 267). Their disregard for human life reflects the values of their choice for materialism over theism (cf. Luke 12:1–34; 14:1–6).

Most of the cargoes listed belong to the middle class. The concluding reference to bodies and souls of men is important because it resists the gnosticizing bifurcation of material from spiritual. Rather than referring only to slave trade (cf. Ezek. 27:13; 1 Tim. 1:10), John adds to the expression souls of men which implies that middle-class materialism corrupts and enslaves human beings from inside out.

The shifts of person from second to third and of tense from present to past (aorist) in verse 14 cue the reader away from the announcement of loss of business by the merchants to the continuation of the lament for the city. The speakers are unspecified but probably are the merchants who stand far off with the kings of the earth and comment in a profoundly self-interested way about the loss of Babylon’s wealth. The similar structure of their lament with that of the kings would suggest agreement about the city’s inevitable and imminent fate.

18:17b–19 / Every sea captain … and the sailors constitute the final group of dependents, who weep and mourn for their city. Because their interest is the maritime industry, they lament the loss of ships on the sea and the wealth they brought to the city. Their poignant question, Was there ever a city like this great city? echoes Ezekiel 27:32. Ezekiel asks this question about Tyre, thought at that time to be an invincible naval power in the ancient world. The prophet’s point is rhetorical and intends to contrast the apparent power of Tyre with that of a sovereign God who could destroy the city with ease and with reason.

The apparent invincibility of secular power and human ingenuity, whether Tyrean, Roman, or North American, poses a threat to the believer. The compromise of faith is often viewed as expedient, given the very real evidence of secular power which surrounds the church. Given Rome’s obvious powers and seductions, sometimes at odds with the gospel, John is naturally concerned that the believing community will want membership in Rome’s middle class instead of in God’s kingdom. The Laodicean congregation seems already to have made that decision.

Perhaps John concludes the mariners’ lament in the present (18:19) rather than the future tense (18:9–10, 15–17a) to make God’s judgment of Babylon’s materialism seem “more real, more immediate to the reader” (Collins, Crisis & Catharsis, p. 119). In this sense, the whole dirge makes a more descriptive and less poetic statement and forces the readers to deal with their situation in a more realistic manner. The optimism of nationalism (kings), of middle class affluence (merchants), and of secular humanism (mariners), wherever it exists, is exposed as lies and fictions. Human efforts to build a great world or a lasting peace will only self-destruct.

18:20 / The somber tone of the laments over Babylon quickly changes to celebration as the angel concludes its speech by moving John’s attention back to heaven, where God’s victory has already been secured for Babylon’s saints and apostles and prophets. The language of the angel’s final commentary on Babylon’s fate is terse and forensic, typical of a sentence issued in a Roman courtroom. Its meaning, however, is ambiguous and contested. At the very least, it intends to justify God’s verdict against Babylon (cf. Caird, Revelation, pp. 228–30). Further, God’s judgment of Babylon vindicates the church’s devotion to the norms and values of God’s reign, especially the devotion of those martyred for their faithfulness.

18:21–24 / The preceding imperative to rejoice over Babylon’s tragedy is a rather disturbing one. It is made more so by the action and speech of the mighty angel who contrasts heavenly delight with earthly gloom. The act of casting the millstone … into the sea, the home of evil powers, is similar to that of the angel who hurled the fiery censer toward earth in answer to the church’s prayer that God begin the time of vindication (cf. 8:4–5). This new action, then, marks the completion of that period in salvation’s history.

The heroic deed of the mighty angel (cf. Rev. 5:2; 10:1) also reminds one of Jeremiah, who also tied his prophecies against Babylon to a stone which he threw into the Euphrates (cf. Jer. 51:63). This enacted parable was subsequently interpreted as confirming the certainty and finality of “the disaster (God) will bring upon her” (Jer. 51:64). In this new context, the angel’s pronouncement brackets, together with the opening stanza (18:2–3), the declaration of mythic Babylon’s demise. Babylon, once filled with the music and crafts of its creative citizens, has become a haunt for “demons and detestable birds.” Even its best citizens, the musicians and artisans, will be silenced because of its evil.

The couplet that declares music … will never be heard in you again/No workman of any trade will be found in you again captures a profound theological sentiment. The stilling of the creative arts tells of God’s absence (cf. Isa. 5:12; 24:8). The creator God’s presence has always been felt and acknowledged through the creative arts of God’s creatures in testimony of the Lord’s rule over creation (cf. Rev. 4:11).

Since Babylon has become a “home for demons,” the light of a lamp will never shine. And marriage, a symbol of continuity, is no longer relevant since the great city Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.

The relationship between the last two sentences and the rest of the song is not apparent, except to repeat and therefore to emphasize the two great evils of John’s Babylon: the merchants’ economics of exploitation and the kings’ politics of deception, which have resulted in the destruction of all who have been killed on the earth. Indeed, the myths of national security and economic contentment form the false gods which cast the magic spell not only on John’s Roman world but on every other society of human history.

19:1–3 / Now that the third woe is completed, the reader is ready to hear God’s concluding word that speaks of salvation rather than of judgment. These doxologies describe the logical response of worship to the angel’s earlier demand for the heavenly community to “Rejoice … O heaven/Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets!” (18:20). They also form part of the heavenly liturgy of joy that is marked by the repeated acclamations of Hallelujah! (19:1, 3, 4, 6)—found only here in the NT but often in the OT Psalter where it means “Praise the Lord!” In the Psalter this invocation typically summoned the worshiping community to acknowledge God’s salvation, often from those situations characterized by their difficulty and evil—that is, from the very places represented by Babylon in Revelation.

The collocation of heavenly hymns that introduce chapter 19 concludes John’s extended description of the seventh bowl-plague. These hymns parallel those that commenced with the blast of the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11:15–18. In both instances, the heavenly chorus consists of a multitude of loud voices (11:15; 19:1, 6) and is led by the twenty-four elders (11:16; 19:4). Their praise and worship is theocentric, acknowledging the power (11:17; 19:1) and reign (11:15, 17; 19:6) of the eternal (11:15; 19:3) God. Further, in both visions, doxology is the proper response of “both small and great” (11:18; 19:5) because God’s righteous wrath is executed against unrighteous nations/Babylon (11:18; 19:2) on behalf of the righteous community of faith.

The parallelism between the seventh trumpet and bowl judgments reflects obvious theological and rhetorical importance. Recall that the seventh trumpet concludes a vision of the beginning of God’s victory over evil through the slaughtered yet exalted Paschal Lamb. Indeed, God’s reign over the “kingdom of the world” (11:15) has begun in great power (11:17) because of the Lamb’s blood (cf. 5:9–10). Yet, the focus of this earlier doxology looks backward in salvation’s history to its penultimate moment when the messianic kingdom was established (11:15) in heaven (11:19). At the moment of Christ’s coronation in heaven, God’s struggle against the evil foe ended in heaven where the biblical promise of salvation was fulfilled. That the war in heaven between God and the Evil One must conclude on earth in precisely the same way it concluded in heaven is disclosed by the opening of the heavenly temple (11:19). Moreover, it is from this profoundly hopeful perspective that the faithful community now addresses the trials and tribulations of the present evil age, envisioned in chapters 12 and 13. This present passage points back to that central section of Revelation, once again with a note on God’s triumph over the “kingdom of the world.” In this case, however, God’s triumph is total and the evil kingdom is utterly demolished from earth. God’s reign over the world, which had already begun in heaven with the Christ event, is now complete on earth. In this way, John transports the reader out of the present to the end of the age, “for the wedding of the Lamb has come/and his bride has made herself ready” (19:7).

Finally, the intratextual conversation between the concluding doxologies sounded by the seventh trumpet and those poured out from the seventh bowl form an inclusio and complete the foundation of John’s exhortation to his audience: the community of believers confronts the evils of the present age not only with the confidence that the risen Lamb’s death has already “purchased (a people) for God … and has made them to be a kingdom and priests” (5:9–10); but with the hope that in the imminent future the returning Lamb will dispense eschatological blessings to those invited to his wedding feast (19:9).

The first heavenly chorus sounds like the roar of a great multitude, no doubt angelic (contra Mounce, Revelation, p. 337). Their concluding praise echoes the doxology which opened this section of the vision in 12:10a: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God.” The claim made by both doxologies puts a particular “spin” on the current period of salvation’s history, described especially in chapters 12 and 13. Despite the pretensions of secular power and its claim to rule over the “real world,” the eschatological events which continue to unfold from Christ’s exaltation assert a different reality: Salvation and glory and power belong to our God. The self-destruction of Babylon, when coupled with God’s judgment over it, further clarifies what the doxology celebrates: truth and justice prevail because the power belongs to our God rather than to “the great prostitute,” Babylon.

The unmistakable irony reflected in the phrase, smoke from her goes up for ever and ever, recalls Babylon’s fires (17:16, 18; 18:8, 9, 18; Isa. 34:9–10) but also the incense of heavenly worship (8:3–4; cf. 14:11). Such is the dynamic of worship and praise. The reality of God’s reign, which centers all Christian devotion, forms a dialectic between God’s judgment of evil and the triumph of good through Christ. As Caird puts it, “the reality (John) is expressing is the victory of love over all that stands in love’s way” (Revelation, p. 232).

19:4–5 / The second doxology offered in the exchange between those closest to God, the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures, and the voice from God’s throne is significant for two reasons. First, the significance of the doxology derives from the significance of the choral members who sing it. All the songs of the twenty-four elders (4:8, 11; 5:9–10; 11:17–18) rehearse Revelation’s central themes, now implicit in their Amen, Hallelujah! (cf. Ps. 104:35). Second, the significance of the liturgist’s response derives from the setting, the throne of God. All of Revelation’s great themes are really about the one theological axiom of John’s faith: because of the slain Lamb, God’s reign has triumphed over evil. The invitation to praise God is given to God’s people, both small and great, who recognize the victory of God in the ashes of Babylon and so fear him in recognition of God’s sovereignty.

19:6–8 / The fourth voice John hears is likened to a great multitude and to the roar of rushing waters and … loud peals of thunder. Its detailed description and the images of overwhelming noise suggest that the third doxology has dramatic and eschatological importance similar to that expressed at the blast of the seventh trumpet (cf. 11:15–19). This parallelism is structurally significant as well, since both this third doxology and the seventh trumpet function as transitional episodes within John’s composition.

This multitude, however, is not angelic; it comprises God’s servants (cf. 5:10; 19:4–5). The boundaries separating the angelic community in heaven from the human one on earth have now become less discrete: both communities shout Hallelujah! in mutual confirmation that our Lord God Almighty reigns (cf. 19:1). This exhortation for the eschatological community to rejoice and be glad plays off of the earlier command to “rejoice” (cf. 18:20)—although that imperative obliges the eschatological community to find joy in a condemned Babylon, while here it rejoices because the wedding of the Lamb has come. The former joy evokes not a sense of delight but of pathos for a people who refused God’s goodness. The current prospect of a wedding celebration allows the “saints and apostles and prophets” to be glad. Given the dynamic movement of John’s salvation from judgment to final justification, this seems logical. With evil judged, the messianic banquet can begin.

The prospect of a happy marriage is an important prophetic typology (Beasley-Murray, Revelation, pp. 273–74). However, according to the OT, in almost every case, such a prospect goes unfulfilled because of Israel’s faithlessness. Thus, the prophets of God look to the future and even to the Messiah as the time of fulfillment, when Israel will be God’s faithful bride. Behind the prophetic use of this marriage-typology are the ideals of the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. The experiences of intimacy and mutual support which nurture a good marriage ought also to characterize the relationship between God and God’s people. Such a relationship constitutes the OT promise which has now been fulfilled because of the Lamb-groom (cf. Eph. 5:21–32). Indeed, the true Israel of God is the bride, the church.

John’s own commentary on the last line of the doxology, which interprets the fine linen … as the righteous acts of the saints, is important in this context for two reasons. First, John repeats the condition whereby the bride has made herself ready for redemption: righteous acts. Because the fine linen … was given to her to wear by God, some have understood dikaiōmata, “righteous acts,” as a forensic rather than an existential reality (e.g., Morris, Revelation, pp. 220–21). For John, however, eschatological fitness demands righteous acts in keeping with the Lamb. The church is given the garment to wear, but it must still put it on! Perhaps John describes the linen as “clean” instead of “white” as he did earlier (7:14) in order to distinguish between God’s saving response, which “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” and the community’s proper response to God, in which case the “clean” linen “stands for the righteous acts of the saints.” Hence, in John’s final instance, “white and clean” are found together in reference to the trimphant community (19:14). Second, this righteousness constitutes a life apart from the way of Babylon. Earlier in 14:4, John provided his readers with the two conditions of Christian discipleship: (1) follow the Lamb, which would yield righteous acts; and (2) do not commit adultery with the prostitute, Babylon. The wedding dress symbolizes chastity; the true disciple is not one of Babylon’s “johns” (cf. 17:1–2) and lives a “pure life” which reflects the norms and values of God’s kingdom.

19:9–10 / Many scholars have commented on the confusion John causes by retaining the marriage-typology while changing the church’s status at the wedding feast from bride to guest (cf. Matt. 22:1–14). But such shifts in Revelation are rhetorical and serve to attract the reader’s attention to transitions in John’s composition. In this case, John prepares his readers for the final, climactic vision of God’s triumph beginning at 19:11.

Moreover, the importance of this transitional episode to what follows is noted by the repetition of John’s commission to write down (cf. 1:19; 14:13; 21:5) the beatitude, Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! This is the fourth of seven beatitudes in Revelation (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 20:6; 22:7, 14), and seems to help explain the significance of the preceding doxology. Its importance for John is made even more emphatic by the angel’s remark that the beatitude comprises the true words of God (cf. 21:5; 22:6) and by John’s response of worship at the angel’s feet—in response to the message and not to the angelic messenger.

What should we make of all this? Perhaps it is best not to put too fine a point on any difference between bride and guest; the wedding’s the thing, because it is the Lamb’s wedding. Even the supper motif is incidental to the text’s meaning, as 19:17–18 seems to suggest. What is important in this passage is the question evoked by the statement about eschatological blessings dispensed to those who are invited to the wedding supper. The language of “invitation” was used to speak of the divine election of a true Israel. Jesus used this motif to correct official Judaism’s exclusivist definition of election (cf. Luke 14:15–24). John’s point is in continuity with the testimony of Jesus: divine blessing comes to “both small and great” if “you fear God” (19:5). It is this point that establishes the criterion by which the community of faith must “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (cf. 1 John 4:1–6). According to the author of 1 John, fear of the world yields to the love of God (4:18) when God’s children realize that their destiny is not the day of judgment of the world (4:17) but victory over the world (5:4).