So here's the next post: Mystery Babylon's attributes continued...
- She's said to have “committed fornication” with the king's of the earth. Rev. 17:2
For this one, we have to go to the KJV to understand the O.T. usage of the word “fornication.”
{11} Moreover he [Jehoram] made high places in the mountains of Judah,
and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah
thereto.
2 Chronicles 21:11 (KJV)
The “high places” of this verse refers to altars, and is seen in many passages of the O.T. where the idolatry of the people of Israel and Judah is also mentioned. (See Lev. 26:30, Num. 22:41, 33:52).
The NASB uses the phrase “to play the harlot” instead of “commit fornication,” but the meaning is the same: 1st century Jerusalem and her people were “committing fornication” with Rome when they rejected Messiah. The Roman Caesars were considered divine by the pagans of Rome and the Roman Empire, and the Jews on the day of Christ's trial pledged allegiance to another god when they shouted this:
{15} So they cried out, "Away with
Him, away with
Him, crucify Him!" Pilate *said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?"
The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar."
John 19:15 (NASB)
In shouting “we have no king but Caesar”, they were also saying “we have no god but Caesar” because they understood all that the title “Caesar” meant in their day. They rejected the salvation of the true God (Christ) and “committed fornication” with a false god (Caesar), instead.
- She's said to be riding on a “scarlet beast.” Rev. 17:4
The “scarlet beast” here is Rome, and is the same beast John sees “rising out of the sea” in Rev. 13:1. Judah and Jerusalem came under the sphere of Roman influence as early as 164 B.C. Flavius Josephus recounts how this happened:
And when he [high priest Alcimus] was dead, the people bestowed the high priesthood on Judas; who hearing of the power of the Romans, and that they had conquered in war Galatia, and Iberia, and Carthage, and Libya; and that, besides these, they had subdued Greece, and their kings, Perseus, and Philip, and Antiochus the Great also; he resolved to enter into a league of friendship with them.
He therefore sent to Rome some of his friends, Eupolemus the son of John, and Jason the son of Eleazar, and by them desired the Romans that they would assist them, and be their friends, and would write to Demetrius that he would not fight against the Jews.
So the senate received the ambassadors that came from Judas to Rome, and discoursed with them about the errand on which they came, and then granted them a league of assistance.
They also made a decree concerning it, and sent a copy of it into Judea. It was also laid up in the capitol, and engraven in brass.
The decree itself was this: "The decree of the senate concerning a league of assistance and friendship with the nation of the Jews. It shall not be lawful for any that are subject to the Romans to make war with the nation of the Jews, nor to assist those that do so, either by sending them corn, or ships, or money; and if any attack be made upon the Jews, the Romans shall assist them, as far as they are able; and again, if any attack be made upon the Romans, the Jews shall assist them. And if the Jews have a mind to add to, or to take away any thing from, this league of assistance, that shall be done with the common consent of the Romans. And whatsoever addition shall thus be made, it shall be of force."
This decree was written by Eupolemus the son of John, and by Jason the son of Eleazar, when Judas was high priest of the nation, and Simon his brother was general of the army.
And this was the first league that the Romans made with the Jews, and was managed after this manner.
Flavius Josephus, The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Hartford, CN: S. S. Scranton, 1905), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 380.
Over the years, this alliance became increasingly uneasy until – in 63 B.C. - the Roman general Pompey besieged and conquered Jerusalem. This began the period of Roman occupation and rule over Jerusalem and Judea that would last until the Persian army took the city from Byzantium (Rome's Eastern Empire) in 614 AD. Only twenty-four years later, Jerusalem would fall to the forces of Islam.
During Jerusalem's alliance with Rome – and its later conquest by same – it received all the benefits any other nation in the Roman Empire received: Rome defended it, built roads in and out of it, encouraged trade, and thus Jerusalem became wealthy by it's association with Rome.
However, there is a downside that comes with wealth obtained by depending on someone other than God to provide it. John chides the church of Laodicea for this very thing:
{17} ~'Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,
{18} I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and
that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
{19} ~'Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.
Revelation 3:17-19 (NASB)
This is the same message God spoke to His people through the prophets in the O.T. (Jer. 5:27, Hos 12:6-8)
More in my next post.
