Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 18:7

It is probably at this point that the passage drifts over from the conception of a voice heard (Revelation 18:4) to that of direct utterance on the part of the prophet; unless we are to suppose that the voice speaks till the close of Revelation 18:20 (a similar instance in ch. 11). Imperial Rome is imperious and insolent; haughty self-confidence is the sin of the second Babylon as of the first (see Isaiah 47:5; Isaiah 47:7-8, imitated in this passage). Cf. (bef. 80 A.D.) Sibyll. ver. 173, where the impious and doomed city is upbraided for vaunting “I am by myself, and none shall overthrow me”. A similar charge of arrogance was brought by Ezekiel against the prince of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:2 f., cf. Ezekiel 28:26 throughout with the present passage), and by the Jewish author of Apoc. Bar. xii. 3 against Rome. To the Semitic as to the Hellenic conscience, the fall of a haughty spirit always afforded moral relief. Nothing so shocked the ancient conscience as overweening presumption in a state or an individual, which was certain ultimately to draw down upon itself the crashing anger of heaven.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 18:7

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