Revelation 18 - Introduction

XVIII.

THE FALL OF BABYLON. — In the commencement of the last chapter the angel (one of the vial-bearing angels) had promised to show the seer the judgment of the harlot (Revelation 18:1); he was accordingly shown first the vision of the scarlet-clad woman seated on the wild beast. The seer was filled with wonder, and the angel entered into explanation of the mystery of the woman, touching on her relation to the beast, and her ultimate doom, and revealing to him who she was. But though the angel has proclaimed her overthrow in his explanatory statement, the judgment of the harlot has not been seen in the vision; we must, in fact, regard the portion of the last chapter, from Revelation 18:7 to the end, as a kind of parenthesis, a pause in the drama of vision, the action of which is resumed in Revelation 18. Yet though the dramatic action is taken up, we are not shown in vision her actual overthrow; but we gather it from the four agencies which are put forward — the angel which proclaims her moral fall (Revelation 18:1); the voice from the heaven which gives the vivid description of her sudden overthrow, and of the marvellous sensation it occasioned (Revelation 18:4); the angel which tells the irremediable character of her overthrow (Revelation 18:21); and finally, the chorus of the heavenly multitude rejoicing over her fall (Revelation 19:1).