Revelation 18:1–24

Original Meaning

The Death of Babylon (18:1–8)

THE LAMENT JOHN writes down, however, is more like a curse! The Old Testament prophets sometimes used funeral dirges, the language of mourning, as a creative way of announcing judgment, which could prove a cause of exulting (e.g., Isa. 16:7–11). They similarly reported the mourning of others as a creative way to communicate impending judgment (Isa. 3:26; 19:8; Jer. 48:17; Mic. 1:10).1 Laments over destroyed cities became a recognized literary form in antiquity.2 The announcement of an oppressor’s fall was good news (Nah. 1:15), just as the restoration of Zion was (Isa. 40:9; 41:27; 52:7).

“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great” recapitulates 14:8, both of which recall the dirge over Babylon in Isaiah 21:9 (cf. Jer. 51:8). The lament is especially joined by those who committed immorality with the prostitute—the client-kings whose rule depended on Rome (18:9–10) and the merchants whose prosperity likewise depended on it (18:11–19). By contrast, the dwellers in heaven rejoice (18:20; 19:1–3).3 One can compare merchant kingdoms’ laments over Tyre, the economic prostitute of old (Isa. 23:5–7, 15–17).

Mention that Babylon will become a dwelling place of unclean birds (18:2; cf. 19:17) is a creative way of announcing judgment. When cities were depopulated, no one could prevent animals from taking over. Thus Rome’s population decreased from as much as a million in John’s day to some 30,000 after its fall a few centuries later.4 The prophets had announced such a fate for many powerful cities (Isa. 34:11–15; Jer. 49:33), including Babylon (Isa. 13:20–22; Jer. 50:13; 51:29, 37) and Jerusalem (Jer. 9:11; 10:22), though God promised that Jerusalem would be restored (Isa. 35:7).

Some of these prophetic descriptions include creatures that the LXX calls “demons” (Isa. 34:14; cf. Bar. 4:35), among which descriptions are judgment oracles against Babylon (Isa. 13:21). Becoming a dwelling place of demons is a suitable judgment for a power once mobilized by demons (Rev. 16:14; cf. 9:20). That such spirits are “imprisoned” there (18:2, but not the Old Testament texts) may be a figurative way of suggesting their appropriate judgment (20:7; in contrast to believers’ sufferings, 2:10).5 Babylon faced such judgment (Jer. 51:37) precisely because they had crushed God’s people (51:33–36; cf. Rev. 18:24; 19:2).

In Rome’s propaganda, circulated by local elites (whose own rank depended on Rome’s patronage), Rome brought good to many peoples; but in a scathing critique, the prophet here announces that Rome relates to other peoples only for her own personal gain. Three times the text zeroes in on Babylon’s “luxury” (18:3, 7, 9).6 That the nations will mourn her destruction only reveals the extent to which they have been intoxicated and bewitched by her exploitive seduction (14:8; 17:2; 18:3, 23).7 But John’s audience will not lose sight of God’s sovereignty, for the language here echoes Jeremiah: God has made Babylon a wine cup to intoxicate the nations and drive them insane (Jer. 51:7; cf. Zech. 12:2), inviting mourning over Babylon (Jer. 51:8) and the flight of God’s people (Jer. 51:6, 45; cf. Zech. 2:7).

Those who mourn for Babylon include both “kings” and “merchants,” Rome’s political and mercantile allies (18:3); John focuses more on the latter group (18:11–19) than the former (18:9–10). His oracles against Babylon (18:1–19:8) are full of allusions to the Old Testament prophets, including not only prophecies against Babylon but also the oracle against Tyre in Ezekiel 26–28. Revelation borrows heavily from Old Testament images concerning Tyre because Tyre (also a prostitute—see Isa. 23:15–17) was an economic power like Rome: “If Rome was the heir of Babylon in political and religious activity, she was also the heir of Tyre in economic activity.”8 Tyre, which many considered invincible despite Ezekiel’s prophecy, ultimately met a terrible end at the hands of Alexander the Great.

Not all John’s audience is persecuted by the beast at this point; some of them in Laodicea and Sardis, in fact, are prospering as part of the same system that elsewhere is killing the saints. The summons to “come out” (18:4) may thus include withdrawal from the economic arenas that required compromise with emperor worship or other forms of idolatry.9 John’s prophecy counters “Balaam” and “Jezebel,” prophets of compromise who supported immorality, perhaps figuratively with the beast (2:14, 20; cf. 18:3). Other Jewish texts used similar language against compromise with the world’s evil.10

Those who remain in Babylon will share Babylon’s judgment, so Jeremiah had long ago prophesied to his people to flee (Jer. 51:6), though he meant these words as a prophecy of future judgment rather than a present warning (29:7). This warning to flee comes in the same context as the mention that Babylon was an intoxicating cup for the nations and would be mourned (51:7–8). That people are still invited to escape just before the judgment reveals the greatness of God’s mercy. God invites his people to leave Babylon because they have a better city (Rev. 21:2–3).

The judgment comes when Babylon’s sins are piled as high as heaven (18:5); sometimes God delays judgment only to wait until the measure for judgment over several generations is full (cf. Gen. 15:16; Matt. 23:36; Luke 11:50). Such prophecies indicate that those who profit from the sins of their ancestors will also share the judgment due their ancestors as well as that due their own sin.11 Eventually the cup of Babylon’s sins, as well as the incense cup of the saints’ cries for vindication, becomes full and rises before God (Rev. 6:10; 8:4). Those who destroy Babylon will be repaying her double for her sins (18:6), as literal Babylon had once been God’s agent in judging God’s people double for their sins (Isa. 40:2); this was the sort of recompense exacted from a thief (Ex. 22:4, 7, 9).12 Babylon will drink from its own cup (Rev. 14:8–10; cf. Isa. 51:22–23; Jer. 50:15, 29; Obad. 15).

The message of judgment against Babylon’s arrogance in 18:7 reflects the language of an ancient oracle against Babylon. Babylon claimed to be an eternal queen (18:7; cf. Isa. 47:7), living luxuriously (or sensuously—Rev. 18:7; cf. Isa. 47:8) and denying that she would be widowed or lose her children (18:7; cf. Isa. 47:8).13 Thus plagues will come on her all in one day (Rev. 18:8; cf. Isa. 47:9); she will no longer deceive by her sorcery (Rev. 18:23; cf. Isa. 47:9). Isaiah’s prophecy is well-suited to Rome, which claimed to be an eternal city.14 Other Jewish writers also saw the relevance of applying this oracle against Rome (Sib. Or. 5.169–74).15

The extent to which Rome glorified itself (Rev. 18:7) may be illustrated by the spread of the worship of the emperor and the goddess Roma, personification of Rome. As a means of propaganda and social control, Rome expected worship of what it stood for. Babylon’s giving “glory” to itself in 18:7 contrasts starkly with the new Jerusalem, which has God’s glory (21:11, 23) and the gathering of the glory of the nations into the latter (21:24, 26). A day is coming in which honor will be taken from the arrogant (cf. 13:5) and belong to God and his people alone. Babylon will be burned (see comment on 17:16); the punishment will come, because the Lord God who judges is mighty (18:8; cf. Deut. 3:24; 9:26; Ps. 89:8; Ezek. 20:33; Joel 2:11).

Bridging Contexts

SEARCHING FOR MODERN equivalents of Babylon. The lament John hears (18:2) is a fitting literary form for a city’s destruction in his day. Although our audiences today tend to be less biblically literate and hence unaware of this literary form’s use in oracles of judgment, we may recapture the same basic shock effect for our generation by uttering a mock eulogy over a sinful people. Most people today are aware of eulogies (a rhetorical form performed regularly at funerals), and because they are not accustomed to thinking of the “death” of their nation or others’ nations, the image can be jarring.

For John, Babylon’s fall seems to end the present world order (18:2–9). But the present world order did not collapse with the fall of Rome. Skeptics may therefore suggest that John is wrong. The reverse, however, is true: History has vindicated John’s most extraordinary claim! The mighty Roman empire of John’s day collapsed, but the persecuted church it sought to eradicate not only remains but has spread to every inhabited continent. Whereas Rome was the Babylon of John’s day, however, it was only one of several actors in Babylon’s role. Subsequent history reminds us that just as the false prophetess of Thyatira was a new Jezebel, the false prophet of Pergamum a new Balaam, the evil emperor a new Nero, and Rome a new Babylon, so the empires of history continue to return in successive incarnations that repeat the same basic lies. That the Babylon of John’s day has fallen, however, like most Babylons since and all that have preceded it, gives us courage that the final Babylon, too, will perish before the glory of God’s invading kingdom.56

In applying the passage, we should look for modern equivalents to Babylon’s mercantile empire that made Babylon rich while most of the people of the empire, though remaining poor, were seduced by its grandeur. The problem may be not wealth per se but the grave inequity of opportunity in the empire; the luxury items (18:12–13) represent a squandering of resources (acquired for Rome through conquest) or status symbols while neglecting others’ need (we suggest some contemporary parallels in the Contemporary Significance section). Yet the passage applies not simply to the wealth of participants in a mercantile empire (18:11) but also to the arrogance of fancying one’s own people invincible (18:7–8). History testifies to the folly of such a notion, though powerful nations today still maintain such arrogance.

Revelation recycles ancient prophetic images of depopulation (18:2) with which many people today are unfamiliar. To communicate the same sort of image today, we can borrow the aftereffects of the atom bomb in Hiroshima, science-fiction images of the results of neutron bombs, or the end of civilization as we know it, at least in our part of the world. The passage portrays the eternally empty carcass of Babylon’s remains to testify to the pretense of its earlier grandeur, especially in contrast with new Jerusalem’s eternal glory. This image summons us not to put our hope in this world but to invest our time in what will count forever—in people and their needs and destiny.

Sharing in judgment. As in this passage, those who profit from others’ sins (those of ancestors or allies) share their judgment. Some doubt the possibility of intergenerational effects of sin, but they are reading their modern Western individualism into the Bible. When God judges Babylon for centuries of collected sins (18:5), he follows a pattern elsewhere observed in Scripture. He punishes children for the sins of their ancestors, though his mercy is greater and those who leave the ways of their ancestors will be exempted (Ex. 20:5–6; Deut. 5:9–10; 7:9; Ezek. 18:14–20). In 2 Samuel 21:1–9 one generation of Israel suffered a famine because the previous generation had mistreated some pagans with whom they had a nonaggression treaty; the famine was stayed only by the execution of the sons of the perpetrator. This is not to say that we should execute people for their parents’ crimes today, but to consider what sorts of sins of our ancestors we may be unconsciously walking in. The sins hardest to see are those where our culture shares the same blind spots we have.

Parallels in injustice. How can the blood of all martyrs be laid at the feet of Babylon (18:24)? Had not Jesus laid it at Jerusalem’s feet (Matt. 23:35–37)? But “Babylon is the type of every persecuting empire.”57 The saints may suffer in the short run, but vindication always comes in God’s time. In bridging the gap between God’s concern for injustice (against his saints and others) in this text and in our world today, we must think of the injustices we know of, both those that make the evening news and the many personal stories that never make the news. We need to share God’s passion for justice for the broken, by prayer and (where possible) by action.

Contemporary Significance

VINDICATION OF FAITH. This exiled Jewish Christian prophet had the audacity to write down a funeral dirge over the mightiest empire the world had yet known! Such an act may not seem so reckless from the advantage of hindsight, but in John’s day it must have appeared an act of either incredible faith or incredible presumption. After all, the Christians were a persecuted minority sect, their prophet was banished on an island for political prisoners, yet he used against Rome an ironic literary form employed by Old Testament prophets to declare its destruction.

Rome, however, did collapse sixteen centuries ago, and the church of Jesus Christ continues to grow. This provides us, John’s heirs, a ready platform for faith: All Rome’s successors, all the evil empires of history who repress God’s people, will be dust and ashes, but God’s kingdom will not fail! Empires rise and fall, and our own earthly lives perish with the passing of generations.58 We must rest our confidence not in the short-term troubles that we read in the news headlines, but in God’s long-range purposes in history; the God who triumphed over Rome is the God whose ultimate triumph will come soon enough. John could stand on the shoulders of earlier prophets, recognizing that God’s people have remained even when the empires who conquered them collapsed; he could have confidence that God would do the same with Rome, and history has vindicated his faith.

Coming out of Babylon. God warns his people to “come out” of Babylon (18:4). This is a call to holiness, but we must not misunderstand holiness. Holiness is not simply a matter of avoiding certain kinds of activities, as some traditional churches have emphasized; holiness is separation from the world to God. Thus one can express holiness by immersing oneself in God’s Word rather than in the world’s values emphasized on television; or by turning down a better-paying job because someone felt God wanted him or her to work in a different place, perhaps among the poor. Such holiness may cost us our place in Babylon and much more. One Christian I have called “Stephen” used to pray two hours a day and began to tell God passionately that he loved God so much that nothing else mattered. Then, in 1987, Stephen lost his wife. Now when he says, “God, I love you more than anything,” he understands better what he is saying. Ultimately, if we are truly Jesus’ disciples, our very lives are forfeit (Mark 8:34–38).

“Come out of her” (18:4) also reminds us that we Christians may share in the judgments on our society, in spite of forgiveness for individual sins. Nations and institutions as corporate entities can stand under judgment (e.g., 1 Sam. 15:2–3); we who participate in such institutions share in their responsibility before God unless we explicitly repudiate our complicity with them and declare their activities wrong (Deut. 21:7–9; cf. Amos 4:1–3). Most of all, the summons to “come out of her” reminds believers that we belong to a different city (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 11:16), whose true wealth is greater than Babylon’s glory for which our neighbors strive (Rev. 3:17).

Michaels suggests that Babylon suffers heavy vengeance (18:6) especially because Christians do not retaliate, “leaving room for God’s wrath to accomplish its terrible purpose” (13:10).59 Such a warning becomes more than theoretical for Christians who have lost close friends or family members to martyrdom in many parts of the world. Even those whose only persecution is experiencing slander, however, must consider the demands of this interpretation; if it is true, it requires us to love in a way utterly foreign to the world’s comprehension.

The warning that the righteous must escape Babylon reminds us that those who remain in solidarity with a sinful society share its judgments. The modern dichotomy between personal responsibility and societal corruption was unfamiliar to biblical writers. Judas, Pilate, the chief priests, and the people of Jesus’ generation were all guilty for condemning him (Matt. 27:4, 24–25; Mark 14:41; 15:1, 15). Sin brings judgment on a whole society (e.g., Josh. 7:1–26; 22:31); a society that cannot bring individual perpetrators to justice must assume responsibility for restitution (Deut. 21:1–9).

God’s people should not simply pity crime victims on the evening news or wait for someone else to do something practical to help them. As best as we can, we should take responsibility to help them. Our faith should inform our public policy, because as participants in a sinful society we will share its judgments. Because we are all affected by sin, we should raise our voice against it (Josh. 22:17–18). But when a society is too corrupt to listen, God may simply warn Christians to withdraw before he destroys it (Gen. 19:12–13); those who look back in longing for the world will share its doom (19:26).

Intergenerational effects of sin and its remedy. If intergenerational effects of sin are possible (1 Sam. 15:2; 2 Sam. 21:1–6; Matt. 23:30–32), what should we consider in our own lives? On the personal level, we could consider sinful patterns we may have adopted from behavior we saw growing up; often abused children become abusive, children of alcoholic parents have relationship problems, children of divorce have a more difficult time trusting commitment, and so forth.60 In each of these cases, God’s grace can enable us to transform the legacy of our past, but we must do so by confronting and overcoming it rather than ignoring it.

The corporate level of intergenerational sin is harder for us to recognize because usually those around us share the same blind spots we have. As noted above, God punished a later generation of Israel for breaking its nonaggression treaty with the pagan Gibeonites; yet how many nonaggression treaties did white Americans (as well as some black soldiers) break with Native Americans? During one massacre of mostly unarmed women and children who had a peace treaty with the U.S. government, Native Americans ran to the U.S. flag to surrender and were shot down, including a chief who trusted that the soldiers would listen to him because the white man was his friend. Thirty or forty squaws sent out a six-year-old girl with a flag of surrender, and the soldiers gunned her down, then methodically killed all the squaws and scalped them; a pregnant one was sliced open. When two U.S. soldiers found a five-year-old girl hiding, they shot her dead. After this the Cheyenne learned to reject their own leaders who had trusted whites; they turned instead to armed resistance.61 Would any Christian justify such a massacre?

In the same way, we often want to say, “Let bygones be bygones,” before justice has been served. In the Bible the Exodus was followed by a settlement in a land flowing with milk and honey, but no such settlement took place after slavery here. Israelite law required slaveholders to provide resources for their former servants so they could build their own lives (Deut. 15:13–14); but freed slaves here have never received the promised “forty acres and a mule.” After the North officially ended slavery by force, the freed slaves still lacked land necessary to become self-sufficient in the agrarian South; after Reconstruction ended (and after thousands of black leaders were lynched), many became virtual debt slaves on the very estates they had once worked as chattel slaves.62

Thus in the early twentieth century millions of rural southern blacks moved to northern cities, hoping to find there employment and a lack of segregation. What they met instead was a new kind of segregation created by white flight—a white flight that, accompanied by withdrawal of capital, helped create today’s northern urban ghettoes.63 To be sure, suburban whites are not directly responsible for all the sufferings of the inner city today, though white racism did help create the segregated inner cities. But from birth we have educational and economic opportunities not available to other people because of conscious choices our ancestors made on economic rather than ethical grounds. Who will sacrifice, making conscious choices to challenge this disparity by using our skills and advantages to humbly serve others?64

In the 1990s some white Christians harshly (and I believe unfairly) criticized Promise Keepers for asking white Christians to apologize to black Christians for sins of the past.65 Is it possible that God wanted something more, not less, than a hug and an apology? To be sure, suggestions like race-based reparations may be impractical and perhaps, as African-American evangelical John Perkins suggests, useless: He jokes that many poor people would immediately buy an expensive car and the rich people would have their money back!66 More practical would be an investment of our time and money into working for community development in needy communities, empowering the poor to build their own lives.67

The spread of sin, guilt, and judgment reflected in this passage is also noteworthy. When God judged Rome, the provinces also suffered, for they were bound up with Rome’s interests and corrupted with Rome’s agendas.68 If the United States has become a major exporter of immoral values (see Contemporary Significance section of Rev. 17), it will not suffer alone. All those who drink the cup of fornication will share the cup of wrath (14:8–10; 16:19; 17:4; 18:6).

Working for economic justice. Christians can change many of the injustices we enumerate here. Indeed, at times in history the very evils John denounces so forcefully here were countered by Christians. At its height, the West Indies slave trade employed “some 5,500 sailors and 160 ships worth 6,000,000 pounds sterling a year.”69 But William Wilberforce and his allies, acting out of Christian conviction, fought in Parliament until slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire.70 In an earlier period, some priests had raised their voices in protest against Spanish colonialists’ exploitation of South America’s indigenous peoples.71

But we must be ready for opposition to even the smallest steps to care for others’ needs. Neighborhood groups got the city to shut down a soup kitchen run by one Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C., saying that it drew the wrong kind of people to the neighborhood. The church protested in court that its religious freedom was at stake, but astonishingly the court initially ruled that feeding the hungry (at least in that neighborhood) cannot be part of a church’s mission.

When I went with a pastor friend of mine and his congregation to distribute some food to the homeless on the street in one northern city, he informed me that we risked being ticketed by police.72 Despite the fact that the shelters were filled to capacity and it was winter, some city officials were working against feeding the homeless outside the shelters. The official reason was to get the homeless off the street, but another reason was to make the downtown more inviting to businesses; while improving the quality of life downtown was a valid civic concern, many of the homeless had nowhere else to go.

Similarly, when I worked with a mission that preached the gospel and fed the homeless, we faced opposition from local bars for attracting the “wrong kind of people” to that section of town; a homosexual bar had opposed our presence at our previous location. Where were these people supposed to go? Many were homeless because of substance abuse; but many were homeless because they were mentally ill and budget cuts had forced them from their institutions and onto the streets; others were homeless because they had lost their jobs and their savings had run out—a situation I have nearly shared a few times in my life.73 The problem is easier to identify than the solution; but should we not do at least what we can?

Economic exploitation and negligence are also part of Babylon’s hideous pattern of sin in this text. Former televangelist Jim Bakker, transformed through his reading of Scripture in prison, suggests that Revelation’s prostitute “is materialism. [Some] … used to teach that the harlot was the Catholic church. That was escapist—we wanted to blame somebody else and never look at ourselves.”74

The majority of evangelical Christians now live in poor countries. Although we have much reason to think about economic injustice and the Bible frequently addresses it (e.g., Prov. 13:23; 14:31; 19:17; 21:13; 22:7, 9, 16, 22; Isa. 10:2; 58:7; Jer. 5:28; Ezek. 18:7–17; 22:29; Dan. 4:27; Amos 2:6–8; 4:1–2; 5:11–12; Zech. 7:10; Mal. 3:5; Luke 6:20; 14:13; 16:19–25; 18:22; 19:8; Gal. 2:10; James 2:2–6), most Western Christians do not like to think about it. (This may make us uncomfortable with Prov. 29:7: “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”)75 Indeed, social scientists who studied factors shaping U.S. attitudes toward poor nations found “that religion plays no significant role at all!”76

Commercial exploitation or neglect of other peoples should give us reason to pause, especially if we uncritically accept our nation as a leader in all aspects of international virtue. To be sure, many nations have done the same throughout history and at the present time, but the United States at the time of this writing retains one of the largest economies in the world and thus is able to dictate trade patterns in our own interests.77 “The World Bank reports that protectionist practices by the industrialized countries slim down the income of Third World countries by nearly twice the sum of official aid to them.”

Today over one billion people subsist on the equivalent of less than one dollar a day, and matters are only growing worse. The economic gap between rich and poor countries has doubled since 1960: the richest 20 percent of the world’s population has gone from absorbing 70 percent of the world’s income in 1960 to nearly 83 percent by the 1990s; the poorest 20 percent dropped from 2.3 percent to 1.4 percent in the same period, so that the income ratio of richest to poorest changed “from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 59 to 1 in 1989.”78 Because we have many Christians here and because citizens of our nation and shareholders in our corporations have a voice, one would hope that more Christians would work to make things more equitable on behalf of our brothers and sisters struggling in many other nations.

Lest we be tempted to think that the United States was once a greater moral giant in international relations—known, for example, for welcoming all oppressed immigrants—we should recognize that matters used to be worse. In 1790 our first citizenship law allowed only “free white persons” to become citizens; as late as the 1940s immigrants from Japan and India had to prove they were white. The law was officially repealed only in 1952!79

Even today serious prejudices remain. A white New Zealander told me of his mistreatment when seeking citizenship here, though he noticed that people of color or those whose first language was not English were treated far worse. The top officials of an African evangelical denomination, traveling without their families, were initially denied visitors’ visas even though they had been invited by a large U.S. mission; some of my minister friends from that nation, seeking to attend seminary in the United States, were turned away by the embassy without even looking at their documents, after it pocketed their application fees (the equivalent to four months’ salary there). When I visited their country, by contrast, I was received with more gracious and sacrificial hospitality than I have experienced anywhere else. The United States is different from Babylon and Rome in many respects, but sometimes proves similar in its arrogance. Some judgment may prove helpful for us spiritually.

More to the specific point, we consume luxury goods often at the expense of others’ resources (cf. 18:12–13). The lifestyle of the average middle-class American family compared to that of the world’s billion poorest people is roughly equivalent to that of a medieval aristocrat compared with his serfs.80 We are not talking about people merely not wishing to work or dissatisfied with their income, but with some 450 million people who are “malnourished or facing starvation.”81 The infant mortality rate is up to ten times higher in developing nations than in the developed world; over 250,000 children die weekly from malnutrition and easily preventable sicknesses.82 Over two million deaths a year could be prevented by bags of oral rehydration salts—costing Westerners only 10 cents each.83

Eighty percent of brain development occurs by age two, yet 150 million children in the world lack the protein intake necessary for adequate brain development, leading to permanent retardation.84 Amazingly, one study argues that “it would only cost $30–$40 billion a year to provide all people in developing countries with basic education, health care, and clean water—the amount spent on golf every year.”85 For all their differences, radical Western consumerism and Marxism share the philosophic premise that economics is paramount; both view Mammon rather than God as the controlling force in life.

Which countries should bear the greatest responsibility for international development? Whereas in the late 1980s the U.S. per capita Gross National Product was $18,530, in India it was $300, and in Bangladesh, $160.86 Given such disparities in wealth, one would think that the United States could afford to provide much help to countries currently limited in economic resources. Remember too that our location of birth is not due to any merit in ourselves, but is a gift from God for which we must one day make account. Yet in assisting developing countries, Norway ranks highest (with development assistance as 1.12 percent of its Gross National Product), Canada seventh (.50 percent), and the United States second from the bottom (.25 percent) among developed countries.87

In a given year, the United States may budget twenty times “as much for defense as for foreign assistance, and nearly two-thirds of the latter” for military aid or for nations viewed as strategic to our own interests.88 Admittedly the difficulties of getting resources to those who need them are complex, but one still wonders about the overall priorities in question.89 Advertising makes us think that we need more things and makes us forget our love for others—though one could hope to find much greater reward in enduring relationships with international friends than in accumulating possessions.90

Because this commentary addresses especially Christians, it is important to note what Jesus demands of his followers. Our ability to change our nation’s behavior is often severely limited by the consumer culture’s dominance, but we do not confront the same public obstacles in changing our own behavior. Scripture is explicit that disciples of Jesus cannot value possessions (Luke 14:33) and that failure to care for fellow disciples’ needs is a sign of a lack of saving faith (James 2:14–17); it also indicates that such concern should cross geographical boundaries (Rom. 15:25–27; 1 Cor. 16:1–4). Paul’s central mission was preaching the gospel, but he did not forget the needs of the poor, and brought resources from more affluent parts of the church to help others (2 Cor. 8:13–15; Gal. 2:10). One wonders about the nature of stewardship in affluent America when church members give on average less than 2.5 percent of their income, most of which remains within their own congregation.91

Revelation 18 reminds us that God does not look the other way in the face of economic injustice; he will bring down every economic empire in time. West Africa and China were far more prosperous than most of Europe during the Middle Ages; British imperialism overturned Spanish and Arab imperialism only a few centuries ago; no nation remains “on top” or in the limelight forever. Many North American Christians squander money on things we do not need, ignoring genuine needs of Christians elsewhere despite the explicit teaching of Scripture (2 Cor. 8:14–15). We sometimes do this by blaming the people of those nations for their poverty or for their bad governments. Instead, we should remind ourselves of God’s justice and invest our resources in expanding the gospel and serving people’s needs, for Scripture and history assure us that our own resources are ours only for a short season.

We should add here a caveat lest we miscommunicate our point. Possessions are not wrong in themselves; they simply have no value compared with the genuine needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ (cf. Acts 2:44–45; 4:34–35).92 If fifty cents can supply sufficient food for a child for a day in some famine-stricken areas, I should care enough about that child to be careful what I do with even what seems the least of my resources.

Firsthand exposure to genuine human need can perhaps stir our hearts better than statistics can. Tony Liston, a young pastor from Oklahoma, spent two days in a private hospital room in the Philippines for $47; he had barely noticed a beggar woman outside when he entered. When he was released, he spotted the naked corpse of the beggar woman stuffed into a nearby dumpster; she had died of the same affliction for which he had just been treated. “She had no money,” the nurse replied matter-of-factly. Tony was so shaken that his life was never the same again.93 While one cannot more thoroughly nuance one’s point in a few paragraphs, I hope that we will embrace the basic point—that we should become more conscientious about using our resources according to what matters most to God’s heart.

Shedding of innocent blood. This chapter closes by denouncing the shedding of innocent blood. Rome shed much blood through its brutal system of slavery, but also its slaughter of slaves and criminals for public entertainment. Those of us who affirm that a fetus is a live human being (and it is difficult biologically to guess what it would be if it were not alive and human!) will see abortion as bloodshed.94 After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal, the number of abortions to date of this writing has been equivalent to the slaughter of one tenth of the U.S. population—more innocent blood per capita than was necessary to bring God’s judgment on Judah (2 Kings 21:16; 24:4).95 Once so much blood was shed, not even Josiah’s brief revival could turn back God’s wrath—although it was delayed (2 Kings 22:15–20).

While our passage probably addresses all innocent bloodshed, it focuses on persecution of Christians, a transgression that occurs in many nations today.96 Although the West, with its tradition of religious tolerance, is currently not high on that list, many people here do not show much interest in religious persecution elsewhere. Shortly before writing this commentary, the House of Representatives passed the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act by 375 to 41. The Senate also passed it, but some corporations lobbied hard against this act because of how it might affect their profits, ultimately depriving the bill of any ability to enact sanctions.

Unocal, for example, “is heavily invested in a $1 billion natural gas pipeline in Burma, a project which requires the company to deal closely with that country’s violently oppressive military dictatorship.” The current government there jailed the elected president, has used slave labor on various projects, probably including the pipeline, and is known for various human rights offenses.97 Today, as in John’s day, profit margins matter more to some people than justice. God has promised to set those matters straight.

Original Meaning

Die Hard: Crying Kings, Mourning Merchants (18:9–20)

IN THIS DYSTOPIAN prophecy, the kings mourn the destruction of the evil empire (18:9–10); by contrast, the righteous remnant of all peoples will participate in the new Jerusalem, and their kings will bring their glory into it (21:24). The worldly rulers in the provinces have reason to lament here, for they profited personally from Roman rule (cf. 18:3), some rising to power and status because of the emperor’s patronage; Rome “provided security and prosperity for its friends.”16 Asia, where John’s audience was located, was the richest of the provinces.17 Thus these leaders mourn not only for Babylon (Rome) but for themselves! Both kings and merchants who profited from Babylon’s rule will mourn over her demise, but at a safe distance because they fear her torment (18:10, 15; cf. Ezek. 26:18); the world’s love is self-interested, not self-sacrificing (Rev. 17:16–17).

“Kings of the earth” refers to Rome’s client-kings (17:2, 18; 18:3), though the language is adapted to the Old Testament. It is a common Old Testament expression (used at least fifteen times), but this text recalls a few passages in particular: The Messiah would rule the kings (Ps. 89:27; Rev. 1:5); they would gather against God’s Son and be shattered (Ps. 2:2; Acts 4:26; Rev. 19:19); and they became wealthy through Tyre’s trade (Ezek. 27:33). Their cry of “Woe! Woe!” is repeated by the merchants in Revelation 18:10, 16, 19.

The longest laments come from the merchants, who profited from Rome’s trade.18 Aristocrats and the many people who shared their perspective remained dazzled with Rome’s grandeur and all the wealth of the empire brought into it.19 Rome was the mightiest empire next to that of the gods, some claimed.20 Yet Rome lived luxuriously on the basis of inequitable trade policies toward its provinces. In less than one year the usurper Vitellius wasted the equivalent of more than twenty million dollars, mainly on extravagant foods, “delicacies like peacocks’ brains and nightingales’ tongues.”21 Commenting on merchants and shippers, Kraybill notes:

From Egypt, North Africa and the Black Sea region they ferried some 400,000 tons of grain annually for the capital city. While provincials paid high prices for grain and sometimes had none, 200,000 families in Rome received from the government a regular “dole” of free grain.22

Rome’s insatiable appetites and seductive wealth lured provincials with money to invest in what they could export to Rome rather than the needs of their people. Landowners in Asia used so much land for export items like wine that Asia’s cities had to import grain from Egypt to the south or from the Black Sea area to the north; consequently, the landowners profited, but everyone else paid higher prices for basic food needs.23

Rome’s commercial interests also propagated its pagan religion, and most people were more committed to buying and selling than to resisting Rome’s demands (13:17). The merchant’s lament that no one now buys their cargoes (18:11) is ironic retribution for those who worshiped the beast that they might buy and sell (13:17)! Pagan symbols were prominent at major Mediterranean ports, and activities of the shipping lines and merchant guilds involved aspects of the imperial cult.24 Jews were exempt from participation in the imperial cult, but Christians kicked out of the synagogues presumably had to participate or lose income.25 In this passage John identifies with the provincial poor “because he believed Christians no longer could participate in an unjust commercial network thoroughly saturated with idolatrous patriotism.”26

Rome’s port, Ostia, built by Claudius roughly half a century before Revelation was written, held a large colonnaded square full of offices for the navicularii, the merchants.27 Lists of goods destroyed were appropriate to a detailed lament or oracle of judgment (2 Bar. 10:19), but many of the specific items in this list reveal Revelation’s critique of luxury goods (18:12–13).28 We review these briefly as follows.

Rome’s new rich in this period typically flaunted their “gold” and “silver.” The city imported most of these metals from Spain, where it owned a number of mines, some confiscated from their owners; the slaves who worked such mines rarely lived more than a few years.29 They imported “precious stones,” worn in men’s rings but especially by women, mainly from India; many of John’s contemporaries regarded “pearls” as the epitome of luxury. They secured some pearls from the Red Sea, better ones from the Persian Gulf, and the most abundant source was India; by John’s day this may have become the largest part of Rome’s trade with the East.30

Rome imported “fine linen” from Spain, Asia Minor, and especially Egypt; it had begun to replace wool in Rome by this period. “Purple” had long been a symbol of affluence, imported especially from Tyre; “scarlet cloth” was also a symbol of luxury, derived mainly from kermes oaks in Asia Minor. Romans, who thought silk grew on trees, imported it from China especially through northwest Indian ports and some overland through Parthia. Given the distance traveled, it is hardly surprising that it was a symbol of conspicuous consumption limited to the wealthy.31

“Citron wood” (or citrus wood) originally came from the north African coast from Cyrene westward, but the supply was by this period so depleted that most such wood was imported from Morocco; tables made of citron wood were “one of the most expensive fashions in early imperial Rome.” Thus one table was sold for the price of a large estate.32 The “ivory” trade had nearly driven the Syrian elephant to extinction and few elephants remained in north Africa; those who wished to flaunt wealth used it in table legs and idols. Other “costly wood” (18:12) probably refers to maple, cedar, and cypress, all of which were used as expensive luxury items (ebony was rare in Rome). The most famous “bronze” in the empire was Corinthian bronze; the best “iron” was imported from the East, though available elsewhere; Romans imported “marble” from Africa, Egypt, and Greece, especially for use in palaces.

“Cinnamon” probably came especially from Somalia in East Africa and could include both cassia (most trade specialized in this wood of the cinnamon plant) and “cinnamon proper (the tender shoots and the delicate bark), which was extremely expensive.”33 Ships involved in the east African trade went as far south as Zanzibar off the Tanzanian coast, in a two-year round trip voyage.34 The term for “spice” designates an aromatic spice from southern India; “incense” was used not only for religious rituals but to perfume wealthy homes. “Myrrh” was imported from Yemen and Somalia; “frankincense,” known as a luxury good (e.g., T. Job 32:10/11), was from South Arabia. Some Romans in this period were complaining that other Romans were spending too much on luxury goods from the east.

Rome procured its best “wine” from Sicily and Spain, though it was available from elsewhere. In John’s day the empire experienced a grain shortage along with a wine surplus (cf. comment on 6:6); because the wine trade was more profitable than grain, wealthy Roman owners of latifundia (large estates) in the provinces cultivated vines more than grain. Italy produced some of its own “olive oil” but imported more in this period from Africa and Spain. “Fine flour” (in contrast to wine, oil, and wheat) was a luxury good, the best being imported from Africa.

Africa and Egypt supplied most of Rome’s “wheat” via the imperial grain fleet, which consisted of thousands of ships run by merchants but supervised by the state. Much of this wheat came from taxes on the provinces, but it was distributed free to Rome’s inhabitants, so not just the rich but the whole populace of Rome “survived only at the expense of the rest of the empire.” This was one sense in which the prostitute Rome rode on the beast of imperial power.35

Even the rich rarely ate beef; “cattle” were used especially as work animals, and in the first century the rich procured as ranches large estates in Italy and (generally by confiscation or conquest) in the provinces. Some “sheep” were used for mutton, but Italy mainly imported sheep for rich estates that produced wool. Italy lacked sufficient pasture for “horses” but imported them from Africa, Spain, and elsewhere to use for chariot races in public entertainment. Horses also pulled the four-wheeled chariots from Gaul, sometimes plated with silver, in which the rich traveled “in Rome and to their country estates.”36

John concludes climactically with “bodies and souls of men.” Because this period did not produce sufficient wars to supply Rome slaves directly, Rome had to locate other sources to maintain its needs. Many poor people in the empire discarded babies they felt unable to raise; while many of these were eaten by birds and dogs, many were also rescued for slavery; Asia exported a large number to Rome, probably through the port of Ephesus.37 Human “souls” or (as the word used can also be translated) “lives” may derive from the Greek version of Ezek. 27:13, where “human lives” (lit. trans.)—part of Tyre’s vicious trade—means “slaves” (cf. NIV).38 Biblical law condemned stealing another’s “life”—that is, kidnapping for slave-trading—as a capital offense (Deut. 24:7). “Riches and splendor” (Rev. 18:14) summarizes the list, in Greek containing the sort of play on words (lipara and lampra) sometimes used by Greek rhetoricians and Israelite prophets.

This is the longest extant list of products from the Roman period. John adapts Ezekiel’s list of forty products in which Tyre traded (Ezek. 27:2–24), but updates it accurately for the trade realities of first-century Rome. Whereas Ezekiel’s list is arranged geographically, John’s is arranged topically, by type of cargo.39 Although he includes some items that were not expensive (oil, though imported in massive quantities), John focuses mostly on expensive imports, overlapping substantially with another writer’s list of twenty-nine expensive items.40

A few sources in John’s day acknowledged that Rome’s rich indulged themselves at the expense of the rest of the empire, but most sources that criticized luxury did so merely because it corrupted aristocrats and made them dependent. While perhaps sharing some of this critique, Revelation explicitly condemns Rome for profiting at the expense of the empire; the prostitute is decked with her imports (17:4; 18:16).41 Although much of the chapter condemns Rome’s luxury itself, partly for its arrogance (18:7), oppression is also in view (18:24).

Those who mourn in 18:17 include those who work on ships, but this probably implies the sorrow of ship owners as well. The merchants were the “great” people of the earth (18:23), which ranked them directly below kings in Revelation’s scheme of worldly status (6:15; 18:23). But Revelation reveals the ultimate emptiness of the status for anyone “of the earth” (1:5, 7; 17:2, 18; 18:3, 9, 11).42 Because transport was cheaper by sea, Rome imported most of the goods listed in 18:12–13 through its port of Ostia. Shipwrecks could ruin ship owners, but some grew wealthy enough to own many ships, reducing the risk.43 With the fall of Rome, however, both ship owners and their employees would be out of business, little better off than the agrarian peasants Rome cruelly exploited with high taxes.44

For a city that had burned less than half a century earlier (blamed by the first Nero on Christians), the threat of such burning as 18:18 describes would be a vivid one (see Tacitus, Ann. 15.38–44). Casting dust on one’s head (18:19) was a traditional act of mourning (Josh. 7:6; 1 Sam. 4:12; 2 Sam. 1:2; 15:32; Lam. 2:10; Ezek. 27:30).