17:1. ‘Mystery Babylon’

Hebrew #8347 Shêshach, ‘a symbolic name for Babylon found in Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41, is commonly believed to be derived by a code or cipher system known as Atbaš wherein the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet stands for the first letter, the next-to-last letter stands for the second, etc.

Since this system is attested in this canonical writing, it may have been used by the writer of the Book of Revelation to indicate a symbolic meaning.  Some scholars believe this system is only a product of the later cabalists who used the alphabet in a magical sense.  The fact that the system was later misused should not discredit nor bring into ill repute the legitimate use of the earlier writers.

 

17:3. ‘Sitting’

A form of the Greek #2521 kathēmai, ‘to sit down’, is used in 17:1, 3, 9, and 15; used in the LXX for:

Hebrew #3427 yâshab as in Gen. 21:16.  It is used in Matt. 4:16 quoting Isaiah 9:2, meaning ‘to abide, dwell’.  See Bullinger, Lexicon s.v.

17:9. ‘Mountain’

Greek #3735 ŏrŏs ‘a mountain’ as lifting itself up above the plain.

Hebrew bâmâh, #1116, meaning ‘an elevation, or high place’, often used of places of idol worship.

17:16. ‘Desolate’

Greek #2048 ĕrēmŏs ‘lonesome, i.e. waste’.

 

Hebrew #08074 shâmêm ‘to devastate’, ‘make destitute’, ‘destroy’, ‘lay waste’.  See also ‘bereaved’ at 18:7.

 

17:16. ‘Naked’

Hebrew #01540 gâlâh, ‘to denude’, ‘to carry away into exile’, ‘take into exile’.  To go into exile is to be made naked in Biblical Hebrew.  The word galah is used in both senses.  For example it is used:

            of the “daughter of Babylon” being made naked in Isaiah 47:3;

            of Judah and Jerusalem being taken into exile in Jeremiah 13:19;

            of the “skirts…lifted up…” in 13:22;

            of the foundations of Jerusalem being laid bare in Ezek. 13:14;

            of Jerusalem as punishment for harlotry in Ezek. 16:35-43, (in context of chapters 15 and 16.

Numerous other instances could be cited.

            The fact that it is Mystery Babylon‘s lovers that kill her also evokes Ezek. 16:39: “And I will give you into the hand of your lovers, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your fair jewels, and leave you naked and bare.”  These things were literally fulfilled in the first instance when Nebuchadnezzar took Judah captive, in the second instance when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70.  That these prophecies were indeed literally fulfilled makes them sure proof that the backslidden church will suffer the same fate when she has departed from the living God and joined herself to the fleshly empires of this world.