Глава XVII

Explanatory Vision of the Harlot and the Beast (1–2); description of a harlot sitting on a beast in royal clothing, with a cup of abominations in her hand and drunk on the blood of saints (3–6); an explanation of the symbol of the beast itself, its seven heads and ten horns, which designate the kings who are to be the executors of God’s sentence over the beast and the harlot, that is, the great city (7-18). Rev.17:1. And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke to me and said to me: Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters; In the new vision, not directly, John gives explanations for the previous visions. One of the seven Angels appears before John, in whose hands were the bowls of Divine wrath. In the expression “come” one can see an indication of a change in the direction of John’s thoughts and attentiveness. He must now turn his prophetic gaze to the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters. By harlot here we must mean the same city of Babylon, which is mentioned in Rev. 14:8; there he is called a great city and characterized as a harlot. Judgment must take place over him and according to Rev. 16:19. The Great Harlot is undoubtedly a city (Rev. 17:18), and a city of the future, a city of the anti-Christian kingdom, which can be called Babylon or Rome by the similarity of its culture and by its hostile, corrupting influence on other nations. Rev.17:2. The kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and those who dwell on the earth were drunk with the wine of her fornication. By fornication we must understand the spread of immoral customs and hostility to God through hypocritical politics and depraved religion and cult, general corruption 78 (cf. Eze 23:17). But such general corruption, a general decline in religion and the spread of hostility to God can only be expected from the city and state of the last anti-Christian kingdom. Rev.17:3. And he led me in spirit into the desert; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. Rev.17:4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls, and had a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominations and the uncleanness of her fornication; The remark that “he led in the spirit” is an indication that this action took place only in a vision - only in his ecstatic state of spirit, and not with his body, John was transferred to the desert. The desert is taken here in a moral and religious sense, in the sense of abandonment, remoteness. The great harlot is in the desert in no other sense than in the fact that, for her wickedness, she is completely abandoned by God and doomed to spiritual death, to moral destruction. Such abandonment is fully deserved for her, since she, in the words of the Apocalypse, renounced God and the Christian religion, riding on a beast; The fornicator’s wife completely relies on him and his strength, and not on God and His help. This beast (Rev. 11:7, 13:3, 13) is the dragon-devil, which is called scarlet, that is, clothed in royal scarlet, as the ruler of the darkness of this age. Like the devil, the beast is also described by the fact that he was filled with blasphemous names: he is a hostile force to God. And the wife is also dressed in purple and scarlet, which also indicates royal and proud luxury - the wealth characteristic of a royal city, like Babylon and Rome. The woman, the city of the end times, took from the world everything that is considered precious in it. She is depicted holding in her hands a golden cup filled with the abomination and uncleanness of her fornication. This means that the wife was, like the city of the anti-Christian kingdom, a distributor of godless and immoral culture among the surrounding peoples subject to it. Rev.17:5. and on her forehead was written a name: mystery, Babylon the great, mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. The name on her forehead speaks about the wife's inner being. Her inner spiritual life and aspirations will be reflected on her brow. This name is a “mystery,” that is, mysterious, and the name itself, consisting of the name “great Babylon,” should be understood not in the literal sense, but figuratively and symbolically 79 . Babylon is the name and symbol of the future anti-Christian city, which, due to its corrupting influence on subject cities and peoples, will be the true mother of fornication and earthly abominations. Rev.17:6. I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, and seeing her, I was amazed with great surprise. John further noted that the wife was drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus Christ. This suggests that the city of Babylon will be guilty of shedding the blood of saints, of cruel persecution against witnesses of the Christian faith. And seeing this, John marveled with great surprise. The reason for John’s surprise lies in the mysterious, amazing combination of the beast and the woman, in their mutual connection, common activity and manifestation in the world. What follows is an explanation. Rev.17:7. And the Angel said to me: Why are you marveling? I will tell you the secret of this woman and of the beast that bears her, which has seven heads and ten horns. Rev.17:8. The beast that you saw was and is not, and will come out of the abyss and go to destruction; and those who dwell on the earth, whose names were not written in the book of life from the beginning of the world, will be surprised, seeing that the beast was, and is not, and will appear. The beast is the devil, one way or another demonstrating his dominance and his satanic power in the world. In the past, that is, before in the Old Testament, he was the prince of this world and ruled through idolatry and sorcery. But then he was gone, and he’s gone now, that is, in the days of John’s revelation. As a result of the redemptive merits of Christ the Savior, the devil lost his former charm (John 12:31) and he was no longer on earth as the obvious and open ruler of the human race. He is in the abyss, that is, a state of connectedness. But this conclusion is not final or complete. The devil will be freed and come out of there (Rev.20:7). The devil will go to destruction, final destruction only later, in the distant future for John. For the devil, as an immortal spirit, destruction can be not destruction, but Gehenna, eternal torment, which is why he is called the son of destruction (2 Thess. 2:3). All those who are not written in the book of life will be surprised at the disappearance and reappearance of the beast (Rev. 13:8), but other, faithful Christians will know the true meaning of the appearance of the devil-beast in his former power. Rev.17:9. Here is a mind that has wisdom. The seven heads are the seven mountains on which the woman sits, Rev. 17:10. and seven kings, of which five have fallen, one is, but the other has not yet come, and when he comes, he will not be long. Rev.17:11. And the beast that was and is not, is the eighth, and from among the seven, and will go to destruction. Rev. 17:12. And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings, who have not yet received the kingdom, but will take power with the beast as kings for one hour. Rev. 17:13. They have the same thoughts and will transfer their strength and power to the beast. Rev. 17:14. They will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them; for He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and the chosen and the faithful. “Here is the mind,” that is, a special tension of the mind is needed, which is characteristic of a wise person. If the name of the wife and the beast must be taken not in a historical, but in a symbolic sense, then the seven mountains cannot be understood literally, since they form part of the entire symbolic image 80. If by wife one must understand the anti-Christian kingdom, then by the seven heads of the beast-devil one must understand the earthly kingdoms, in the direction and development of which the power of the devil and his hostile efforts to corrupt the human race were expressed. And since each historical kingdom has its own historical cities, as exponents of its culture, and kings, as bearers of state power, then the idea of ​​kings must be inextricably linked with the idea of ​​states. Therefore, in the apocalyptic vision, under the same image of heads, according to the instructions of the Angel, we should see seven mountains and seven kings (v. 10). The beast is a world power in its historical development, in its replacement of one kingdom by another. These kingdoms fall one after another, changing the previous one with the next one. In this sense, it can be said that by the time of John, five kingdoms (kings) had already fallen, the sixth existed, the seventh will follow it, and after it the last one will arise, which will end the history of the development of the world’s God-fighting power of the devil on earth. One can only speak speculatively about the first five world kingdoms that have already fallen. Such kingdoms can be called: Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian and Syrian - the latter kingdoms are directly indicated by the prophet. Daniel. It is said about the sixth kingdom: “there is one,” since in the days of John the world kingdom was the Roman one, then, obviously, it is meant as the sixth in a series of others. John is vague about the seventh kingdom. It has not yet arrived, but when it comes, it will not last long. Since the Roman kingdom has now fallen, the kingdom that replaced it, or the world, of the German-Slavic peoples can be considered the seventh kingdom; it must continue until the time of the emergence of the eighth kingdom. This eighth kingdom is called the beast (v. 11), which was mentioned in v. 8. as about one who was and is not, and from among the seven and will go to destruction. The name “beast” makes us understand the eighth king as the Antichrist and his kingdom. The expression “and not” speaks of that mortal wound that was visible on one of the heads of the beast and which was healed. Since the head of the beast is the same as the kingdoms, then the healing of one head, its return to life, can speak of the resumption of any of the seven kingdoms, which in its new form will be the kingdom of the Antichrist. It will arise from seven, which means that it will contain the characteristics of the seven previous kingdoms. This is precisely the kingdom of the Antichrist, the most hostile to God, but it is also the last. It will fall into destruction, into eternal Gehenna. Kings, designated by horns, are represented as having no independent kingdoms. If they accept royal power, that is, the right of rulers and legislators, then only together with the beast, as their overlord, and then only for a short time, for one hour 81. These are, therefore, representatives of the peoples and kingdoms of the last time 82. They are different from kings, representatives of world states, who are called the heads of the beast (St. Irenaeus, St. Ephraim the Sir). The Antichrist will make the best use of these representatives (horns) of nations and kingdoms, their mood and way of thinking, and will unite them together to fight the Lamb, against Christianity and all that is holy. But victory in this struggle will remain on the side of the Lamb - Jesus Christ, Who will win both personally and through His chosen and faithful servants who labored on earth in the struggle against the devil and with all his army. Rev. 17:15. And he says to me: The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are people and peoples and nations and languages. Rev. 17:16. And the ten horns that you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, and will destroy her, and make her naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire; In a mysterious symbolic sense, under the waters, according to the Angel, one must understand many peoples who treated the main city as subordinate peoples. Ten horns - ten kings of the future anti-Christian time will hate the harlot (v. 16), i.e. the city of the anti-Christian kingdom. Hatred will be revealed in the destruction of the city. Just as wild animals tear apart and devour their victims, so will the apocalyptic kings destroy the city; they will betray him to complete destruction with fire and sword and plunder all his treasures. Thus, the Divine will will use kings as an obedient instrument of its world rule in order to gradually bring the history of the world to its predetermined end. The trial of the city, the capital of the anti-Christian kingdom, destruction at the request of the king himself - the Antichrist - will be a foreshadowing of the end of the world and the onset of Divine judgment. Ebrard, Hengstenberg et al. Hengstenberg, Kliefoth, Suller, Yakovlev. Hengstenberg, Suller, Ebrard. You might be interested in: