The Harlot Motif and Babylon the Great — Part 3

By Mike Coldagelli

Understanding Revelation requires some familiarity with the Old Testament because of the many allusions to it. In chapter 16 of Ezekiel we are given background to the city of Jerusalem that impacts our understanding of The Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth. The allegory is graphic, and one of a romance.

Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine. (Ezekiel 16:6-8)

Jerusalem is depicted as a baby not cared for, despised, thrown out into an open field. (Ezekiel 16:1-5) Then the LORD passes by and gives her life. She grows and becomes beautiful. The Lord passes by again when she had become old enough for love. The Lord spreads the corner of his garment over her (this is an allusion to the Book of Ruth). He covers her nakedness. The LORD gives Jerusalem his solemn oath and enters into covenant with her. She becomes the LORD’s possession. Now remember the concept of covenant, a covenant broken, and restoration, redemption, to an everlasting covenant. The pattern of Hosea applies not only to Israel as a whole, but also to the city of Jerusalem.

I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD. (Ezekiel 16:9-14)

The Lord washes Jerusalem because of her ancestry, the Canaanites, Amorites, and Hittites. (Ezekiel 16:1-5) Notice the detailed language with regard to clothing, garments. Parallel descriptions of garments and adornments recur in Revelation. Jerusalem enjoys luxury in her food. She becomes beautiful and rises to become a queen. The LORD gives her splendor that makes her beauty perfect.

But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. Such things should not happen, nor should they ever occur. You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. Also the food I provided for you—the fine flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD. And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood. (Ezekiel 16:15-22)

Jerusalem becomes a prostitute. God’s bounty provided to Jerusalem is offered to other gods and she murders her children in that offering.

You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you. (Ezekiel 16:32-34)

Jerusalem is accused of prostitution with Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. She prefers them to her own husband. She provides them her illicit favors without payment. Her iniquitous desire is for foreigners, not for the LORD. The LORD goes on to say:

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see all your nakedness. (Ezekiel 16:36-37)

Compare the above paragraph with Revelation 17:16-17.

The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled. (Revelation 17:16-17)

In Ezekiel 16:36-37 God says that he will gather Jerusalem’s lovers (nations) against her and that he will strip her and leave her naked in front of them. In Revelation 17:16 the beast and the ten horns hate the prostitute. Remember Israel-Jerusalem enters into covenant with the beast (Daniel 9:27) and the ten horns or ten kings. Are these the kings of the earth of Revelation 17:2 that have committed adultery with the great prostitute? In other words, is the covenant of Daniel the prostitution of Babylon the Great (Jerusalem) with the kings of the earth (her lovers)? They bring her to ruin, leave her naked, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. In verse 17 we learn that God has put it into their hearts to do this. Note the peculiar concept of “nakedness” (connotative of shame or disgrace) that is common to both passages. Both passages show God acting to accomplish his purpose. (Similar “nakedness” imagery with regard to the “daughters of Zion” is used in Isaiah 3:17) The pattern of delivering the prostitute, Oholah (Samaria) and Oholibah (Jerusalem), into the hands of her adulterous lovers continues in Ezekiel 23. (See Ezekiel 23:9, 22-23, 28-30)

Later in Ezekiel 16 God compares Jerusalem to Sodom, but she is worse than Sodom.

Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. (Ezekiel 16:46-47)

This comparison to Sodom is significant because Jerusalem is compared to Sodom in Revelation chapter 11.

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. (Revelation 11:8)

“Figuratively” can be translated “mysteriously.” The name “Babylon the Great” is mystery. Babylon the Great is destroyed in one day and by fire, a reference to Sodom.

Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. (Revelation 18:8)

Jerusalem is compared to Sodom in Ezekiel 16. Jerusalem is mysteriously called Sodom in Revelation 11. Babylon the Great is destroyed as Sodom. Is “Babylon the Great” mystery for Jerusalem? In Matthew chapter 11, relative guilt of cities is spoken of by Jesus. Jesus compares Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum to Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom, judging the former more harshly because of his visitation to them.

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” (Matthew 11:20-24)

Jesus also has words for Jerusalem.

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:41-44)

A principle is revealed here with parallels in history. When the abomination of Babylonian idolatry occurred in the temple (Ezekiel 8), the glory of God left the temple and Jerusalem (Ezekiel 9,10,11). God himself commands the guards of the city to defile the temple with dead bodies (Ezekiel 9:1-7). This resulted in the destruction of the temple and the city. When Messiah, the Son of God, comes to Jerusalem and is rejected and murdered there, the temple and the city are destroyed. When the man of lawlessness sits in the temple receiving God’s worship, the temple and the city will be destroyed. The temple was destroyed on the 9th of the Jewish month of Av in both 586 B.C. and 70 A.D.(1) Will it be destroyed on the 9th of Av a third time?

The more God has revealed himself to a city, the more responsible it is to obedience. What Gentile city is as obligated to God as Jerusalem, the place of his temple and the glory of his presence? What Gentile city was in covenant to God?

Chapter 16 of Ezekiel, however, does not leave Jerusalem without hope. It ends with a reminder of an eternal covenant for her.

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. (Ezekiel 16:59-60)

Part 4 will examine two cities and commonalities with regard to the “shedding of blood.”

(1) Howard, Kevin and Marvin Rosenthal. The Feasts of the Lord. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1997. 150-53.