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Revelation 17 Jerusalem the whore of Babylon
Revelation 17 Jerusalem is not just called the whore of
Babylon she is also depicted as a whore in highly suggestive sexual imagery
illustrating Jerusalem, the whore of Babylon, in the act of adultery. In
Revelation 17:3 the whore of Babylon is shown sitting on the beast representing
Rome which is also identified as the seven hills of Rome and seven kings in
Revelation 17:9-10. (Note: The fact that the whore of Babylon sits on the beast
in v. 3 and the city of seven hills in v. 9 doesn't mean she is Rome it just
implies that the beast is the city of seven hills (i.e. Rome)) The fact that
Jerusalem, the whore of Babylon, is called a whore and is depicted sitting on
Rome and its seven Caesars in Revelation 17:3; 9-10 is sexual imagery
illustrating her as a whore in the act of sexual intercourse.
According to Isaiah 54:5, Israel was in a marriage covenant with God. However,
Jerusalem committed adultery against her God, spiritual husband and king by
killing the Messiah and His people and declaring Caesar, the beast, her king
instead during Christ's crucifixion: "We have no king but Caesar!" (John 19:15).
This rejection of Christ, Jerusalem's spiritual husband, in favor of Caesar is
depicted as an adulterous affair between the beast, representing Rome and its
Caesars, and Jerusalem in Revelation 17 and 18. Because of this illicit sexual
union between Rome and Jerusalem, Jerusalem is called Babylon. Babylon was the
Jews' nickname for Rome as explicitly stated in 1QpHab of the Dead Sea Scrolls
which dates between 1 and 30 B.C. This nickname became especially appropriate
after the Jewish War because both Rome and Babylon literally destroyed the
physical temple in Jerusalem (6th century B.C. and A.D. 70) and exiled Jews
throughout their respective empires. However, Jerusalem is called Babylon,
Rome's epithet, because both cities became one in the same way that when a man
has relations with a whore the two become one flesh: "[T]he one who joins
himself to a prostitute is one body with her[.] For He says, "The two shall
become one flesh (1 Corinthians 6:16)." Thus Jerusalem, the whore or prostitute
of Babylon (Rome), is spiritually called Babylon, Rome's epithet, throughout the
Apocalypse because these two cities became one flesh as a result of their
adulterous affair-like a wife taking the name of her husband. In Revelation 11:8
Jerusalem is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. In Revelation 17 she is also
spiritually called Babylon, Rome's nickname.
Just as ancient Babylon destroyed the temple of God in Jerusalem, first century
Jerusalem and Rome each destroyed the spiritual temple of God. The spiritual
temple of God is the body of Christ which represents both Christ and His people.
In John 2:19-21 Jesus refers to His body as a temple: "Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up." The saints are also called the temple of God
in 1 Corinthians 3:16: "Do you not know that you [the Christian saints] are a
temple of God ..." Obeying the will of the religious elite of Jerusalem, Rome
enacted the execution of Jesus in A.D. 33. Thus Jerusalem and Rome both took
part in the unjust death of Christ. Shortly after Jesus' crucifixion, Jerusalem
also persecuted the early Christian saints in her midst according to Acts 8:1.
Then during the reign of Nero Caesar, Rome persecuted the Christian saints in
A.D. 64. Here one can see how both Jerusalem and Rome are called Babylon in the
Book of Revelation because both cities destroyed the temple of God.