The Identity of Revelation's "Babylon," part 2

Below is the 30th of multiple excerpts of commentary on the Book of Revelation from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. In this excerpt, Russell continues his explanation of why Revelation's "Babylon" represents 1st-century Jerusalem, not Rome.

[THE HARLOT CITY] "6. In the catastrophe of the fourth vision (that of the seven mystic figures) the judgment of Israel is symbolised by the treading of the wine-press. We are told also that ‘the wine-press was trodden without [outside] the city’ (chap. xiv. 20) [Rev. 14:20]. Since the vine of the land represents Israel, as it undoubtedly does [Psalm 80:8], it follows that ‘the city’ outside which the grapes are trodden must be Jerusalem. The only city mentioned in the same chapter is Babylon the great (ver. 8 [Rev. 14:8]), which must therefore represent Jerusalem. It is inconceivable that the vine of Judea should be trodden outside the city of Rome. "7. In chap. xvi. 19 [Rev. 16:19] it is stated that ‘the great city’ was divided into three parts by the unprecedented earthquake mentioned in ver. 18 [Rev. 16:18]. What great city? Evidently [i.e., in an evident or clear manner] great Babylon, which is said to come in remembrance before God. Possibly the division of the city may have no special significance beyond the illustration of the disastrous effect of the earthquake; but more probably it is an allusion to the figure employed by the prophet Ezekiel in describing the siege of Jerusalem. (Ezek. v. 1-5 [Ezek. 5:1-5]). ... "But whether this be the allusion [to Ezekiel] in the vision [of John] or not, the language is wholly unintelligible if applied to any other city than Jerusalem. ... 8. But a weightier argument, and one that may be considered decisive against Rome being the Babylon of the Apocalypse [Book of Revelation], and at the time proving the identity between Jerusalem and Babylon, is that which is derived from the name and character of the woman in the vision. We have seen that the woman represents a city; a city styled ‘the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified’ (chap. xi. 8) [Rev. 11:8]. This woman or city is also styled a harlot, ‘that great harlot,’ [Rev. 17:1] ‘the mother of harlots and abominations of the land.’ [Rev. 17:5] Now, this is an appellation familiar and well known in the Old Testament, and one that is utterly inappropriate and inapplicable to Rome. Rome was a heathen city, and consequently incapable of that great and damning sin which was possible, and, alas, actual, for Jerusalem. Rome was not capable of violating the covenant of her God, of being false to her divine Husband, for she never was the married wife of Jehovah. This was the crowning guilt of Jerusalem alone among all the nations of the earth, and it is the sin for which all through her history she is arraigned and condemned. It is impossible to read the graphic description of the great harlot in the Apocalypse [Revelation] without instantly being reminded of the original in the Old Testament prophets. All through their testimony this is the sin, and this is the name, which they hurl against Jerusalem. We hear Isaiah exclaiming, ‘How is the faithful city become an harlot!’ (Isa. i. 21 [Isa. 1:21]). ...Still more emphatically does the prophet Jeremiah stigmatise Jerusalem with this reproachful epithet, ‘Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord: I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals; ‘---but, ‘upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot’ (Jer. ii. 2, 20 [Jer. 2:2, 20]). [Additional citations of Jeremiah at 3:1, 2, 3, 6, 14, 20; 4:30; 11:15; 13:27] "Passing by the other prophets, it is in Ezekiel that we find the figure elaborated to the fullest extent. ... "We think it is scarcely possible for any candid and intelligent mind to compare the allegories of Ezekiel in the sixteenth, twenty-second, and twenty-third chapters, with the description of the harlot in the Apocalypse, without being convinced that we find in the prophecy the original and prototype of the vision, and that both portray the same individual, viz. [that is] Jerusalem. We have thus decisive evidence that the characteristic guilt of Jerusalem was that sin which is known in Scripture as spiritual adultery; an offence which could not be imputed to Rome, because it did not hold the same relation to God as Jerusalem did. It is to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem alone, that the disgraceful epithet is, with melancholy uniformity, applied, as peculiarly and pre-eminently ‘the harlot city’. "9. It will of course be urged as an objection to this identification of Jerusalem as the apocalyptic Babylon, that the topographical description of ‘the great city’ [Rev. 17:18] is so exactly applicable to Rome that it is impossible that any other city should be meant. For example, the ninth verse [Rev. 17:9] states, ‘Here is the mind that hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.’ This must be Rome [it is argued], and can be no other; for she is notoriously the ‘urbs septicollis,’ the seven-hilled city. "Yet the objector might have surmised that if the identity of the city were so self-evident, it would scarcely have been proper to preface the explanation with the significant words, ‘Here is the mind that hath wisdom;’ that is to say, it requires wisdom to understand the interpretation of the vision. This explanation is too superficial to be correct. "In the interpretation of a symbolic book an excessive literality may be a source of error. Especially the symbolic number seven is least of all to be taken in a strictly arithmetical sense. ...Is it not much more congruous with the nature of such a symbol that it should have a moral, or political, rather than a topographical sense, indicating the pre-eminence of the city in power or in privilege? ... "But granting that the expression, ‘sitting on seven mountains,’ has a topographical significance, this feature is adequately represented in the situation of Jerusalem. It was really far more a mountain-city than Rome herself. ... "Should, however, the literalist still require that the mystical Babylon shall have the full tale of hills, Jerusalem has as good a claim as Rome to sit upon seven mountains. In addition to the well-known hills Zion, Moriah, Acra, Bezetha, and Ophel, the castle of Antonia stood upon another height, and there was another rocky eminence or ridge on which the towers of Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne were built by Herod the Great. ... "10. Another objection, still more formidable, will be alleged in the declaration of ver. 18 [Rev. 17:18], ‘The woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.’ This, it will be said, cannot apply to Jerusalem, and can apply only to Rome. Jerusalem never was an imperial city, with vassal nations and tributary kings subject to her authority; whereas Rome was the mistress and monarch of the world. "So far as the title ‘the great city’... is concerned we have shown that it is actually applied to Jerusalem in several passages in the Apocalypse (chap. xi. 8, 13 [Rev. 11:8, 13]); xiv. 8, 20 [Rev. 14:8, 20]; xvi. 19 [Rev. 16:19]). To the Jew it was a great city, and with good reason. ... "With regard to the phrase, ‘which reigneth over the kings of the earth [Rev. 17:18],’--- the fallacy which has misled many is the [King James] mistranslation ‘kings of the earth [land]’ ([Greek:] basileis tes ges). ...This very phrase is used in the New Testament in the restricted sense of ‘the rulers of the land [Israel],’ by St. Peter in Acts iv. 26, 27 [Acts 4:26-27, alluding to Psalm 2:1-2]... The ‘kings of the land,’ therefore, are identified by the apostle Peter as the confederate rulers who put the Son of God to death in the city of Jerusalem. ...The phrase [‘the kings of the earth’], therefore, is equivalent to ‘the ruling authorities in the land of Judea,’ or of Palestine." [to be concluded in part 3] Visit russellparousia.blogspot.com to see all posts