And he cried with a strong voice, saying, Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and has become the habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hated bird;
An angel comes down, the earth lights up with his glory, and he shouts a verdict already carried out: the great city has fallen. She once carried the name of Christ, so how did she end up a home for demons?
The glory that floods the earth does more than light the scene. It exposes what was hidden.
An angel from heaven with great authority announces Babylon's fall. His glory lights up the earth. That light is God's exposure of the filthy works of the great harlot. Those works had thrived under the cover of spiritual darkness. Whatever was said and done in the dark will be announced in the light (Luke 12:2-3). Demon activity was rampant inside her long before this announcement. But she had hidden it behind fair outward appearances and behind her profession of the name of Christ.
The cry announces a collapse that has already happened. What follows shows it is a fall from position, not the end of existence.
Babylon is declared fallen — not destroyed, as what follows makes plain. She is given up to a spiritual desolation. It is worse than the physical desolation of the old Babylon, which she has long lain under, and from which these words seem to be drawn.
Losing power is not the same as being wiped out.
She had not stopped existing at all. But she was fallen, and had become the dwelling place of demons, the haunt of every unclean spirit, and the haunt of every unclean and hateful bird. This was her present condition and judgment — her moral condition. The fall of Babylon seems to be the loss of her place as the active, governing or leading power over the beast and the many waters. It means her moral degradation, not her destruction.
The shock lies in the two places that share this description.
"The dwelling place of demons." Their proper home is the abyss (Luke 8:31). Who demons are — lost angels, the souls of lost men, or a class of lost and miserable beings by themselves — we do not know. What an amazing thought! The abyss below the earth and the professed bride of Christ on earth are both called the dwelling place of demons. We can easily understand the abyss as the home of these agents of Satan. But that the professing Church should become that almost exceeds belief.
One writer names the system, and the claim it once made for itself.
Here the prophet's words are applied figuratively, not to the literal city, but to the Church of Rome. She who, in her religious arrogance, had claimed to be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, has now become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit.
The verse piles up three phrases, and each one adds something.
Demons had made it their home, not just a place they visited now and then. Moreover every foul or unclean spirit was there. Demons are spirits. But men have spirits too, and sin has made those spirits completely unclean. This statement covers every sort of spirit. Thirdly, there are hateful birds. In the parable of the sower the Lord used birds as pictures of the agents Satan uses among men. So Babylon had become a place where demons were completely at home. It held every kind of evil spirit and evil man as in a cage or prison. A fearful and crushing indictment indeed!
The word behind "haunt" or "cage" carries that same weight of confinement.
"A cage of every unclean and hateful bird" is a character of mystical Babylon, Revelation 18:2. The word here is φυλακή, often translated "prison."
The imagery is not new. It comes from an older prophecy about the ruin of the first Babylon.
Babylon has lost her public place of supremacy. The very powers that once made her strong have torn her to pieces, and she is left in a desolation described in language of unmatched force. The description is drawn from Isaiah 13:21-22. There the greatest of the Hebrew prophets foretells the ruin of Babylon, once the proud mistress of the world, now the most debased of all cities. Here we have the moral counterpart. This, then, is what the professed bride of Christ has become.
- Light exposes. The angel's glory floods the earth and exposes what a religious system hid behind a fair appearance.
- Fallen means dethroned. She loses her place of governing power and sinks morally, but she is not destroyed.
- Emptied, then occupied. What is stripped of glory does not stay empty — demons move in as residents, not visitors.
- Three tenants, one verdict. Demons at home, every unclean spirit gathered, every hateful bird caged: the charge builds phrase by phrase.
- The reversal. The system claimed to house the Holy Spirit. It ends up described like the abyss, in words once spoken over the ruins of the old Babylon.
because all the nations have drunk of the wine of the fury of her fornication; and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have been enriched through the might of her luxury.
The two verses before this one announce that Babylon has fallen. This verse says why, naming three groups who each gained from her: the nations, the kings of the earth, and the merchants.
The verse opens with "For". What follows is the case against her.
The grounds of God's judgment on Babylon are next stated.
Older translations call this "fornication." The word does not mean ordinary immorality here. Scripture already had a settled symbolic use for it.
In the Old Testament it often points, as a symbol, to turning from God to idols (2 Chronicles 21:11, 13; Isaiah 23:17; Ezekiel 16:15, 26, 29). In the New Testament it points to unfaithful dealings with Babylon, the mother of harlots (Revelation 14:8; 17:2, 4; 18:3, 9).
The first charge is that she made whole populations drunk. Scott describes an attraction that works on the senses and on the fear of being shut out.
The peoples of Christendom, if not of a wider area, have been captivated by the splendour of her services and her high, ornate ritual. Her show of gorgeous robes and finery is all so fitted to work on the ignorant mind and unchecked imagination of the people in our cities, towns and villages. Add to this the easy terms on which she offers salvation to her followers. Add her threat that there is no salvation outside her communion. Need we be surprised that the nations become morally intoxicated, or mad, over a system which offers such advantages, while blind to any true judgment of her real condition before God! At the time this chapter describes, the Bible will have lost its place in public life, and in the conscience of the masses of even religious people. So they will fall an easy prey to the seductions of Babylon.
The ESV calls it "the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality." Other translations read "fury" or "wrath" here. Kelly weighs another suggestion and rejects it:
"Poison" has been suggested by devout and learned men. But it is better translated in a way that matches what is said elsewhere. We cannot apply "poison" to God's wrath. But many scriptures let us use "fury" to mark His extreme indignation, and Babylon's excessive deception and unrestrained wrongdoing.
The next two charges name world leaders in two areas: politics and trade.
By her very corruption, this vile system had gained a controlling hold on the kings of the earth — the leaders of earth's politics. Her wealth and luxury had gripped and controlled the merchants of the earth just as much — the leaders of earth's commerce. So in the last days, religion, politics and commerce will find in Babylon a centre that unites them for a brief moment. And the religion will be as earthly as the politics and the commerce.
The merchants' motive is plain:
This third class has traded with her for gain. There have always been a great many people who attach themselves to religion for what they can get out of it. They use the Church as a stepping-stone to advance their worldly interests. Babylon will offer a tempting bait to all such. Her abundant luxuries will attract the merchants of the earth. Soon, though, the scene will change, and these same traders will weep over the ruin of what made them rich.
Darby traces the same appetite further, into a principle at work now:
To trade and to grow rich — there is the spring of all the present politics of the world. And if trading in souls can serve that end, it does not matter. All that counts is reaching the aim: making much gain and beautifying this world, of which Satan is the prince.
Babylon is not only a future event. Dennett reads her as a system already at work:
Babylon represents a spiritual system, and this system, in its main moral features, has existed ever since the days of John... So the instruction is for all ages. It calls God's people to come out and be separate from whatever can be spiritually discerned as Babylon.
The verse also exposes what the heart can do with religion:
How easy it is for a man to call himself a Christian and yet in heart and soul belong to the world! How ready a man is to acknowledge God with his lips while his heart is far from Him! But God must have realities.
- Grounds — The verse is the charge sheet: it states the reasons God's judgment falls on Babylon.
- Nations — They drank. Splendour, ritual and easy terms of salvation made whole nations drunk. They could no longer see her true state.
- Kings — They joined her. A corrupt religious system held the world's political leaders in its grip.
- Merchants — They cashed in. People have always used religion for what they can get. Babylon is the perfect bait.
- Reality — Religion, politics and commerce unite in her for a moment. Her religion is as earthly as the other two. The call that follows is to come out — because God must have realities.