What is the significance of Babylon in the Bible?

BABYLON as the centre of idolatry and Gentile apostasy from God and the abode of corruption in the activity of power — type of papal Rome whose name is Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. Gen. 11:1-9; Isa. 14:4-23; Dan. 4:30; Rev. 17; Rev. 18.

The last plague showed a shaking of all political and religious systems, in which the fall of Babylon held a foremost place. Babylon means confusion; for at Babel man made his first organized attempt to act in independence of God, and therefore God confounded it. It afterwards became the head of the Gentile powers which desolated Jerusalem, and consequently is often spoken of as representing the whole. The prophets also frequently denounce it in strong language on account of its shameless idolatry. The ideas therefore suggested by Babylon, whether civil or religions, are all in antagonism to God's city. It began in independence of God; it continued as the oppressor of God's people; it fell while using the vessels of God's temple to do honour to its own idols.

The city of Babylon has long been a ruinous heap, where the "wild beasts of the desert" couch, and the "houses are full of doleful creatures." But the system which Babylon represents still survives. Politically, it is independence of God, as seen in the beast; religiously, it is idolatry, as seen in the woman. Both agree in hatred and persecution of God's people. The civil and religious aspects are often, as in Babylon itself, twined together, so that the threads cannot always be unravelled, but all the evil elements are united in the mystical Babylon of the Revelation. In every point of view it is ripe for judgment.

Babylon has a large place in the O.T. with reference to its intercourse with Israel, in nearly every chapter of Jeremiah, from 20 - 52, Babylon is mentioned. Babylon is also of note as being the first of the four great empires prophesied of by Daniel. The kingdom of the Lord, established in the house of David, and maintained in Judah, had for the time come to an end because of iniquity, and the 'times of the Gentiles' had begun.* Of Nebuchadnezzar it was said, "Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength and glory . . . . Thou art this head of gold." Dan. 2:37-38. Babylon was God's instrument by which Judah was punished; and then because of the pride and wickedness of the king of Babylon he also was brought under the rod of the Almighty.

This would not be the place to notice, in detail, the various passages in which this city is introduced. I would only remark, here, that whenever God has a corporate witness on the earth, Satan has a Babylon to mar and corrupt that witness. When God connects His name with a city on the earth, then Babylon takes the form of a city; and when God connects His name with the Church, then Babylon takes the form of a corrupt religious system, called "the great whore," "the mother of abominations," &c. In a word, Satan's Babylon is always seen as the instrument moulded and fashioned by his hand, for the purpose of counteracting the divine operations, whether in Israel of old, or the Church now. Throughout the Old Testament Israel and Babylon are seen, as it were, in opposite scales: when Israel is up, Babylon is down; and when Babylon is up, Israel is down. Thus, when Israel had utterly failed, as Jehovah's witness, "the king of Babylon broke his bones," and swallowed him up. The vessels of the house of God, which ought to have remained in the city of Jerusalem, were carried away to the city of Babylon. But Isaiah, in his sublime prophecy, leads us onward to the opposite of all this. He presents, in most magnificent strains, a picture, in which Israel's star is in the ascendant, and Babylon entirely sunk. "And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! … since thou art laid down, no hewer is come up against us." (Isa. 14:3-8.)

Babylon is not only the capital of Nebuchadnezzar and of the habitable world; it is Babel, signifying confusion. It is there men are united to exalt themselves and make themselves a name and a reputation in the world. At the end all the world sets itself to get exaltation for which commerce furnishes the means; and everything there, men's bodies and souls, will be for sale, as we see in Revelation 18. The Spirit of God taking the city of the Chaldees as an occasion gives the mind of God on the city of idolatrous corruption and pride up to the end, and even brings in here future circumstances of which history presents no accomplishment, and whose order is in contrast with that which is already arrived. Thus the Assyrian, if we follow the history, was destroyed before the grandeur of Babylon; whilst the Spirit, speaking of what will happen in the last days, tells us that the Assyrian is to be destroyed after Babylon. In the time of the prophet Babylon had not yet any pretension to be the capital of an empire, but was a provincial city or at most a secondary power, seeking independence of Assyria, and at times gaining it, till it at last became not only aggressive but supreme.

Babylon played a considerable part in Old Testament history. It was founded in defiance of God, as Genesis 11 shows; and the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was there. It was also the fountain head of the idolatry that overspread the earth after the flood. This is indicated in such a verse as Jeremiah 51:7, and historical records seem to corroborate it. Very appropriately therefore the mystical Babylon of our chapter symbolizes the harlot "church" centred in Rome, which has been in the present age "a golden cup … that made all the earth drunken." After the true church is gone all that is Laodicean, and spued out of Christ's mouth, will gravitate to Rome, we believe, so that the mystical Babylon will represent the sum total of apostate Christendom.

The great judgments announced in this part of Isaiah were only partially fulfilled in the past. The great Babylon which came into existence as the mistress of the world after this prophecy had been given, fell by the Medes (verse 17 and Daniel 5). The judgment of this Babylon is meant here first. But the Babylon of the past is the type of a Babylon of the future, another mistress of the ecclesiastical and commercial world. It is yet to appear in its final form (Rev. 17-18). Its fall comes in the day of the Lord. This great day is described in verses 6-16 in this chapter.

Babylon seeks a place of supremacy over the world, in contrast to the true Church which is "subject to Christ" (Eph. 5:24), and whose portion now is to suffer with Him and be His witnesses before a world that has rejected Him, while awaiting the time when she shall reign with Him (Rom. 8:17). The great whore "sits upon many waters" (Rev. 17:1), and these are explained to be "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (Rev. 17:15), showing that her domination extends over many nations. She sits upon the "beast full of names of blasphemy" and "reigns over the kings of the earth" (Rev. 17:3; Rev 17:18). What wickedness must be hers to have such power over such a wicked beast! No wonder we read, "Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Instead of being as in the beginning the vessel through which the Holy Spirit works in divine power and grace, the professing Church becomes the habitation of devils and the instrument of Satan to suppress every true voice that is raised for Christ and the truth.

ANOTHER vision opens out now before the mind of the apostle. In the preceding chapter the judgment of the great harlot was announced, and the instruments of its execution are revealed; whereas now we are permitted to see the disappearance of wicked Babylon, and the effects upon the various classes of the empire who had been in relation with her. But, as has been more than once pointed out in these Apocalyptic visions, the result is anticipatively proclaimed. John thus writes: "And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." (vv. 1, 2.) Twice before the judgment of Babylon had been mentioned (Rev. 14:8; Rev. 16:19), and now the providential governmental instrument, the angel, descends to earth for its accomplishment, working, however, as we have learned from the previous chapter, through human agents, the beast and his vassal kings. But it is rather the accomplishment announced by the angel, revealing, at the same time, what Babylon, that which once bore the name of Christ, has become — the dwelling-place of demons, and the prison of unclean spirits, and of every form of Satan's power.* The grounds, or one ground (see Rev. 19:2), of her judgment is stated. Balaam had taught Balak how to seduce the children of Israel to eat things offered to idols, and to commit fornication. (Rev. 2:14.) Jezebel in Thyatira followed in his steps (Rev. 2:20); but Babylon seduced the nations and the kings of the earth with the golden cup of her abominations and her fornication.† (Rev. 17:4,) She, moreover, who had professed to belong to Him, who when here had not where to lay His head, made the merchants of the earth "rich through the abundance of her delicacies." (v. 3.) Not only therefore had she become false to Christ, but she was the practical denial of all that He was and is, and, in fact, utterly apostate, completely ruled as she was by the god of this world.

*The reader may compare Isaiah 21:9; Jer. 50:39; Jer. 51:8, 37, as to the destruction of the historical Babylon.

It is important to see that the actual city, Babylon (= Babel, confusion), began in independence of God, was characterized by idolatry (the golden image) and the persecution of God's people (the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace), and was utterly and suddenly overthrown in the midst of her feasting (Belshazzar's feast and overthrow by Darius the Median). Thus it stands as a type of Rome in her idolatry, her persecutions, and her sudden and irrevocable doom.