Notes on Revelation 17

Chapter 17 reuses the image of the beast in Chapter 13, adds an additional rider to the beast, and then interprets both.

It's important to understand here that the beast is being brought into the image again in order to identify the madam of the whorehouse (i.e., "great prositute," or "mother of prostitutes"), and is not a separate image. This is important because many want to identify the city as Jerusalem, but John's point of bringing in the beast is to say that the city is Rome, not Jerusalem.

It is here that we also see what the image of the beast is about. It is first described as the Roman Empire and the heads representing the seven hills upon which the city of Rome sits. The woman, of course, is dressed in royal garb and represents the city of Rome.

However, as is common in apocalyptic, nations are often personified in their leaders, and so the beast is soon interpreted by John to refer to one of Rome's kings, who is then identified as two of Rome's kings.

We saw in Chapter 13 that the beast had a name of a man. Contrary to Beale et al. who take the position that the man is generic, the number is said to be his name in 15:2, and here it is explicitly said to refer to a single king of the empire who then returns in the form of another king. It does not refer to all the kings, the Roman Empire as a whole, the corrupt system, etc. The beast is specifically said to be one of the seven and an eighth.

As we saw the beast to referred to Nero originally, it is clear that John is concerned with the beast come again in the form of the eighth king.

Here, it is said that the original beast, i.e., Nero, is dead. It also says that five of the kings have "fallen," meaning that five are dead. This means that Nero is one of the five, and according to Roman history, he would be number 5. Revelation begins the list of kings from Augustus on down to Nero for the five who have fallen. John then presents himself in the time of Vespasian, as a writer in the Flavian Dynasty would not have included the usurpers as legitimate kings. This means that Titus, who only reigns for two years, is the correct identification of the seventh king who only reigns for a little while.

What this means is that Domitian is the eighth king with whom John is concerned. It is Nero and Domitian who are recorded by Christian historians as being the only two emperors in the first century to have persecuted Christians. Through these two, the prostitute is drunk with the blood of the saints who give testimony to Jesus Christ.

The kings under the emperors dominion yield to him an empire for his city to rule over, and they help him persecute Christ through Christians with his power. As said before, they are seen as only temporary rulers, as the beast is himself one who must go up to destruction, and is not permanent.

It is important here to note that the overcoming of the Lamb in this war is not meant to be literal at this point. The Lamb overcomes the beast by sealing those who belong to Him. They are the called, chosen and faithful who do not give in to the pressures of the beast. Because of this, Christ is seen as more powerful than the beast, as his greatest weapon is the fear of death, and these Christians love and fear Christ more. Hence, in this way, Christ has beaten the beast.

This understanding of overcoming is a thread that exists throughout the book. The one who overcomes is the one who will inherit the throne of Christ and rule with Him over the earth/nations in the end. Overcoming does not mean that one overcomes politically, through force of arms, by gaining control of human institutions; but rather it means to stay faithful among the pressures of an unfaithful world. This is what it means to be a conquerer in the book.

John returns to the city as the object of the emperor and his minion's wrath. This is John's use of the Nero redivivus myth, where Nero returns to destroy the city of Rome. It is through their tyranny that they are viewed as hating their own city. Nero himself is said to have burned the city, and that imagery is used here. Domitian is said to have been a tyrant over his own city, destroying much of its well-being during his time, so much so that the senate forbade his deification and tore down his statues after his death. This theme is a common one in the Bible where chaotic agents are used to destroy their own. Like the Urukhai and Orcs in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, evil eventually cannot contain its own murderous lusts in a cage and will inevidably destroy itself.

The many waters are interpreted to be the many different people groups that Rome rules over, and this is made more explicit by the statement that the "great city" (often used of a capital city) has kingship over the kings of the earth.