Today’s reading is Revelation 17.
An Ancient City
After God uncreated the world through the flood in Noah’s day, He told Noah and his sons to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1, ESV). However, instead of obeying the Lord, Noah’s descendants said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4, ESV).
You know this city as Babel. Would you be surprised to discover the name of this city is actually the same as the well-known enemy kingdom of Babylon? Babel or Babylon, then, is frankly synonymous with rebellion against God. It was the attempt of people to build their own mountain of the Lord to get to God by their own plans and methods rather than simply listening to God. It was their attempt to take for themselves the glory belonging to God.
God brought judgment against the city. He confused the language of the people and scattered them over the face of the earth.
An Incredible Enemy
We don’t hear about Babylon again until 2 Kings 17:24 when the king of Assyria brought conquered people from Babylon to the cities of Samaria. Then a king of Babylon sends an envoy to Hezekiah when he was sick (2 Kings 20:12ff), and Isaiah made a shocking prediction.
Hear the word of the LORD: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (2 Kings 20:16-18, ESV).
That is precisely what happened. In 2 Kings 24, Nebuchadnezzar comes on the scene and in stages conquers, captures, and carries of Jerusalem. The prophets Daniel and Ezekiel are among the captives and write of the judgment on Judah by Babylon. Jeremiah prophesied at the same time but remained at home in Judah.
It is too long to include here, but Jeremiah wrote an incredible sermon against Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51. I encourage you take some time to read it. Babylon was the instrument God used to judge many nations and His own people. But the instrument twisted and became worthy of judgment itself.
In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar was warned in a dream he was going to be judged for his sinful pride. Daniel warned him to humble himself, break off from his sins, and show mercy to the oppressed. However, in Daniel 4:30, the king looked out from the roof of his royal palace and said:
Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty? (ESV)
Immediately, the kingdom was taken from Nebuchadnezzar, he went insane, and was driven out into the field in order to learn “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Daniel 4:32, ESV). In time, Nebuchadnezzar glorified God and he was returned to his kingdom.
However, recognize Nebuchadnezzar’s sin was essentially the same as the ancients who tried to first build Babel. They built to exalt their own name and glory. Nebuchadnezzar looked at the city and kingdom God gave him and declared his own name and glory.
Nebuchadnezzar’s final words on the matter as recorded in the Bible were:
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble (Daniel 4:37, ESV).
The Babylonian Sin
Considering so much of the symbolism of the warnings and judgments come from God’s plagues and judgment on Egypt, I am in part surprised we don’t read about Egypt the great in Revelation. Why isn’t it, “Fallen, fallen is Egypt the great”? Likely many of the things we can say about Babylon could be said about Egypt or Sodom or Nineveh.
However, Babylon basically forms bookends, an inclusio we might say, of the enemy against God. Babylon was from beginning to end the city competing with the glory of God. From the postdiluvian ancients to the greatest king of Babylon, the city and its rulers wanted the glory that should go to God for themselves.
This was capped off in Daniel 5, when Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Belshazzar, used the vessels of the Jerusalem temple for his own personal party. To add insult to injury as he drank from God’s vessels, he praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone (Daniel 5:4). Daniel was called in to read the judgment written on the wall against Belshazzar. Daniel explained Belshazzar should have learned from the humiliation Nebuchadnezzar went through. But he didn’t. Instead, Daniel said:
And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven…but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored (Daniel 5:22-23, ESV).
Babylon then is the name of choice given to the kingdom and city which vaunts itself up against the one, true God. Babylon, that called itself great, needed to learn only God is great. Babylon needed to learn God would not share His glory with another.
Babylon, therefore, becomes the epitome of the competing city against the mountain of God’s dwelling place. Babylon whose first people were confused and scattered, Babylon whose greatest king was driven into the fields with the beasts, Babylon whose last king was defeated while drinking from God’s temple vessels, is the final enemy in Revelation. Babylon must fall. Babylon as manifested in any and every kingdom, Babylon in any community, Babylon in any family, Babylon in every heart must be abandoned and conquered.
We have a choice, we will either take the glory for ourselves or we will give the glory to God. Let us conquer the Babylon in our own hearts and surrender to God, before the Lord must do it in judgment. If Revelation teaches us anything, waiting until the Lord does it in judgment will be horrific.
Tomorrow’s reading is Revelation 17.
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PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family
How does Revelation 17 prompt or improve your praise of God?
Read the Bible 