We ended last week talking about some connections between “the great city” in John’s Revelation and Jerusalem, and we’re going to continue this week with some more parallels related to Jerusalem. Before we get into that though, we need to review a little background on imagery used in scripture. Without knowing how things are personified in YHWH’s Word, we can never hope to figure out what it all means, and unfortunately, many get on the wrong track with their interpretations because they either fail to look at that or neglect to connect the dots that YHWH provides.
Throughout scripture, we find that there are two things personified as feminine that will help us understand some of the imagery in Revelation. The first is cities and the second is religious people groups. In more than a few books, we see not only the city of Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:11, 40:2, 51:18, 66:7-12, Lamentations 1, etc.), but also Babylon (Isaiah 21:9, 47:1, Zechariah 2:7, etc.) represented as a woman. Something to note about the Jerusalem references specifically is that while many translations use the term “Daughter of Zion,” the original Hebrew simply states “Daughter Zion.” Similarly, some Babylon references state Daughter of Babylon, but should actually state Daughter Babylon. This is important to keep in mind, because it associates Zion with Jerusalem rather than Jerusalem being from Zion. Therefore, whenever you see Zion in scripture you can see it as Jerusalem rather than a separate entity.
As far as religious people groups, we see that feminine representation various places in scripture as well. Speaking of Israel, the people, scripture represents them as a woman in a positive light (Isaiah 54:5-6), but also in a negative light, when they turned away from YHWH and worshipped other things (Ezekiel 16:30-32, Hosea 2:2, Jeremiah 3:1-2). In the latter case, the representation was a harlot, or prostitute, because worshipping anything but YHWH is represented as adultery in scripture. This female imagery of religious groups is not just associated with Israel though. We also see it in the New Testament when referencing the ekklesia, Yeshua’s Church (Ephesians 5:25-27, 2 Corinthians 11:2).
The reason we need to recognize this feminine personification is because there are feminine characters in Revelation that are key to understanding the events prophesied. Specifically, there is a woman that gives birth (Revelation 12:5) and another woman that is riding the sea beast (Revelation 17:3, 13:1). Now, there is an important connection between these two women that we will get into at some point, but for now, let’s take their descriptions one at a time to see if we can figure out what they represent.
First, we’ll take a look at the woman that gave birth, since she seems like an upstanding individual, right? She was originally pregnant and in the birthing process when John first saw her, and we can see that some celestial objects are associated with her (Revelation 12:1-2). She was clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and twelve stars in a crown on her head. Does that sound familiar at all? Perhaps from a young boy that had some dreams which angered his brothers into selling him into slavery? One of Joseph’s dreams involved the sun, moon and eleven stars bowing down to him (Genesis 37:9-11), and his father, Israel (aka Jacob), even interpreted this to mean he and his wife, along with the other sons, were represented as the sun, moon and stars, respectively. Obviously, the twelfth star is Joseph himself, and by this we can determine that the nation of Israel is the woman who gave birth in Revelation.
Perhaps you see this as an obscure connection, or perhaps a crystal clear one, but either way, you must keep in mind that not only was the vision given to John, who was Jewish, many of the readers, and certainly the main audience, of Revelation were Jewish Christians. These folks grew up learning and reading about Joseph and his dreams, just like we do in Christianity today. The imagery used would have been obvious to them based on their background, and as we’ve seen so far from all the connections between events prophesied in Revelation and what occurred during the Jewish Revolt from ~66-73AD, the warning provided by Revelation is focused mainly on the Jews that were going to be living in or going to Jerusalem during that time.
Some other important aspects of this woman clothed in the sun are that she was a focus of the red dragon and that she gave birth to a male child (Revelation 12:4-5). Some believe this male child is some future person or people group, but to me, what happens to this male child makes it obvious who it is. First, we already identified that religious groups are women in scripture, so he can’t be some church that gets raptured. He was caught up to YHWH and His throne, which sounds a lot like our Messiah, Yeshua, and for me, the fact that the child rules with an iron scepter seals the deal, so to speak, on that interpretation. This statement is a direct reference to Psalm 2, which is all about Yeshua (Psalm 2:9).
This means the woman has to be directly involved in Yeshua coming in the flesh, which is an important nuance to recognize. Yeshua was pure and sinless, otherwise His sacrifice would not have had the all-atoning quality that it did. We already know the woman represents Israel, and knowing that she “birthed” Yeshua we can correctly interpret that she is a faithful Israel, rather than an apostate one. If she was apostate, she would be sinful because that would be a transgression against YHWH, and therefore whatever came from her would be sinful as well. Remember this fact as we go forward.
Now, let’s take a look at the woman on the beast. Right off the bat, we’ve got some bad feelings about this one. Number one, she’s a prostitute (Revelation 15:1). She’s also got a cup of abominations and impurities, and she’s drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses for Yeshua (Revelation 15:4, 6). The other important aspect is that she is a separate entity from the sea beast, but she is associated with it somehow. She’s riding it. This is the same sea beast that waged war with the saints and conquered them (Revelation 13:7).
We will save an in-depth look at the sea beast for a future time, but for now just recognize it is a representation of a governmental/political structure (Revelation 17:9-10). Another thing to recognize is that when the Romans expanded their rule to include the land of Israel, they initially allowed the in-place Jewish ruling structure to remain, although they appointed a specific Jew to be the king. This was the King Herod that ordered the murder of all newborn males in the region when Yeshua was born (Matthew 2:16).
So, we’ve got a Jew that was appointed by Rome to run a Jewish governmental structure in the land (ges) of Israel….Maybe the picture is starting to come into focus for you! Following Herod’s death, the Romans divided his kingdom amongst his sons and his sister, but shortly thereafter, in 6AD, the region of Judea was made a Roman province by the Roman Emperor Augustus. You see, the son ruling that area was not liked by the people, and as a result, the area, which included Jerusalem, came under the direct governance of Rome. Jewish kings returned in 41AD with Herod Agrippa I, and his son, Agrippa II, was the final one, although with him the title of king was more symbolic rather than functional.
All these individuals were Jews though, and as a result, despite their collaboration with the Roman Empire, their heart was ruled by their capital city of Jerusalem, the location of the Temple. A perfect example of this is when Caligula ordered that his statue be erected in the Temple. Agrippa I, who was king at the time, tried to, and finally succeeded in convincing Caligula to rescind the order. Additionally, during Agrippa II’s reign, he spent large sums of money focusing on beautifying Jerusalem, among other cities.
If we haven’t made the picture clear enough at this point, let’s be blunt about it. The connection between the beast, a governmental entity, and the woman, as well as the connection between Jerusalem, as a city, which is also an entity of governance, and the Jewish kings of the region, means that this woman represents Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the main source of persecution for the Christians, with the Roman Empire simply assisting in the efforts. We saw that with Paul, a “Hebrew of Hebrews” by his own admission (Philippians 3:5), who had made it his goal to persecute and kill as many Christians as he could (Philippians 3:6, 1 Corinthians 15:9, Acts 8:1-3, 9:1-2). Hence, this woman was “drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses for Yeshua.” Additionally, her adornment in purple, scarlet, gold, precious stones and pearls match the garments worn by the high priests in the temple exactly.
The fact that this woman “rules over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:18), alludes to the fact that there were Jewish kings allowed to be in place by the Roman Empire. Remember, that word “earth” is ges, and more often than not, it refers to the land of Israel rather than the whole earth.
There are some that believe this woman is the city of Rome, and I was one of those people originally as well. However, the fact that the beast hates her, leaves her desolate and naked, and eats her flesh and burns her with fire (Revelation 17:16-18), makes this interpretation a challenge to be true. In fact, this imagery more closely aligns with what happened to Jerusalem, in that the city was originally governed by Rome, and then attacked, destroyed and burned by Rome during its siege.
The final, semi-big deal with this prostitute on the beast is what’s written on her forehead (Revelation 17:5). The first thing to notice is that her name is called “mysterious,” which means we immediately need to recognize that whatever it is, that’s not the obvious, plain meaning of it. She’s called “Babylon the great,” and if you were to look at that title on its face and think of what city at the time would fit that description, you would probably come up with Rome. As essentially the continuation of the Greek religion involving multiple gods, only called by different names, the Roman religion was obviously an extension of the false god worship dating at least back to Babylon.
However, this prostitute is a “mystery Babylon,” so you have to look past that plain view and see the deeper meaning of Babylon’s religion. It all boiled down to worshipping some thing (or things) other than YHWH. At its core, apostate Jewish religion (i.e. the religion that continued to conduct sacrifices and temple worship after the death of the Son of YHWH, Yeshua) is the worship of something other than YHWH. They had hints of this prior to Yeshua’s death that He had pointed out, like focusing on man-made laws and the religious leaders elevating themselves above the rest of the people, but once Yeshua died, their temple worship and following of the sin-sacrifice related commandments became their god. They failed to recognize that because they failed to recognize the Son of YHWH Himself.
There are other reasons for this association between Jerusalem and Babylon, which we’ll get into next week, but for now, let’s close with the last couple things on the prostitute’s forehead. If you haven’t picked up on it already, being the mother of prostitutes simply means those that came from her (i.e. the apostate Jews) are those that commit adultery against YHWH by worshipping things other than Him. And finally, being mother of abominations is a reference to specific things in scripture. If you do a simple search for that word in the Old Testament, you’ll find various things are associated with it. Going through them, you see that nearly every single one of them can be attributed to not only the apostate Jews of the time John had his vision, but also those that were around during Yeshua’s ministry, and definitely those that colluded in having Him crucified (Proverbs 6:16-19, 11:20, 15:8-9, 26, 16:5, 17:15, 21:27, Isaiah 1:13, Luke 16:15).
Until next time, Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!
-Rob and Sara Gene
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