Well, let's take a look at chapter 17 and see.
By oldhermit
The Judgment of Babylon the Great and the Beast, 1-14
A. Identifying Babylon the Great
It is argued by many that Babylon the Great can only be Rome. Others attempt to connect Babylon the Great to the Roman Catholic Church. This notion is so far-fetched that I am not even going to spend any time dealing with it. Since there are only two figures in this scene I think it much more expedient to simply to explain who they are rather than who they are not. As I have already pointed out, Babylon is identified as Jerusalem and Rome is the beast, but to answer the first assumption that Babylon is Jerusalem, let us note some reasons from scripture that confirm this connection.
The Mystery Babylon has ties to Babylon and Nimrod. The City (Genesis 11:4) and a Religion was to build a tower to reach Heaven. Nimrod was the first to a-line the government (Babylon) with Religion.
This is the same case of the Mystery Babylon and ROME. Yes, Mystery Babylon is the Roman Catholic Church and the Government is ROME.
Aside from you apparent hatred of the Jewish community, it cannot be Jerusalem simply because the Mystery Babylon is a prophecy viewed by John for a future time period.
Because your beliefs are in 70 AD. there is no reason to continue trying to convince you otherwise.
Verse sixteen tells us that the beast hated the harlot so, these are clearly opposing entities. Rome cannot be both the beast and the harlot. The hatred of the beast for the harlot certainly agrees with the animosity that existed between Rome and Judea. Since Rome never shared a spiritual relationship with God, there is no room to suggest that Rome was the harlot of this text. Rome was never regarded by God as the "once faithful city." This chapter says that the harlot was once the faithful city of God and this was certainly never true of Rome. The theme of the book of Revelation is not concerned with Rome or the Roman Empire as its central character. Rome was only an incidental instrument of God by which Jerusalem's judgment would be executed.
B. Chapter seventeen is another scene of Jerusalem's judgment but in chapter seventeen we find something that is not given in the other chapters depicting this same event. In this chapter, the angel provides us with more clear definitions of the symbols.
“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
1. The subject of the scene is judgment. and the object of the judgment is the “great harlot.” This is not the first time God uses the word harlot to describe a nation but here, uses this term to describe a once faithful city. God said of Nineveh, “All because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the charming one, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations by her harlotries and families by her sorceries. Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of hosts...” Nahum 3:4-5. Like Nineveh, Jerusalem became a harlot when she began to prefer other nations to Jehovah.
2. She is depicted as sitting upon many waters. This imagery is taken directly from Jeremiah 51:13 in which God pronounces his judgment upon the actual ancient city of Babylon. It is fitting that John uses this imagery in speaking of Jerusalem as Babylon. The “sitting upon many waters” is used by Jeremiah as a symbol depicting the wealth that Babylon had amassed as a result of trade alliances with the other nations. Jerusalem is accused of doing the same thing with the allied nations of Rome, consequently,
she is guilty of immorality with the nations. Her desire was not in the Lord, it was to be like the nations around her. This desire seems to be amplified in the fact that “the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality” with her “and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality
C. The woman sitting on the scarlet beast, 3-6
1. The woman is the harlot, Babylon, Jerusalem.
2. The beast is Rome represented in scarlet. Scarlet may be a representation of the sinful character of the beast. God had used this imagery in the past to describe the sinful conditions of Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah 1:18. It may also be used to depict royalty.
3. The beast was full of blasphemous names. In other words, Rome was full of irreverence and reproach against God and his people.
4. The beast had seven heads and ten horns. This is more fully described in verses 9-14.
5. The woman was beautifully adorned in royal apparel. Ezekiel 16:10-14,
“I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD.”
6. Her cup was full of abominations of unclean things and immorality, Read Ezekiel 16:15-43 and see how God described the harlotry of ancient Israel. There was no difference between the behavior of ancient Israel and Israel of the first century and the fate of both were the same.
7. Her name is “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” She was the source of every type of unclean behavior.
8. She is a murderous woman, a destroyer of the saints. More than that, she had acquired an unrelenting appetite for destroying those whom God had sent to her. Killing the saints and the prophets had become an intoxicating addiction. “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” Jesus makes this same accusation against Jerusalem in Matthew 23:34-38. “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”
