Reread Revelation 17 then answer the questions below: Choose one answer from the multiple choices.

1. Who has the name Babylon?
a. The woman
b. The beast
c. One of the heads

2. What are the heads called?
a. Churches
b. mountains
c. Popes

3. Each of the seven heads also has a
a. church
b. king
c. pope

4. The heads also have horns which represent
a. churches
b. kings
c. popes

5. Which of the following is a grievous sin of the harlot Babylon?
a. fornicating with kings (spiritual adultery with kings of the earth)
b. dividing up into many denominations
c. selling purple

6. What is the Relationship between the Harlot Babylon and the seven headed, ten horned beast?
a. The woman reigns over the kings (heads and horns)
b. The woman and the heads/horns/beast are the same
c. The heads/horns/beast reign over the woman

7. How will the beast with its horns finally do to the harlot woman?
a. They are the same so they simply suffer the same fate
b. The harlot destroys the beast
c. The beast first supports the harlot then, using it's horns, destroys her.





Answers:
1. a
Rev. 17:5 And upon her forehead [the harlot woman) was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT

2. b
The seven heads are seven mountains,

3. b
17:10 And there are seven kings:

4. b
17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings

5. a
17:2-4 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication....made drunk with the wine of her fornication....filthiness of her fornication:

6.a
17:18 the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth

7. c
17:7 the beast that carrieth her,
17:16 the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate

I've likely said some of this before but my understanding is evolving:

Rev. 17 is a detailed description of the judgment of the Whore, Babylon. Judgment of the whore starts when the Woman rides a beast with seven heads, five of whom she controls, one, the sixth who exists when her judgment starts but is still independent of her control and a seventh that is formed later and comes under her domination. These seven entities have both a political (kings) and religious (mountains) aspect and depict an incestuous relationship of church and state.

The eighth power is "of the seven"; that is, the eighth is similar to the seven or closely related to them in some way but the whore is never able to control this power. In fact it is this eighth entity God uses to judge the whore. It aligns itself with the 10 kings to unseat the whore, burning her flesh with fire.

The whore is the same as the image of the beast in the second half of Revelation 13. The eighth entity is aligned with the ten horns who were formerly dominated by the Whore entity. These turn on her - possibly European nations and Asian nations. Notice these are not said to be mountains so they are political units - nations rather than religions.

The sixth plague, Rev 16, fills in more of the picture and also Rev 18.

Interesting observations, Mark.


Rev. 17 is a detailed description of the judgment of the Whore, Babylon.

Agreed!

Judgment of the whore starts when the Woman rides a beast with seven heads,

Interesting -- I know that judgment begins when she (again) rides on the beast -- ie, gets control of the political identities -- did judgment begin before that?


five of whom she controls,

Here I have a few questions arise in my mind.
Do you equate "have fallen" as having fallen under her control?
Were they under her control in the past? Or do you think them contemporary (as in all operating at same time)

(have fallen) "pipto" G4098 can mean
--basically to fall down
--descend from a higher place to a lower
--to fall under judgment
--to be prostrated, fall prostrate
--rendering homage or worship
--to fall down as in falling into ruin
--come to an end, disappear, cease
--to lose authority, no longer have force

We've always associated the term in that verse with the latter definitions -- as in a nation "falling" or coming to an end.

I am hesitant to think of these heads as contemporary with each other. The beast seems to have one design, one general dominating scheme at a time with which to deceive the people on earth.
Five fell, using the same word and thought as Rev. 14:8
Babylon is fallen, G4098 is fallen, G4098 that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.


one, the sixth who exists when her judgment starts but is still independent of her control

I tend to agree here --
Seems the whore's judgment began in 1798 and indeed the political element was largely independent of her control but it will/is coming under her control again as she works to regain her power. And when she does she will reap the full judgment on her schemes.


and a seventh that is formed later and comes under her domination.

Yes, the present one will be followed by the last, or seventh one who is to remain for a little while, but is then doomed like the others.

The number seven is a symbolic number. It is actually a symbolic number of holiness! Yet we are told in scripture that it is blasphemous holiness (full of blasphemy) -- in other words a counterfeit and isn't holy at all.


These seven entities have both a political (kings) and religious (mountains) aspect and depict an incestuous relationship of church and state.

Agreed!

Finally the beast himself is an eighth and is out of the seven. This reads as though the beast has to make itself "an eighth" in order to help out when it comes to its last head king, in a final effort to seduce the world and maintain control of the earth.

Re:1798, the mortal wound was struck then but according to the Second Angel, Babylon isn't fallen until she makes all nations drink her impure cup of falsehoods. When she does this, her hour of judgment begins, imo, and this is what's depicted in Rev 17, her hour or time of judgment. We'll see.

On a different but related topic that I noticed on another thread, or was it this one?, anyway, yesterday as I listened to Jame's White's Word to the Little Flock I noticed he said that the bulk of the magician's arts were demonstrated during the plagues - they mimicked many of them - and so JW felt that the final manifestation of Satan and his miracles would likely also be during the plagues.

Just curious --
Have you ever linked the leviathan with the seven headed beast?
A seven headed reptilian monster is not unique to the Bible.


Job 41 talks about him -- here are just a few phrases:

Or Psalms



Other sources indicate:
The description of Leviathan should be compared with the following excerpts from Ugaritic mythological texts:
“Was not the dragon [translated “sea monster” here] vanquished and captured? I did destroy the wriggling serpent, the tyrant with seven heads (compare to Ps 74:14).” (2) “for all that you smote Leviathan the slippery serpent, and made an end of the wriggling serpent, the tyrant with seven heads” (See CTA 5 i 1-3.) Canaanite Myths and Legends, 68.

The big difference is that in the legends it is the pagan gods (in the Canaanite case its Baal later its Mithras) that crushes the seven headed monster.
In the Bible its clear that God is the one who crushes the heads of the serpent.

A clear reversal of the battle between good and evil.


There is a popular line of fiction today which reverses the endtime battle.
Scores of these fiction books have been written. I haven't read them but did read the back cover of several of them and was struck with amazement how they simulated the endtime battle in reverse. The repeating theme presents the dragon or prince of this world as summoninf some talented young people to "save the world" from a mighty prince who is coming from some foreign, other than earth place, to put an end to this world's rule and system. These young people receive some special powers from the "dragon" and start fighting in some way preventing this from happening.




The intense deceptions of Satan are not something to put into the future -- according to Rev. 12, he is the seven headed dragon and is working like a roaring lion to deceive RIGHT NOW. It's been his driving motive in the past and is working with intensity right NOW. He has laced every human institution as well as their entertainment with deadly hooks to draw people out of God's fold, into his realms.

(bold emphasis mine)

No, I haven't. But, it definitely sounds interesting. Leviathan will be part of my future studies.

Also, God has a habit of using symbols from the pagan myths of Bible times in prophecy. I always understood this to be because God could easily hide His meanings even from Satan for the time being. Satan even had a hard time understanding the meanings God must have had for the mythical symbols Satan employed!

Psalms 74:12-14; For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.

Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. (KJV) (bold emphasis mine)

I believe it's better with the rest of the verses. I believe the people in the wilderness to be God's people!

Yes Dedication, imo Behemoth represents Christ manifested in the end-time church in the wilderness (Job 40:15-24) and Leviathan represents Satan as manifested in the final beast of Rev 13 and the beast of chapter 17.

And I agree that Satan is working now. But just as the remnant is not fully manifested until the latter rain and sealing, the final beast is not fully manifested until the counterfeit latter rain and the plagues. The wicked become a manifestation of Leviathan. They are teasing and prodding Leviathan awake but they are going to regret waking him.

Interesting -- I've never seriously looked into the Behemoth and Leviathan creatures before. Just found it interesting that mythology also depicted Leviathan having seven heads and that the pagan gods crushed those heads in the pagan myths, but God crushes them in the Biblical account (Ps. 74:12,14 and Isaiah 27:1)

I guess I took the descriptions of these creatures in the book of Job as literal creatures. Since the whole section is referring to many different animals. (eagle, hawk, ostrich, horse, wild donkeys, peacock, goats, even a unicorn)

Behemoth sounds like a dinosaur. Job was living "Very early in the history of the world" {SD 95.3} and this passage has often been referred to as proof that there was a time when dinosaurs lived with humans.
Job 40:15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
40:16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
40:17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.

So have to think about this Behemoth more -- he seems to be mentioned only in that one place in scripture.

However the Leviathan is referred to in Psalms 74 and Isaiah 27:1 and there it definitely does sound symbolic.

That "Leviathan represents Satan as manifested in the final beast of Rev 13 and the beast of chapter 17" is very possible.




I found this on Wikipedia

Good depiction of what is happening. I agree that as the Great Controversy comes to a close Satan and his agents will be fully and completely exposed. We haven't reached that point yet. They are still wielding a lot of deceptive power and that will increase until they overstep and are fully exposed for what they really are.