18:1—19:10 As the ancient Greek chorus interpreted actions in a drama, so a succession of speakers explains the significance of the prostitute’s desolation as she is deserted by the beast that once supported her and the kings who once adored her.
18:12-13 The list of cargo for which no market will remain after Babylon’s fall resembles the goods transported by the Phoenician merchants of ancient Tyre, which arrogantly boasted of its beauty (Ezekiel 27). As Revelation’s beast incorporates every expression of corrupt government…, so its prostitute includes every corrupt economic system. Even human souls are reduced to cargo, traded as slaves to drive the engines of production and prosperity.
18:21 As Jeremiah cast a stone and scroll into the Euphrates to show that ancient Babylon would “sink, to rise no more” (Jer. 51:63-64), so a mighty angel threw a great millstone into the sea to illustrate Babylon’s fall, to be found no more (see also Ezek. 26:21).
18:22-23 The pleasant sights and sounds of everyday life—music, labor, food preparation, lamplight, marital love—will be seen and heard no more in Babylon (cf. Jer. 7:34; 25:10).Ordinary cultural activities and artifacts, though proper in themselves, become unsustainable when human civilization, having defied the Creator, receives his judgment. Babylon’s sorcery (Rev. 21:8) has deceived…all nations, as the false prophet’s signs tricked earth dwellers, small and great, into worshiping the beast (13:13-16; 17:8).
Taken from the ESV Study Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2008 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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