Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals:
Tuesday May 12 2026
More Bible Studies Available @ www.marktabata.com. To Receive
Free Bible Studies And Updates Via Email, Contact Mark Tabata @ 606-216-1757 (SMS Only) or markatabata@gmail.com (Email). Follow me on Substack: substack.com/@marktabata. Also please visit my author page: amazon.com/author/marktabata
Revelation 17:5-And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Throughout the Book of Revelation, we read about the great city of Babylon that is opposed to God. While the city of Babylon in the Old Testament is the modern day nation of Iraq, several clues in the Book of Revelation show us that John is using the name “Babylon” to describe all the different enemies of God throughout time. What’s more, these enemies are combined by John under the name “Babylon” to paint us a picture of what the great enemy of God will be like in the Christian Age.
For example, John (in Revelation 18) connects Babylon with the ancient nation of Tyre (Ezekiel 27). While comparing Ezekiel 27:28-36 with Revelation 18:1-2, 9, and 15:19, Gilbert notes:
Chapter 27 of Ezekiel is a lament over the city of Tyre. The great trading city was founded by the Phoenician descendants of Amorites who settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. This lament has a clear parallel in Revelation. It not only cements the connection between the visions of Ezekiel and John, it shows that the iniquity of the Amorites is still with us…Tyre was the most powerful commercial empire in the Mediterranean for centuries. Even after the city’s influence began to fade, its colony in north Africa, Carthage, grew so powerful that its most famous general, Hannibal, nearly destroyed Rome. At the peak of Tyre’s power, in Ezekiel’s day, the prophet linked the strength of Tyre, its ships, to Mount Hermon and Bashan. Senir was the Amorite name for Hermon, the mount of assembly ruled by “the” god of the western Amorites, El. But the Amorites were history by Ezekiel’s day, at least under the name “Amorite.” Their lands were ruled by their descendants, the Arameans, Phoenicians, and Arabs, by the time of King David, about four hundred years before Ezekiel. So, why did the prophet use the archaic name for the mountain? Ezekiel deliberately linked Tyre to the region’s spiritual wickedness in the minds of his readers. Not only was Senir/Hermon the abode of El, where the Rephaim spirits came to feast, it towered over Bashan, the entrance to the netherworld. By calling the mountain Senir instead of Hermon, Ezekiel specifically connected Tyre to the Amorites, whose evil was legendary among Jews.[461] As we noted early in the book, Babylon was founded by Amorites. Descendants of Amorites, the Phoenicians, made Tyre the foremost commercial empire of the ancient world. The link between Tyre and Mystery Babylon is the lament over its destruction…Now, compare that section of Ezekiel’s lament over Tyre to John’s prophecy of the destruction of Babylon the Great in Revelation 18.…The parallels here have been noted by Bible scholars for generations. What I propose is that this connection points to the spiritual source of this global end-times religion—the gods of the Amorites, who joined forces as the directors of Allah, Inc.”. (Derek Gilbert, Bad Moon Rising: Islam, Armageddon, and the Most Diabolical Double-Cross in History, 279-283 (Kindle Edition): Crane, MO: Defender Publishing)
Sometimes, Babylon had reference to the nation of Rome in Revelation. Long before the time of Christ, the nation of Rome was recognized and figuratively identified by the Jewish people as “Babylon.”
HERE the doom of Rome is prophesied. Throughout Revelation, Rome is described as Babylon, a description which was common between the Testaments. The writer of 2 Baruch begins his pronouncement against Rome: ‘I, Baruch, say this against you, Babylon’ (2 Baruch 11:1). When the Sibylline Oracles describe the imagined flight of Nero from Rome, they say: ‘Then shall ffrom Babylon a king shameless and fearless, whom all mortals and the noble men loathe’ (Sibylline Oracles 5:143). In the ancient days, to the prophets, Babylon had been the very incarnation of power and lust and luxury and sin; and, to the early Jewish Christians, Babylon seemed to have been reborn in the lust and luxury and immorality of Rome….Babylon is said to have made all the nations drink the wine of the wrath of her fornication. In this phrase, two Old Testament ideas have been fused into one. In Jeremiah 51:7, it is said of Babylon: ‘Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine, and so the nations went mad.’ The idea is that Babylon had been a corrupting force which had lured the nations into a kind of insane immorality. The background is the picture of a prostitute persuading a man into immorality by filling him full of wine, so that he could no longer resist her seductive charms. Rome has been like that, like some glittering prostitute seducing the world.” (William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible: The Revelation Of John, Volume Two, 125-126 (Kindle Edition); Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press)
Again, notice what John writes later about “Babylon.”
“Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” (Revelation 17:9)
Gentry points out about this passage and it’s connection with Rome:
Perhaps no point is more obvious in Revelation than this: Rome is here symbolized by the seven mountains. After all, Rome is the one city in history universally recognized for its seven hills: the Palatine, Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, and Capitoline hills. The Roman writers Suetonius and Plutarch refer to the first century festival in Rome called Septimontium, i.e., the feast of “the seven hilled city.” The Coin of Vespasian (emperor A.D. 69–79) pictures the goddess Roma as a woman sitting on seven hills. Ancient pagan writers often mention the famed seven hills of Rome, writers such as Ovid, Claudian, Statius, Pliny, Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Martial, and Cicero, as well as by Christian writers, such as Tertullian and Jerome. Indeed, “there is scarce a poet that speaks of Rome but observes it. (Kenneth Gentry, Jr.,, Navigating The Book Of Revelation: Special Studies On Important Issues, 499-507 (Kindle Edition); Fountain Inn, South Carolina; GoodBirth Ministries)
John used all of this to paint a picture for us of the enemies of God.
Reading through Ezekiel 27 and Revelation 18, what are some specific details of God’s enemies in “Babylon” that stand out to you? Can you think of any modern day parallels?
Father, grant us wisdom as we study Your Word. Amen.