Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Revelation 17:7-18, seven hills and seven kings
The angel explains the woman and the beast: the beast once was, now is not and will come up from the Abyss; its seven heads are seven hills and also seven kings, five fallen, one living and one still to come, and the beast is an eighth who belongs to the seven. Its ten horns are ten kings who will make war on the Lamb, and in the end the beast and the horns turn on the woman, the great city that rules the kings of the earth, and burn her.
Revelation 17:7-18, in every translation this tool compares.
The angel decodes the vision of the woman and the beast she rides. The beast is a power that existed, vanished and will return from the Abyss only to be destroyed; its heads stand both for the hills of the woman's city and for a line of kings, with the beast itself as a final eighth ruler, and its horns are allied kings who will fight the Lamb and lose. In the end the beast and its allies turn on the woman, the city that dominates the world's rulers, and destroy her. How to count the kings, and whether the eighth recalls Nero, are debated.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/daniels-four-kingdoms\/","n":"Daniel's four beasts and the fourth kingdom","s":"Daniel 7 pictured four empires as four beasts rising from the sea, the last with ten horns, judged before one like a son of man receives the kingdom. In the first century many Jews read the fourth beast as Rome.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/antichrist\/","n":"Antichrist and the lawless one","s":"Daniel's king who exalts himself above every god and defiles the sanctuary became a pattern Jews saw again in Antiochus, Pompey and Caligula. Paul's man of lawlessness, who sets himself up in God's temple claiming to be God, belongs to that line.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-parthians\/","n":"The Parthians beyond the Euphrates","s":"The empire east of the Euphrates, Rome's most feared enemy, famous for mounted archers who could shoot backward as they rode. Its armies had destroyed a Roman army and once marched into Judea to put their own man on the throne.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/rome-in-charge\/","n":"Rome in charge","s":"Rome ruled through client princes, local elites and governors. It kept the power to execute, and its soldiers, coins and taxes were everywhere.","r":""}
Rome was famous as the city on seven hills (Keener; Wright; the study Bibles), and Carson, Moo and Morris call the allusion "unmistakably a reference to Rome"; Heiser agrees. Beale reads the mountains first as kingdoms, and the CSB Study Bible warns against being dogmatic. An eighth king who is one of the seven fits the rumor that Nero would return, perhaps with Parthian armies (Keener; Wright and Bird); the cultural backgrounds article A New Nero says John need not have expected Nero literally, and Carson, Moo and Morris think the legend not very close to the beast. Counting from Augustus makes Galba the sixth and the date 68-69 (Carson, Moo and Morris, who still prefer Domitian); others start from Julius Caesar or Caligula, or skip the three brief emperors, and "None of these questions can be answered certainly." Beale reads the seven as world government in every age. The ten horns are probably Rome's client kings (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener); Heiser reads Daniel's horn-kings, their one hour echoing Nebuchadnezzar's time as a beast in Greek Daniel 4. Rome ruled the peoples around the sea "because it is a maritime power" (the cultural backgrounds article Babylon and Rome).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 17:7-8, 17:9, 17:10-11, 17:12, 17:14, 17:15-16 and 17:18
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 17:8, 17:9, 17:11, 17:12, 17:14, 17:16 and 17:18
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, on Revelation 17:9-10, and Introduction, The Seven Kings
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 17:9-18
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 34, Origins of the book of Revelation, Date and provenance and Table 34.1, and The Story of the Book of Revelation, section 10
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Revelation 17:9-11
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Revelation 17:9-10 and 17:11
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, chapter on Revelation, Date (The existence of a Nero myth; Revelation 17:9-11)
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, articles A New Nero and Babylon and Rome
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 17-18: The Fall of Babylon the Great, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
