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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 17:2, the kings of the earth committed immorality with her
The kings' immorality with Babylon borrows Isaiah's picture of Tyre, the trading city that sold herself to every kingdom on earth.
Revelation 17:2; Revelation 18:3, in every translation this tool compares.
Calling a business deal a love affair says something about who is seducing whom. Isaiah said that Tyre, the great trading port, would return to her trade and play the harlot with every kingdom on earth. Nahum called Nineveh a harlot who sold nations. John says the world's kings slept with Babylon. Beale reads the sin as trade and idol worship bound together, for the sake of wealth.
A city that sells itself to all the kingdoms of the earth. The Hebrew of Isaiah 23:17 says Tyre will play the harlot (zanetah) with all the kingdoms of the earth. Revelation 17:2 and 18:3 say the kings of the earth committed fornication (eporneusan) with Babylon. Nahum 3:4 in Greek calls Nineveh a harlot (porne) who sells nations.
Isaiah speaks of Tyre, a port, not Babylon. John moves the picture to Babylon, and makes the kings the ones who commit the act. The Greek translation of Isaiah 23:17 drops the harlot and says Tyre will be a market for all the kingdoms. Beale notes that John's next words, the merchants grew rich (18:3), fit that Greek reading. John keeps both senses.
Beale says the sin is about trade and religion at once. To deal with Babylon meant to honor her gods. Heiser stresses that the prostitute is the one who seduces. He reads her as an empire that draws nations into idol worship, as Nineveh and Tyre did, and that was Rome in John's day.
Not about sex. Beale and Heiser read the word as the Old Testament's picture of idol worship and crooked trade.
Beale says the economic sense of fornication is confirmed by an allusion to Isaiah 23:17b, where Tyre plays the harlot with all the kingdoms of the earth. Among the harlot pictures of the Old Testament, most of which describe Israel, this one is closest in wording to Revelation. The Greek translation renders it as Tyre being a market (emporion), which fits the merchants of 18:3. He adds Isaiah 23:15-18 and Nahum 3:4: Tyre and Nineveh are harlots because they dominate nations by trade and lead them into idolatry, and Tyre's wages will one day be set apart to the Lord (23:18). Revelation 18 draws repeatedly on Ezekiel 26-28 about Tyre and alludes to Isaiah 23:8 in 18:23. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible names Nineveh (Nahum 3:4) and Tyre (Isaiah 23:17) as the two prostitutes of the Old Testament who are not Israel. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references list Isaiah 23:16-17 and Nahum 3:4. The Hebrew of Isaiah 23:17 reads vezanetah et kol mamlekhot haarets, she will play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the earth. The grade is drawn here: Beale says allusion, and the wording is close to the Hebrew.
Heiser reads Keener's application commentary on Revelation: in two Old Testament cases the prostitute is a world empire, not Israel. Nineveh seduces nations with harlotry and witchcraft (Nahum 3:4), and Tyre plays the harlot with all the kingdoms (Isaiah 23:17). He adds Ezekiel 28, where Tyre's gems and wealth draw nations under its sway. Beale and McDonough, he notes, say the harlot idea is an illicit relationship, religious, economic or political.
Keener lists the Old Testament uses of harlot for God's people and then for mercantile or military centers like Tyre and Nineveh, citing a passage on Tyre in Isaiah. Beale gives Isaiah 23 the closest wording. Some commentators, Beale reports, limit the harlot to the apostate church or to apostate Israel; Beale includes the pagan world and those who cooperate with it. MacArthur reads the immorality as idolatry and the harlot as a false religious system that wins over the world's rulers and its peoples, and keeps the commercial side for chapter 18.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:2, 17:16 and 18:3
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 17:1-5
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 17:1-5
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 17:2
- Septuagint, Isaiah 23:17 and Nahum 3:4, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- Hebrew text of Isaiah 23:17, Miqra according to the Masorah (Sefaria)
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:2 and 18:3
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 17-18: The Fall of Babylon the Great, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 17:2 and 18:3
