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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 17:4-5, dressed in scarlet, a name on her forehead
The woman's scarlet dress, gold and forehead name draw on Jeremiah's portrait of faithless Judah as a harlot.
Revelation 17:4-5, in every translation this tool compares.
A costume borrowed from a famous play tells the audience which character to watch. Jeremiah pictured faithless Judah as a harlot with a harlot's forehead, dressed in scarlet and decked with gold to win lovers who would turn on her. John's woman wears purple and scarlet, gold, jewels and pearls, and a name on her forehead. He borrows the costume, though Heiser and Beale stress that this woman seduces others.
Scarlet, gold, and a harlot's forehead. The Greek of Jeremiah 4:30 says if you put on scarlet (kokkinon) and adorn yourself with gold. Revelation 17:4 has the woman clothed in scarlet (kokkinon) and gilded with gold. Jeremiah 3:3 speaks of the look of a harlot, a harlot's forehead in the Hebrew; Revelation 17:5 has a name written on her forehead.
Jeremiah speaks of Judah, God's own people gone astray; John speaks of Babylon. John adds purple, precious stones and pearls, the goods of trade listed in 18:12, and a golden cup. Jeremiah's harlot dresses up in vain because her lovers seek her life; John's is powerful and rides the beast. Her forehead bears a written name: Babylon the Great, mother of harlots.
Beale says the costume shows a seducer whose wealth and charm hide her bloodstained character. Behind the royal red lies the red of persecution (17:6). Heiser draws a line: Israel in the prophets is the one seduced; this woman is the one who seduces.
Not Jeremiah's harlot unchanged. Jeremiah's woman is Judah, dressed up in vain for lovers who want her dead. John borrows the costume for a woman who rules and seduces.
Beale says the expensive clothing reflects the way harlots try to seduce (Jeremiah 4:30: dressed in scarlet, decked with gold), and that perhaps not by accident Jeremiah's harlot also has a scarlet dress and blood on her skirts (2:34). In his comments on 17:16 he says the whole portrait draws on Jeremiah 2:20-4:30: a harlot (2:20) with a harlot's forehead (3:3), causing others to sin, dressed in scarlet and gold, whose lovers despise her (4:30). He also notes that the Greek Old Testament describes the high priest's clothing with the same five words, gold, purple, scarlet, linen and stones, in deliberate contrast with the bride of chapter 21. Keener cites Jeremiah 4:30 for the scarlet and Jeremiah 3:3 for the harlot's forehead. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible cites Jeremiah 4:30 and 3:3. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references add Ezekiel 28:13. The grade is drawn here: the colors and the forehead together point to Jeremiah 2-4.
Heiser rejects the view that Babylon is Jerusalem, calling it "an unfortunate anti-semitic trajectory". He reads Beale and McDonough on Jeremiah 2-4, where Judah is a harlot with a harlot's forehead, scarlet dress and gold. But Israel, he argues, is the one seduced, as in Deuteronomy 32:16-17, not the one who seduces nations. A faithless wife is not the same as a prostitute, and this woman is the engine of chaos.
Ford, as Beale reports, sees the whole portrait drawn from Jeremiah's harlot Judah, and some limit the harlot to apostate Israel or the apostate church. Beale includes those groups only as parts of the world system. Heiser and Keener exclude Jerusalem, since Revelation contrasts the bride, the new Jerusalem, with the prostitute, Babylon. MacArthur reads the woman as Babylon, the world's final system of false religion, grown rich and dressed in fine clothes and jewels to lure the nations.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 17:4 and 17:16
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 17:3 and 17:5
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 17:4 and 17:5
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 17:4
- Septuagint, Jeremiah 4:30 and 3:3, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 17:4-5
- 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 17:3 and 17:4
