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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 18:3, the merchants of the earth grew rich
The merchants who grew rich from Babylon's luxury come from Ezekiel's lament over Tyre, whose trade enriched the kings of the earth.
Revelation 18:3, in every translation this tool compares.
A shopping mall that closes takes a whole town's jobs with it. Ezekiel described Tyre as a great trading city. Her wealth made the world's kings rich, and her merchants came from every land. John says the world's traders made their fortunes from Babylon's vast wealth. From here on, chapter 18 keeps returning to Ezekiel's songs about Tyre.
Merchants and kings made rich by a trading city. The Greek of Ezekiel 27:33 says Tyre enriched (eploutisas) all the kings of the earth. Ezekiel 27:12 speaks of merchants (emporoi) trading with Tyre because of her great strength. Revelation 18:3 says the merchants of the earth (emporoi) grew rich (eploutesan) from the power of her luxury.
Ezekiel praises Tyre's trade in a funeral song; John speaks of Babylon. In Ezekiel the kings are enriched; in John the merchants grow rich and the kings commit immorality with her. John adds luxury (strenos), a word for wealth that breeds arrogance, Beale says. Isaiah's Greek of 23:17, where Tyre becomes a market, may also stand behind the merchants.
Beale says the verse gives the cause of Babylon's judgment: she drew nations and rulers into idolatry through the promise of economic security. Heiser reads the merchants as those who use wealth to enslave others. The trade that made them rich will be the reason they mourn.
Not a condemnation of all trade. Beale says the sin is idolatrous trust in wealth and the security it brings, not owning wealth as such.
Beale says John's merchants, grown rich from her wealth and power, recall Ezekiel 27:12, where merchants traded with Tyre because of her great power, and Ezekiel 27:33, where Tyre made the world's kings rich. He counts it the first of many uses of Ezekiel 26-28 in the chapter. He adds that the Greek of Isaiah 23:17, which makes Tyre a market for all the kingdoms, is even closer to the merchants of 18:3. He reads luxury (strenos) as wealth, given the link with power and with becoming rich, and possibly arrogance. Rome's peace, he says, mainly secured prosperity for the elite who benefited from the system. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible says the merchants growing rich recalls the lament over Tyre (Ezekiel 27:12, 27). The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible ties the verse to Jeremiah 51:7-8 and notes that Rome's propaganda claimed to bring good to many peoples. The CSB Study Bible's cross-references cite Ezekiel 16:29. The grade is drawn here: the pairing of merchants and enrichment is Ezekiel's.
Heiser reads 18:3 as the point where the merchants enter: those who use wealth to victimize and enslave others. He ties the chapter's economic picture to Psalm 82, where God judges the gods for abusing the weak. When a system of power owns you through what you can buy or eat, he says, you are trapped, and behind the human power brokers stands a darker intelligence.
Beale reads the merchants against Rome's peace, which mainly made the elite rich, and treats the Babylon of chapters 17 and 18 as one. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible recalls Rome's claim to bring good to many peoples. MacArthur separates the two: religious Babylon in chapter 17 draws the nations into false worship, and commercial Babylon in chapter 18 lulls the world into a love of goods, with rulers and business leaders swept into its trade.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 18:3 and 18:9
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 18:3
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 18:3
- CSB Study Bible, cross-references at Revelation 18:3
- Septuagint, Ezekiel 27:12, 27:33 and Isaiah 23:17, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 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 18:3
