What Old Testament prophecies connect with the imagery in Revelation 17:9? Setting the Scene in Revelation 17:9 • “Here is the mind having wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” (Revelation 17:9) • The Holy Spirit invites readers to trace well–known prophetic symbols—“mountains,” “kings,” and the brazen “woman”—back through the Old Testament. Mountains as Kingdoms in the Prophets • Daniel 2:35—“the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” • Daniel 2:44—God sets up an unshakable kingdom “in the days of those kings.” • Jeremiah 51:25—Babylon called a “destroying mountain … I will … make you a burnt mountain.” • Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1—Zion foretold as “the mountain of the LORD’s house,” contrasting the counterfeit mountain–kingdoms. ➔ In OT prophecy a “mountain” repeatedly stands for a political realm or empire; John’s vision simply continues that vocabulary. Daniel’s Successive Empires and the Seven Heads • Daniel 7:3-8, 23-24—four beasts, ten horns; “the ten horns are ten kings.” • Daniel 8:21-22—Greece seen as a multi-horned power that fragments into several kingdoms. ➔ Revelation’s seven heads/two sets of kings echo Daniel’s schema of successive Gentile empires, showing continuity from Babylon through the final antichrist system. Babylon’s Harlotry Foretold • Isaiah 47:1-8—Babylon pictured as a proud woman who will be stripped and judged. • Jeremiah 51:13—“You who dwell by many waters, rich in treasures”—language John repeats in Revelation 17:1. • Nahum 3:4; Ezekiel 16 & 23—cities likened to harlots whose alliances with nations provoke divine wrath. ➔ John’s scarlet woman merges all those prophetic portraits into a final, global “Babylon.” Zechariah’s Woman in the Basket • Zechariah 5:7-11—wickedness personified as a woman sealed in an ephah, borne to “the land of Shinar” (Babylon) to build a temple for her. ➔ The prophetic idea of institutionalized wickedness centered in Babylon resurfaces in Revelation 17’s woman enthroned on seven mountains. Echoes of the Tower of Babel • Genesis 11:4-9—humanity’s first united rebellion under Nimrod in “Shinar.” • Habakkuk 2:12—“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed.” ➔ The final Babylon repeats that ancient impulse: self-exalting world unity opposed to God. Wisdom for the Last Days • Daniel 12:10—“the wise will understand.” • Revelation 17:9 opens with the same call. What Daniel sealed, John unveils: the end-time empire, drawn from the prophetic mountain-imagery, will look like Babylon of old, will act like the beasts of Daniel, and will be judged exactly as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah foretold. |
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