What Old Testament passages parallel the warnings in Revelation 17:2? Revelation 17:2 — The Stark Warning “The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and those who dwell on the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her sexual immorality.” God gives a literal picture of political powers joining spiritual corruption, then spreading that corruption like an intoxicating drink to everyone else. Babylon’s Golden Cup — Jeremiah 51:7 “Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the LORD, making all the earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore they have now gone mad.” • Same imagery of a cup that makes nations drunk. • Babylon’s influence is worldwide, just as the prostitute in Revelation rules over “peoples, multitudes, nations and languages” (v. 15). • The madness that follows mirrors the moral insanity of Revelation 17:2. The Cup of Wrath to the Nations — Jeremiah 25:15-17 “Take from My hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They will drink, stagger, and go out of their minds because of the sword that I will send among them.” • Nations become physically and spiritually disoriented—paralleling end-time judgment. • The picture of forced drinking anticipates the final outpouring of wrath on the followers of end-time Babylon (Revelation 14:8-10). Tyre: A Global Prostitute — Isaiah 23:15-17 “She will return to her hire and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.” • A commercial port city sells herself to “all the kingdoms.” • Like Revelation’s woman, Tyre mixes trade, luxury, and immorality. Nineveh’s Harlot Sorcery — Nahum 3:4-5 “Because of the countless whorings of the prostitute, the alluring mistress of sorcery, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft, ‘I am against you,’ declares the LORD of Hosts.” • Nations enslaved by seductive evil—same theme as Revelation 17. • God’s personal opposition (“I am against you”) foreshadows Babylon’s sudden fall (Revelation 18:8). Jerusalem & Samaria’s Unfaithfulness — Ezekiel 16 and 23 “You multiplied your prostitution with Chaldea…yet even with this you were not satisfied.” (Ezekiel 16:29) “She lavished her harlotries on them, all who were the choice men of Assyria.” (Ezekiel 23:7) • God calls His own city a prostitute when she allies with pagan powers. • The language, though directed at Israel, prefigures how any city or system that mixes worship with political compromise earns the same title in Revelation. Stupefying Wine of Delusion — Isaiah 29:9-10 “Be stunned and amazed; blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink.” • Moral and spiritual drunkenness apart from literal alcohol—exactly what Revelation 17 pictures. • God sends a “spirit of deep sleep” on those who reject truth, leading to deception under end-time Babylon (2 Thessalonians 2:11 ties in). Kings Entangled in Sin — Hosea 7:3-5 & Isaiah 30:1-5 “They delight the king with their evil, the princes with their lies…On the day of our king the princes became inflamed with wine.” (Hosea 7:3-5) “Woe to the rebellious children…who set out to go down to Egypt without consulting Me, to seek shelter in Pharaoh’s protection.” (Isaiah 30:1-5) • Old-Testament monarchs often chose alliances that God called spiritual adultery. • Revelation 17:2 shows this pattern reaching its climax when “the kings of the earth” unite with the great prostitute. Thread That Ties It All Together • A cup, wine, prostitution, and political partnership run through the prophets and culminate in Revelation 17. • Whether Babylon, Tyre, Nineveh, Jerusalem, or the end-time city, God’s verdict is the same: unfaithfulness invites judgment. • Revelation gathers every earlier warning into one final, literal spotlight—urging believers to stay pure and separate from a corrupt world system before God’s wrath is poured out. |
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