Revelation 18:14

These verses follow straight on from the angel’s cry that Babylon is fallen, the call to God’s people to “come out of her”, and the sentence that she will be utterly burned with fire (Revelation 18:1–8). The kings speak in verses 9 and 10, the merchants in verses 11 to 17, and the seafarers in verses 17 to 19. All three stand “afar off”, all three cry “Alas”, and all three marvel at how fast it happened. The prophets had mourned proud trading cities in the same way, and these laments draw above all on Ezekiel’s prophecy against Tyre, the great merchant city, whose traders and mariners mourn her fall (Ezekiel 26–27).

Every one of these mourners weeps over what they themselves have lost. The kings have lost their partner in power and pleasure, the merchants their buyer, and the seafarers their trade. They stand far off because they fear her torment for themselves, and they keep that distance even while they mourn. In all their words there is no confession of sin and no pity for anyone Babylon crushed.

Paul sets two kinds of sorrow side by side: “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). The grief of the kings and merchants is the sorrow of the world. It mourns the loss of the goods and stays bound to the love that gathered them.

Heaven answers in another voice. Right after these laments, heaven and the apostles and prophets are called to rejoice over her (Revelation 18:20). A great multitude then praises God because his judgments are true and righteous, and because the smoke of Babylon rises up for ever (Revelation 19:1–3), and that praise leads on to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7–9). God’s people stand with the rejoicing, because he had called them out of her beforehand: “Come out of her, my people” (Revelation 18:4).

Revelation 17–18 shows Babylon first as a harlot riding a beast and then as a vast trading city. The harlot is arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold, precious stones and pearls (Revelation 17:4), and she is drunk with the blood of the saints (Revelation 17:6). She is “that great city” (Revelation 17:18), and her fall was announced earlier in the book (Revelation 14:8) and again at the start of this chapter (Revelation 18:2).

Her name and the picture of her fall come from the prophets’ words against ancient Babylon, which oppressed Israel (Isaiah 13–14, Jeremiah 50–51), and against Tyre, the great merchant city (Isaiah 23). In John’s day the world power that gathered this wealth, worshipped idols and persecuted Christians was Rome, and his first readers would have heard Rome’s trade routes and luxuries in these verses.

Believers differ on what Babylon is beyond that. On one reading she stands for the whole world system that sets itself against God, spiritual, political and economic at once. That system took the form of Rome in John’s time and takes other forms in every age, and her fall is God’s judgment on all of it at the end. On another reading she is also a real city still to come, which God will destroy as these verses describe. On either reading, God brings down every power that grows rich and proud in rebellion against him, and the laments teach the same thing.

“In one hour” closes each group’s cry: “in one hour is thy judgment come” (verse 10), “in one hour so great riches is come to nought” (verse 17), and “in one hour is she made desolate” (verse 19). The word hṓra is an hour, which in that time was a twelfth part of the day or of the night, so its length changed with the seasons. “One hour” speaks of a very short time. Wealth that took long years to gather, in a city that looked as if it would stand for ever, is undone almost at once, too fast for anyone to escape or to save anything.

The prophets spoke of Babylon in the same way: “Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed” (Jeremiah 51:8). Isaiah said, “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isaiah 13:19–22). Peter says that “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (2 Peter 3:10). God’s judgment, when it comes, is sudden and decisive, and every power of this world gives way before it.

The kings in verse 9 and the seafarers in verse 18 both look at “the smoke of her burning”. Smoke rising over a ruined place is a biblical picture of complete and final judgment. The smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah went up after God overthrew them (Genesis 19:28). Isaiah said the smoke of Edom’s burning would go up for ever (Isaiah 34:10), and Jeremiah ended his words against Babylon with her sinking, never to rise (Jeremiah 51:64). The mourners in these verses are looking at the proof that her judgment is final.

The merchants’ list in verses 12 and 13 sets out what Babylon bought, joining item after item with “and” (kai), so that the goods pile up in front of us. It moves from the most precious things, through everyday food, to people.

It begins with gold, silver, precious stones and pearls, the most concentrated forms of wealth. Then come the costly cloths. Fine linen is býssos, a word of Hebrew origin for white linen, an expensive fabric worn by the wealthy. Purple and scarlet were dyes of great cost, and silk was a rare import from the East. “All thyine wood” is xýlon (wood) that is thýïnos, a fragrant and lasting wood, probably from the African cypress, prized for fine furniture. Vessels of ivory and of “most precious wood” were costly craftsmanship, and brass, iron and marble served for tools, building and sculpture. “All manner” translates pâs, “all”, and it shows that every kind of valuable thing found its way to her.

Verse 13 adds the fragrances: cinnamon for perfume and medicine, “odours”, which is incense, “ointments”, which are perfumed oils, and frankincense, used in perfume and in worship, including the worship of idols. Then come the foods: wine, oil, fine flour and wheat. The oil is élaion, olive oil, used for cooking, lamps, anointing and medicine. Babylon’s trade reached the bread on people’s tables as well as their luxuries. “Beasts” (farm animals) and sheep follow, and then horses and chariots, which meant speed and rank.

Verse 14 speaks to Babylon herself: “And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee”. The word for fruits is opṓra, late summer, and from that the ripe fruit of the season. “Lusted after” is epithymía, desire or longing, especially for what is forbidden. The word takes its bad sense from what is desired, since the verb behind it means to long for something, rightly or wrongly. Here what she craved is the luxury of the merchants’ list, and her desire is greed.

“All things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee” widens the loss. Dainty is liparós, from a word for fat, meaning rich and sumptuous, used of fine food and lavish living. Goodly is lamprós, bright or radiant, from the same root as lampas, a lamp, and it describes splendour that catches the eye. “Are departed from thee” comes twice, and the verse ends, “thou shalt find them no more at all”. There the Greek puts two words for “not” together, ou mḗ, which makes the denial emphatic: “not at all”, “never”. Her boast of security earlier in the chapter (Revelation 18:7) ends here, and the rest of the chapter seals her end for good (Revelation 18:21).

Scripture says the same of riches everywhere: “Riches profit not in the day of wrath” (Proverbs 11:4). Jesus told of the rich fool who stored up goods for many years and lost his life that night (Luke 12:16–21), and John writes that “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15–17).

The merchants remember Babylon as a woman richly dressed: “clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls”. “Clothed” is peribállō, to throw around, so to wrap someone in clothing. The fine linen here is býssinos, made of fine linen. Purple, porphyroûs, came from a dye made from murex snails, so hard to produce that purple garments were worn by kings and the very rich. Scarlet, kókkinos, was another costly dye. “Decked” is chrysóō, to gild or adorn with gold, from chrysós, gold. The precious stones are tímios líthos and the pearls are margarítēs.

These are the very goods of verse 12, worn on her body, and they are the dress of the harlot in Revelation 17:4. The trading city and the harlot are one figure, wealth and unfaithfulness to God bound together. Fine linen clothes the saints later in Revelation as well, so the same cloth that Babylon wore for show becomes the clothing of God’s people. And the city God prepares for them is adorned with a glory far beyond anything in Babylon’s warehouses (Revelation 21:18–21).

The passage condemns the spirit of Babylon: wealth loved for its own sake, gained by injustice and exploitation, and trusted in place of God. Scripture tells of righteous men who were wealthy, such as Abraham and Job, and they held their riches in God’s service. The judgment here falls on a system that has made gain its god, fostered injustice and drawn people away from him.

The warnings that run alongside this passage all aim at the heart that trusts in riches. James warns the rich whose wealth is corrupted and whose gold and silver are cankered, because they lived in pleasure and kept back the wages of their workers (James 5:1–6). Jesus says, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19–21), and “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Paul tells the rich to put their trust in the living God and to give up trusting “in uncertain riches” (1 Timothy 6:17). Proverbs says that “riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven” (Proverbs 23:5), and the psalmist says that when a rich man dies “he shall carry nothing away” (Psalm 49:16–17).

The fall of Babylon makes way for the kingdom of Christ. In Daniel 2 Nebuchadnezzar’s dream ends with a kingdom that God himself sets up. Daniel says that kingdom “shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44), and Hebrews calls it “a kingdom which cannot be moved” (Hebrews 12:28). Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and at the seventh trumpet heaven proclaims that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15).

The kings lived deliciously with Babylon. Christ, the true King, “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), and “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). On the cross he triumphed over the powers that drive systems like Babylon (Colossians 2:15). The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), and the judgment that falls on Babylon looks ahead to the day he rides out as the faithful Judge, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:11–16). Revelation 19 moves from heaven’s praise over Babylon to that coming, and at his name every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:10–11).

The riches of Christ last where Babylon’s are gone in an hour. Paul calls them “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8) and says that in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). Babylon’s merchants sold pearls by the cargo, while the merchant in Jesus’ parable sold all he had for one pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45–46). God’s people are kept for an inheritance that fades not away (1 Peter 1:4), bought by the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), whom heaven praises as worthy (Revelation 5:12–13). Revelation 21 shows where this ends: a new heaven and a new earth, the holy city coming down from God, and God dwelling with his people and wiping away every tear (Revelation 21:1–4).

These verses let us hear the world’s grief over its own wealth, and they show who God is. He sees every cargo and every soul sold in Babylon’s markets, and he judges them in his time. His word against the proud city comes true to the letter, and the hour he chooses is enough to end what took ages to build. He calls his people out of her before her plagues fall, and he turns heaven’s sorrow over her sins into praise.

The lament also shows what is left to a heart tied to riches when the riches go: fear, distance, and tears for lost trade. Jesus’ word stands beside it, that our treasure is safest laid up in heaven (Matthew 6:19–21), and the Lord who gives that treasure is the same Lord who judges Babylon. Seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33) and setting our affection on things above, where Christ sits (Colossians 3:1–2), are what this passage leaves before us, together with the promise that his kingdom will still stand when the smoke of every Babylon has cleared.