5 For her sins have [550]reached unto heaven, and God hath [551]remembered her iniquities.
5. For her sins have reached unto heaven. So in Je. li. 9, speaking of Babylon, it is said, “For her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.” The meaning is not that the sins of this mystical Babylon were like a mass or pile so high as to reach to heaven, but that it had become so prominent as to attract the attention of God. Comp. Ge. iv. 10, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” See also Ge. xviii. 20. ¶ And God hath remembered her iniquities. He had seemed to forget them, or not to notice them, but now he acted as if they had come to his recollection. See Notes on [ch. xvi. 19].
6 Reward[552]her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double.
6. Reward her even as she rewarded you. It is not said to whom this command is addressed, but it would seem to be to those who had been persecuted and wronged. Applied to mystical Babylon—Papal Rome—it would seem to be a call on the nations that had been so long under her sway, and among whom, from time to time, so much blood had been shed by her, to arise now in their might, and to inflict deserved vengeance. See Notes on [ch. xvii. 16, 17]. ¶ And double unto her double according to her works. That is, bring upon her double the amount of calamity which she has brought upon others; take ample vengeance upon her. Comp. for similar language, Is. xl. 2, “She hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” “For your shame ye shall have double,” Is. lxi. 7. ¶ In the cup which she hath filled. To bring wrath on others. Notes, [ch. xiv. 8]. ¶ Fill to her double. Let her drink abundantly of the wine of the wrath of God—double that which she has dealt out to others. That is, either let the quantity administered to her be doubled, or let the ingredients in the cup be doubled in intensity.
7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, [553]I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
7. How much she hath glorified herself. Been proud, boastful, arrogant. This was true of ancient Babylon, that she was proud and haughty; and it has been no less true of mystical Babylon—Papal Rome. ¶ And lived deliciously. By as much as she has lived in luxury and dissoluteness, so let her suffer now. The word used here and rendered lived deliciously—ἐστρηνίασε—is derived from the noun—στρῆνος—which is used in ver. 3, and rendered delicacies. See Notes on that verse. It means properly, “to live strenuously, rudely,” as in English, “to live hard;” and then to revel, to live in luxury, riot, dissoluteness. No one can doubt the propriety of this as descriptive of ancient Babylon, and as little can its propriety be doubted as applied to Papal Rome. ¶ So much torment and sorrow give her. Let her punishment correspond with her sins. This is expressing substantially the same idea which occurs in the previous verse. ¶ For she saith in her heart. This is the estimate which she forms of herself. ¶ I sit a queen. Indicative of pride, and of an asserted claim to rule. ¶ And am no widow. Am not in the condition of a widow—a state of depression, sorrow, and mourning. All this indicates security and self-confidence, a description in every way applicable to Papal Rome. ¶ And shall see no sorrow. This is indicative of a state where there was nothing feared, not withstanding all the indications which existed of approaching calamity. Inthis state we may expect to find Papal Rome, even when its last judgments are about to come upon it; in this state it has usually been; in this state it is now, notwithstanding all the indications that are abroad in the world that its power is waning, and that the period of its fall approaches.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly [554]burned with fire: for [555]strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
8. Therefore. In consequence of her pride, arrogance, and luxury, and of the calamities that she has brought upon others. ¶ Shall her plagues come in one day. They shall come in a time when she is living in ease and security; and they shall come at the same time—so that all these terrible judgments shall seem to be poured upon her at once. ¶ Death. This expression, and those which follow, are designed to denote the same thing under different images. The general meaning is, that there would be utter and final destruction. It would be as if death should come and cut off the inhabitants. ¶ And mourning. As there would be where many were cut off by death. ¶ And famine. As if famine raged within the walls of a besieged city, or spread over a land. ¶ And she shall be utterly burned with fire. As completely destroyed as if she were entirely burned up. The certain and complete destruction of that formidable Antichristian power is predicted under a great variety of emphatic images. See ch. xiv. 10, 11; xvi. 17–21; xvii. 9, 16. Perhaps in this so frequent reference to a final destruction of that formidable Antichristian power by fire, there may be more intended than merely a figurative representation of its final ruin. There is some degree of probability, at least, that Rome itself will be literally destroyed in this manner, and that it is in this way that God intends to put an end to the Papal power, by destroying that which has been so long the seat and the centre of this authority. The extended prevalence of this belief, and the grounds for it, may be seen from the following remarks:—(1) It was an early opinion among the Jewish rabbies that Rome would be thus destroyed. Vitringa, on the Apocalypse, cites some opinions of this kind; the Jewish expectation being founded, as he says, on the passage in Is. xxxiv. 9, as Edom was supposed to mean Rome. “This chapter,” says Kimchi, “points out the future destruction of Rome, here called Bozra, for Bozra was a great city of the Edomites.” This is, indeed, worthless as a proof or an interpretation of Scripture, for it is a wholly unfounded interpretation; it is of value only as showing that somehow the Jews entertained this opinion. (2) The same expectation was entertained among the early Christians. Thus Mr. Gibbon (vol. i. p. 263, ch. xv.), referring to the expectations of the glorious reign of the Messiah on the earth (comp. Notes on [ch. xiv. 8]), says, speaking of Rome as the mystic Babylon, and of its anticipated destruction: “A regular series was prepared [in the minds of Christians] of all the moral and physical evils which can afflict a flourishing nation; intestine discord, and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from the unknown regions of the north; pestilence and famine, comets and eclipses, earthquakes and inundations. All these were only so many preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of Rome, when the country of the Scipios and Cæsars should be consumed by a flame from heaven, and the city of the seven hills, with her palaces, her temples, and her triumphal arches, should be buried in a vast lake of fire and brimstone.” So even Gregory the Great, one of the most illustrious of the Roman pontiffs, himself says, acknowledging his belief in the truth of the tradition: Roma à Gentilibus non exterminabitur; sed tempestatibus, coruscis turbinibus, ac terræ motu, in se marcescet (Dial. ii. 15). (3) Whatever may be thought of these opinions and expectations, there is some foundation for the opinion in the nature of the case. (a) The region is adapted to this. “It is not Ætna, the Lipari volcanic islands, Vesuvius, that alone offer visible indications of the physical adaptedness of Italy for such a catastrophe. The great Apennine mountain-chain is mainly volcanic in its character, and the country of Rome more especially is as strikingly so almost as that of Sodom itself.” Thus the mineralogist Ferber, in his Tour in Italy, says: “The road from Rome to Ostia is all volcanic ashes till within two miles of Ostia.” “From Rome to Tivoli I went on fields and hills of volcanicashes or tufa.” “A volcanic hill in an amphitheatrical form includes a part of the plain over Albano, and a flat country of volcanic ashes and hills to Rome. The ground about Rome is generally of that nature,” pp. 189, 191, 200, 234. (b) Mr. Gibbon, with his usual accuracy, as if commenting on the Apocalypse, has referred to the physical adaptedness of the soil of Rome for such an overthrow. Speaking of the anticipation of the end of the world among the early Christians, he says: “In the opinion of a general conflagration, the faith of the Christian very happily coincided with the tradition of the East, the philosophy of the Stoics, and the analogy of nature; and even the country, which, from religious motives, had been chosen for the origin and principal scene of the conflagration, was the best adapted for that purpose by natural and physical causes; by its deep caverns, beds of sulphur, and numerous volcanoes, of which those of Ætna, of Vesuvius, and of Lipari, exhibit a very imperfect representation,” vol. i. p. 263, ch. xv. As to the general state of Italy, in reference to volcanoes, the reader may consult, with advantage, Lyell’s Geology, book ii. ch. ix.–xii. See also Murray’s Encyclopædia of Geography, book ii. ch. ii. Of the country around Rome it is said in that work, among other things: “The country around Rome, and also the hills on which it is built, is composed of tertiary marls, clays, and sandstones, and intermixed with a preponderating quantity of granular and lithoidal volcanic tufas. The many lakes around Rome are formed by craters of ancient volcanoes.” “On the road to Rome is the Lake of Vico, formerly the Lacus Cimini, which has all the appearance of a crater.”
The following extract from a recent traveller will still further confirm this representation:—“I behold everywhere—in Rome, near Rome, and through the whole region from Rome to Naples—most astounding proof, not merely of the possibility, but the probability, that the whole region of central Italy will one day be destroyed by such a catastrophe [by earthquakes or volcanoes]. The soil of Rome is tufa, with a volcanic subterranean action going on. At Naples the boiling sulphur is to be seen bubbling near the surface of the earth. When I drew a stick along the ground, the sulphurous smoke followed the indentation; and it would never surprise me to hear of the utter destruction of the southern peninsula of Italy. The entire country and district is volcanic. It is saturated with beds of sulphur and the substrata of destruction. It seems as certainly prepared for the flames, as the wood and coal on the hearth are prepared for the taper which shall kindle the fire to consume them. The divine hand alone seems to me to hold the element of fire in check by a miracle as great as that which protected the cities of the plain, till the righteous Lot had made his escape to the mountains” (Townsend’s Tour in Italy in 1850). ¶ For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. That is, God has ample power to bring all these calamities upon her.
9 And the [556]kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,