The beast that THEN ascendeth out of the [bottomless pit] ABYSS.—The government without a foundation; revolutionary France during the “Reign of Terror.”
Shall make war against them.—“In 1793 a decree passed the French Assembly forbidding the Bible; and under that decree the Bibles were gathered and burned, every possible mark of contempt was heaped upon them.”—Smith.
And shall overcome them, and kill them.—“All the institutions of the Bible were abolished; the weekly rest day was blotted out, and every tenth day substituted for mirth and profanity. Baptism and the communion were abolished. The being of God was denied, and death proclaimed an eternal sleep. The Goddess of Reason, in the person of a vile woman, was set up, and publicly worshipped.”—Smith.
11:8. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street.—France.
Of the great city.—Christendom, the Old Roman Empire.—Rev. 14:8; 16:19; 17:9, 18; 18:2, 10, 16, 18, 19, 21.
Which spiritually is called Sodom.—“ ‘Remember Lot's wife!’ is our Lord's pointed warning. How intensely forceful it is as a caution to God's people here, in the close of the Gospel Age. When we learn that Babylon is doomed, and hear the Lord's message, ‘Come out of her My people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues,’ it is indeed like the voice of the messengers who hastened Lot and his family out of Sodom, saying, ‘Stay not in all the plain; escape for thy life; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed; look not behind thee.’ (Gen. 19:17). Christendom is ‘that great [pg 175] city [Babylon] which spiritually is called Sodom.’ ”—D. 607, 608; Rev. 17:5; Isa. 1:9, 10; 3:8, 9; Jer. 23:14; Ezek. 16:48, 41.
And Egypt.—“Egypt is recognized as a symbol or type of the world of mankind, full of vain philosophies, but ignorant of the true Light.”—C. 315; Ezek. 23:3, 4, 8, 27.
Where also [our] THE Lord was crucified.—Catholic France, through its connection with the papacy, is a part of the old Roman Empire, in another part of which our Lord was slain. In another aspect France is identified with the death of the Lord. Anything done to the least of one of the Lord's little ones is counted as done to Himself. When Saul of Tarsus persecuted the Lord's saints, the One who met him in the way said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” (Acts 9:4, 5; 22:7, 8; 26:14, 15.) A plot was laid in France to destroy all the Protestants; and on Aug. 24, 1572, sixty thousand were murdered, and the streets of Paris literally ran with blood. The Protestants were in Paris under a solemn oath of safety, to celebrate the marriage of the king of Navarre. Admiral Coligny, a Protestant of great ability and prominence, was basely murdered in his own house, and his head was sent to his holiness, the Pope, as proof that he was really dead. The “Holy Father of Fathers”, the “Vicar of Christ”, the “Chief Pastor and Teacher”, was so pleased that “bells were rung, and guns were fired, bonfires were set ablaze; and Gregory XIII, attended by cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and a great throng of prelates, marched in procession. A Te Deum was chanted, and the Pope commissioned the painter Vasari to paint the scene of the massacre, and employed an artist to engrave a medal commemorative of the event. The preachers in Rome delivered eloquent orations, and a messenger carried a golden rose to Charles as a present from the Pope.”—Coffin.
11:9. And they of the people.—The Protestant people.
And kindreds and tongues and nations.—Of other parts of Europe.