Continuing excerpts, via Accordance, from J. Massyngberde Ford's exegesis of chapters 17-18 in Revelation (The Anchor Bible, 1975):
A horrendous example of famine is recorded by Josephus in War 6.197. He speaks of the famine in Jerusalem during the siege and he tells how the victims stripped off the leather from their bucklers and chewed it. He describes the horrors of the famine which gave rise to internal fighting, panic, and unbelievable brutality even toward relatives. He emphasizes the case of a woman who even cooked and ate her own baby (War 6.201–13; cf. 2 Kings 6:28–29). However, it is God who has put this intention into the minds of the kings represented by the horns (Rev 17:17). This concept, that God uses the pagan nations to punish his people, is common in the OT. This is a permissive decree of God. The word “decree,” Gr. gnomē, lit. “his purpose” or “his royal decree,” is employed frequently in I and II Ezra, and Daniel, LXX, where it refers to the edicts of the Persian kings. The implication is that God who is the supreme King unites the others, making them of one mind to give their allegiance to the beast. When this is done the word of God will be fulfilled. This fulfillment is highly significant; it may refer to the words of the prophets but it may go back to the Holiness Code and the Deuteronomic precepts, as in Deut 28. Deut 28:58 refers to the “words of this law which are written in this book” (although there is no linguistic affinity between the LXX and our text). On the other hand “words,” Gr. logoi, might simply mean “oracles.”
Vs. 18 explains that the woman is “the great city,” a phrase already used of Jerusalem, in 11:8, 16:19. The image recalls IV Ezra 9:38–10:24. Here the prophet sees a woman mourning; her clothes are torn and there are ashes upon her head. She has lost her son on his wedding night, a son for whom she had waited for thirty years. The prophet reproaches her for mourning in the light of the desolation of Jerusalem, but as he looks at her, her countenance changes and becomes brilliant. Then she is no longer visible to him but instead there is a city built with large foundations. The angel then explains to the prophet that the woman whom he saw was Zion. Now he sees her as a built city (IV Ezra 10:25–49). The angel explains different details in the vision. But what is of interest for our apocalypse is the fact that the son symbolized “the (divine) dwelling in Jerusalem” (vs. 48) and his entry into the marriage chamber and his death represented the fall of Jerusalem. The importance of the IV Ezra vision is that it gives us an example of a vision in the apocalyptic era which symbolizes both the fall and the rise of Jerusalem. In the same way, Rev 17 looks forward to the new Jerusalem in ch. 21. However, the description in IV Ezra 10:21–24 of the fate which befell Jerusalem is akin to that which we shall find in Rev 18; see Jacob M. Myers I & II Esdras, AB, vol. 42 (1974), 266, 273–74, 279.
Vs. 18 explains that the woman is “the great city,” a phrase already used of Jerusalem, in 11:8, 16:19. The image recalls IV Ezra 9:38–10:24. Here the prophet sees a woman mourning; her clothes are torn and there are ashes upon her head. She has lost her son on his wedding night, a son for whom she had waited for thirty years. The prophet reproaches her for mourning in the light of the desolation of Jerusalem, but as he looks at her, her countenance changes and becomes brilliant. Then she is no longer visible to him but instead there is a city built with large foundations. The angel then explains to the prophet that the woman whom he saw was Zion. Now he sees her as a built city (IV Ezra 10:25–49). The angel explains different details in the vision. But what is of interest for our apocalypse is the fact that the son symbolized “the (divine) dwelling in Jerusalem” (vs. 48) and his entry into the marriage chamber and his death represented the fall of Jerusalem. The importance of the IV Ezra vision is that it gives us an example of a vision in the apocalyptic era which symbolizes both the fall and the rise of Jerusalem. In the same way, Rev 17 looks forward to the new Jerusalem in ch. 21. However, the description in IV Ezra 10:21–24 of the fate which befell Jerusalem is akin to that which we shall find in Rev 18; see Jacob M. Myers I & II Esdras, AB, vol. 42 (1974), 266, 273–74, 279.
To be continued...
Leave a comment: