Wow!  No one? 

'BABYLON THE GREAT' IS ISRAEL

By Rev. Ted Pike
29 Mar 10 

In the mystical book of Revelation, the apostle John sees a scarlet woman called “ Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.” She is drunk on the blood of Christians and rides a many-horned and -headed beast. John was told this woman symbolized a city that would one day rule and corrupt the world. Who is this woman? Does she exist today?

The answer lies thousands of years in history, in a story of redemption, love and betrayal – recounted in Ezekiel 16. This stern yet tender allegory tells how God rescued Israel from death as a rejected infant and chose her for His spiritual bride – not because of her goodness but out of His compassion. From the furnace of Egyptian bondage, the tiny Hebrew nation burst forth. She plagued Pharaoh, crossed the divided sea and finally lived under Moses’ leadership in the desert of Sinai. There God entered the covenant of spiritual marriage with His bride. But that happiness was so brief!

[Israel] you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame and poured out your harlotry on every passer-by who might be willing… (Ezekiel 16:15).

From Moses through the prophets, Israel is repeatedly characterized as an imperious whore. In more than 80 instances, she is specifically denounced as a harlot or lewd woman. Isaiah and the other pre-exilic prophets aimed their wrath at Jerusalem: “How the faithful city has become a harlot!" (Isaiah 1:21) Isaiah denounced apostate Jews as “sons of a sorceress, offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute” (Isaiah 57:3).

Did Israel’s evil ways end in the dusty annals of the Old Testament? No. Israel rejected Jesus Christ, her Messiah. She has never yet repented. This compels an inevitable conclusion: Israel of today and tomorrow is the same symbolic woman once chosen as God’s unique bride but ultimately divorced and cast away because of her spiritual adultery.Israel is that “Mother of Harlots” John saw on the beast of Revelation 17 and 18.

Israel was the first to marry God (Christ) and be spiritually one with Him. Thus the position she enjoyed as a spiritual bride was unique to her. Likewise, only apostate Israel can be the “mother” of spiritual whoredom. When she was chosen as Christ’s bride, other nations were disobedient like a child to its parent. Only Israel was made capable of a wife’s infidelity. As a result, when she became a spiritual whore, she was indelibly marked, “Mother of Harlots.” Jeremiah said, “You had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.” (Jer. 3:3) Other apostate systems may be spiritual harlots but only Israel is “mother” of that scarlet sorority. And without repentance, neither time nor wanderings can remove that epithet from her. When Israel shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” her resurrected spouse banished her. The Jewish people were condemned to wander like a woman divorced for adultery, perpetually looking for that substitute husband (anti-Christ) who would take the place of the One she killed.

The Great City

What has happened to that rejected unfaithful wife today?

Revelation 17 confronts us with the specter of a city “which reigns over the kings of the earth.” It has physical power—more wealth and importance than any other city—but also spiritual power, embodying the full potentiality of human degeneracy. “What city is like this great city?” the merchants of the earth will wail. This city is so commercially important that when she falls, world trade also comes crashing down. The title “the great city” is exclusive. There will doubtless be other powerful cities in the end time but John witnesses “the great city,” an unequaled center of trade, political power, culture and human bondage.

And to whom does that term refer? In Revelation, “the great city” (hey polis megaley in Greek) is used to clearly refer to Jerusalem, capitol of the Jewish people! When the two witnesses are killed, their dead bodies lie in the streets of “the great city (hey polis megaley). "... Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8). This unmistakably implies that powerful, corrupt Babylon and the great city “ Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified,” arethe same city… Jerusalem.

The apostle Peter, bishop of Jerusalem, also calls Jerusalem “ Babylon.” He sends greetings from the church in Jerusalem saying, “She who is in Babylon…sends you greetings” (1 Peter 5:13). Peter never visited Babylon. He is clearly identifying the moral cesspool of antiquity, Babylon, with the city where Christ was killed.

There are other reasons to believe “ Babylon the Great” means the Jewish city. When she is destroyed, Revelation describes the fall of this city as different from that of “Gentile” (ethnos) cities. “And the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations (Gentiles) fell…” (Revelation 16:19) A city which is not Gentile must, of course, be Jewish.

Also, Rev. 18:24 says that the great city is guilty for having shed the blood of the Hebrew prophets and righteous from the beginning of history. Jesus said the same concerning the rulers of Jerusalem, the Pharisees: "that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar" (Matt. 23:35).

Yet even from earliest post-apostolic times, Christians have misread Revelation’s prophecy. They thought Babylon the Great meant Rome, which has traditionally been described as sitting on seven hills. Yet the city of Rome encompasses many more than seven hills. This is not true of Jerusalem. Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D. points out:

the City of Jerusalem as it existed in the time of Christ Jesus was also reckoned to be a 'City of Seven Hills.' This fact was well recognized in Jewish circles. In the Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, an 8th century A.D. midrashic [Talmudic] narrative (Section 10), the writer mentioned without commentary (showing that the understanding was well known and required no defense) that, "Jerusalem is situated on seven hills." ("The Seven Hills of Jerusalem”http://www.askelm.com/prophecy/p000201.htm)

Armenian Christians, living for centuries in Palestine, taught their schoolchildren that the seven hills are: Mt. of Olives, Mt. Scopus, Mt. Zion, Mt. Moriah (the Temple mount), Golgotha, Hill of Moses, and Mt. Herzl.

Scripture also describes only one city as center of world rule in the last days, and that is Jerusalem. Paul states clearly that the anti-Christ will declare his one-world authority from the temple at Jerusalem, where he proclaims he is God. (2 Thess. 2:4) When the two witnesses resist him, they do not battle a papal anti-Christ but “the wicked profane prince of Israel” in Jerusalem. (Ezek. 21:25) These scriptures point to Jerusalem as the epicenter of one-world rebellion against God; Jerusalem and Babylon are one!

Modern Judaism is Babylonian

There is more depth to the metaphor. Judaism literally is Babylonian, more than nearly any other religion or culture. Most of its religious laws and traditions, including the Babylonian Talmud and Zohar (Kabbalah), come from nearly 1,600 years Jews spent on the fertile plains of Shinar. Few religions have a deeper tradition of occult. Revelation describes Babylon the Great deceiving the world through her “sorceries” and the Jewish encyclopedias tell us it was Judaism which carried Babylon’s black arts, demonology and astrology to the West.

This is as true today as ever. Jewish supremacism today is not only erecting a political, financial, commercial world empire but spewing filth on the nations through their movie and TV media. (link to Jews in media article) They spearhead freedom-destroying, pro-homosexual hate crimes laws worldwide and abet all forms of left-wing and anti-Christ radicalism through their “civil liberties” fronts such as ADL, ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

And just as “Babylon the Great” will deceive the world, so Jewish leaders today present a whitewashed façade to Christians and the world – an illusion of goodness that has never been more convincing or scrupulously maintained. The Jewish lobby deceived Christians into unquestioning support of Israel’s ambitions and atrocities in the Mideast; this is awesome evidence of the manipulative influence Jewry will enjoy as we draw even closer to the end. When Christ warned that the delusions of the end time would be so irresistible that “even the very elect” could be deceived, He was speaking of our day!

In our day we witness the continuing and monstrous complications of that great divorce of Christ from his chosen bride millennia ago. We are not simply approaching the foothills of anti-Christ. We are in them. Through intrigue and deception, the control and commercialism of “ Babylon the Great” has come surround us. Yet we have not perceived it. We have, in fact, assisted it.

Babylon is now.

How should Christians respond to the fact that Israel and Babylon are one? Jesus tells us the answer. "Come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins, and that you may not receive of her plagues, for her sins have piled up as high as heaven…" (Rev. 18:4-5)

 

(Adapted from Israel: Our Duty Our Dilemma by Rev. Ted Pike, 345 pages, illustrated, available for $24.90 post-paid from NPN, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas, OR 97015)

you've got to be kidding me!  Even Peter, in his letter, referred to Rome as Babylon.  Nowhere in scripture is Israel ever referred to as Babylon.  Zion.  Yes.  Babylon.  Never.  

Peter was writing from Rome not Jerusalem as this article asserts.  Peter was in Rome during the last decade of his life. His letter was written in 63 AD and he died in about 67 AD (under Nero). 

 "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluth you; and so does Marcus, my son."  1 Peter 5:13

It's NOT even close to say that it was the Jews persecuting Christians when everyone who can read even just a bit of history knows it was the "so called-Christians" killing the genuine Christians.  The Jews have been the most persecuted people group of all time. 

Not even close Lula.  Again, another ant-semetic comment not to mention you're listening to someone who is tickling your ears. 

Besides...It took you more than two years to respond to this?  And then not only do you NOT respond to what was written you throw me some writing from a RCC Reverend who is all over the place with his false assertions that make absolutely no sense to the plain reading of the scriptures.  

The RCC has always maintained the Peter was in Rome when he died, so why the change now?  Saying he wrote his letter from Jerusalem contradicts their most common belief that not only was Peter in Rome during the last years of his life but he supposedly is buried under their Basilica.  Right?  

Good to have you back KFC. 

You have lots going on in your reply so let's take it bit by bit. 

So it took me two years to respond!!  I was busy selling my Maine house and moving to Florida. I was away from my computer for 5 months and then I became quite ill. Now I'm happily settled and feeling much better. Praise God.  

No, KFC, the Rev.Ted Pike is not Catholic.  The following link is his biography. I came upon his name and some of his writings when I was doing some research on hate crime laws. 

http://www.truthtellers.org/tedpikebiography.html.

No, not kidding and neither is Rev. Ted Pike. It's there all well written and well laid out and quite easy to understand. 

Pike claims Babylon is Jerusalem and his case for making that claim is rock solid and logical. 

 You think Babylon is Rome and of this Pike says,

You say the Harlot, the Whore is a jealous woman, she represents all false religions throughout history and in some ways I can understand that.  

Of the Harlot, the Whore, Pike says it's Israel and backs it up with Scripture. 

John was told this woman symbolized a city that would one day rule and corrupt the world. Who is this woman? Does she exist today?

The answer lies thousands of years in history, in a story of redemption, love and betrayal – recounted in Ezekiel 16. 

[Israel] you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame and poured out your harlotry on every passer-by who might be willing… (Ezekiel 16:15).

From Moses through the prophets, Israel is repeatedly characterized as an imperious whore. In more than 80 instances, she is specifically denounced as a harlot or lewd woman. Isaiah and the other pre-exilic prophets aimed their wrath at Jerusalem: “How the faithful city has become a harlot!" (Isaiah 1:21) Isaiah denounced apostate Jews as “sons of a sorceress, offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute” (Isaiah 57:3).

Of Israel you say: 

Not true. Not at all. 

Pike says the Whore is Israel who was unfaithful every step of the way throughout the OT. We know this to be true for that's why Almighty God rent the Temple Veil from top to bottom. It was His signal that He had had enough. 

Then Pike brings us up to date as far as the answer Does she exist today? 

 Did Israel’s evil ways end in the dusty annals of the Old Testament? No. Israel rejected Jesus Christ, her Messiah. She has never yet repented. This compels an inevitable conclusion: Israel of today and tomorrow is the same symbolic woman once chosen as God’s unique bride but ultimately divorced and cast away because of her spiritual adultery.Israel is that “Mother of Harlots” John saw on the beast of Revelation 17 and 18.

Israel was the first to marry God (Christ) and be spiritually one with Him. Thus the position she enjoyed as a spiritual bride was unique to her. Likewise, only apostate Israel can be the “mother” of spiritual whoredom. When she was chosen as Christ’s bride, other nations were disobedient like a child to its parent. Only Israel was made capable of a wife’s infidelity. As a result, when she became a spiritual whore, she was indelibly marked, “Mother of Harlots.” Jeremiah said, “You had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.” (Jer. 3:3) 

Pike says there are 80 instances in which Israel is characterized as an imperious whore of Babylon and denounced as a harlot or lewd woman. 

In Apocalypse 17 and 18, the Whore of Babylon is the woman who sold her soul to the world. This is spiritual adultery and the very reason Israel of the OT was given the title of "whore" by God Himself, as Hosea 2:2-13 says, 

Israel is justly punished for leaving 

[1] Say ye to your brethren: You are my people, and to your sister: Thou hast obtained mercy. [2] Judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her harlotry from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts. [3] Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born: and I will make her as a wilderness, and will set her as a land that none can pass through, and will kill her with drought. [4] And I will not have mercy on her children: for they are the children of fornications. [5] For their mother hath committed fornication, she that conceived them is covered with shame: for she said: I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread, and my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.

[6] Wherefore behold I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will stop it up with a wall, and she shall not find her paths. [7] And she shall follow after her lovers, and shall not overtake them: and she shall seek them, and shall not find, and she shall say: I will go, and return to my first husband, because it was better with me then, than now. [8] And she did not know that I gave her corn and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver, and gold, which they have used in the service of Baal. [9] Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its season, and my wine in its season, and I will set at liberty my wool, and my flax, which covered her disgrace. [10] And now I will lay open her lewdness in the eyes of her lovers: and no man shall deliver her out of my hand:

[11] And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her solemnities, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her festival times. [12] And I will destroy her vines, and her fig trees, of which she said: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me: and I will make her as a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour her. [13] And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, to whom she burnt incense, and decked herself out with her earrings, and with her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord. 

 and then Jeremias 3:6-9 says the same thing...

[6] And the Lord said to me in the days of king Josias: Hast thou seen what rebellious Israel hast done? she hath gone out of herself upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and hath played the harlot there. [7] And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me, and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Juda saw, [8] That because the rebellious Israel had played the harlot, I had put her away, and had given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Juda was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also herself. [9] And by the facility of her fornication she defiled the land, and played the harlot with stones and with stocks.

Notice verse 8, the divorce....

Pike first describes the spiritual marriage of God with His spiritual bride Israel...

This .....allegory tells how God rescued Israel from death as a rejected infant and chose her for His spiritual bride –......... in the desert of Sinai. There God entered the covenant of spiritual marriage with His bride. But that happiness was so brief!

[Israel] you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame and poured out your harlotry on every passer-by who might be willing… (Ezekiel 16:15).

From Moses through the prophets, Israel is repeatedly characterized as a whore. .....Isaiah and the other pre-exilic prophets aimed their wrath at Jerusalem: “How the faithful city has become a harlot!" (Isaiah 1:21) Isaiah denounced apostate Jews as “sons of a sorceress, offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute” (Isaiah 57:3).

Israel rejected Jesus Christ, her Messiah. She has never yet repented. This compels an inevitable conclusion: Israel of today and tomorrow is the same symbolic woman once chosen as God’s unique bride but ultimately divorced and cast away because of her spiritual adultery.Israel is that “Mother of Harlots” John saw on the beast of Revelation 17 and 18.

Then Pike drives the point home saying:

Israel was the first to marry God (Christ) and be spiritually one with Him. Thus the position she enjoyed as a spiritual bride was unique to her. Likewise, only apostate Israel can be the “mother” of spiritual whoredom. When she was chosen as Christ’s bride, other nations were disobedient like a child to its parent. Only Israel was made capable of a wife’s infidelity. As a result, when she became a spiritual whore, she was indelibly marked, “Mother of Harlots.” Jeremiah said, “You had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.” (Jer. 3:3)

...................................

Isaias 3:16-26, describes Sion in trouble with God, it's a poetic judgment against the Whore. 

Very similiar concepts appear in Lamentations 1:1-10 mentions Sion and Jerusalem that are also in the lament of the whore of Babylon in Rev. 17 and 18.  

6 And from the daughter of Sion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like rams that find no pastures: and they are gone away without strength before the face of the pursuer. ......................[8]  Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable: all that honoured her have despised her, because they have seen her shame: but she sighed and turned backward. [9]  Her filthiness is on her feet, and she hath not remembered her end: she is wonderfully cast down......

Pike writes:

I agree. I saw this too. Pike made a mistake, but a very minor one that doesn't diminish the rest of his article. 

All reputable scholars admit that the first Christians called pagan Rome Babylon on account of its vices ..which Pike rigfhtly identifies "as a moral cesspool of antiquity.."

Now, are you kidding me? Start by reading Scripture and figure out what "for fear of the Jews". Study the relatilnship between the Jews and the early Christians (Jewish converts). Those Jews who did not accept Christ as the Messias, had it in for those Jews who did and became Christian..Bigtime. Alongside the Jews, the pagan Romans clearly persecuted the early Christians. 

This went on until the late 300s. 

I don't even know where to start Lula.  And I don't have a lot of time these days to go too deep here. You can believe what you want here.  But to call Israel the Harlot of Revelation 17 is just bad theology.

First of all..yes, Israel did play the harlot by being unfaithful to God in the OT.  What you didn't mention nor did this Mr. Pike is the fact that AFTER their exile to Babylon (Babylonian 70 year captivity) they never did go back into idolatry like they did pre-exile.  In other words, their playing of the Harlot had ended with their release.  They had learned their lesson. But playing the harlot (small h) is a big difference than the description much later of the MOTHER OF ALL HARLOTS.  That's who this woman of Babylon is.  Jerusalem, Israel, the Jews...etc do not fit this description.  Yes, they were unfaithful at times but not to this degree.  

If it's as you say..then why does God seal 144,000 Jews in Rev 7?  Before the Harlot is mentioned in Chap 17?  Why so interested in this Jewish remnant?  

The truth is there has been two systems almost from the beginning.  Abraham and Nimrod (chap 11 of Gen).  These two systems have been in conflict since the beginning of history.  The conflict between the true spouse of God and the Harlot who was jealous of God and his relationship with His people (his wife).  

Rome perpetuated the false religious system begun by Nimrod, founder of Babylon.  That's why we see so many mother-son deities thru history.  It all started with Nimrod and just manifested itself into other cultures and religions that began in Rome.  

Nimrod was the founder of Babylon.  Rome is called Babylon by Peter himself.  Why?  Because Rome perpetuated the false religious system begun by Nimrod, founder of Babylon.  The belief in Mary as the perpetual virgin and her co-mediatorship with her Son as enunciated by the RCC is the ultimate perpetuation of the false religious system begun by Nimrod.  

It's no different than the other mother-son religious systems that I named in my original article.

Remember what I said a long time ago?  When Constantine put Christian Crosses on all the pagan temples and declared Christianity as acceptable and the new state religion for Rome basically what happened is the mother-son worship was transferred to Mary and her Christ child.  So in effect, this new  religion was a mixture of paganism and  genuine Christianity being meshed together and called good.  

Hosea would be a good read right now for you.   And it's very important to the whole topic.  God called Hosea to go and marry his unfaithful wife who had become a whore.  This whole picture was one of love.  God would take back his unfaithful wife as depicted thru Hosea.  And that's where in the end, God will go back and claim her as promised to Abraham.  God doesn't go back on his unconditional promises.  

That's not what Rev 17 is talking about.  This is the real whore.  In fact she's called the MOTHER OF HARLOTS.  And that's a whole lot different than Israel who is and will always be the apple of his eye.  

Guess I missed this too originally KFC.  But it ties into the Beth Moore Revelation study I'm in right now.....

Interesting stuff.

On the other hand, I must admit I am loving this show called The Tudor's on Netflix (originally on Showtime).  It focuses on Henry the 8th and his break from the RCC...how Cromwell played into the reformation etc. (Lots of nudity.) 

I haven't checked yet, but will soon to determine how accurate the portrayals are...because I think someone should make engaging historically accurate dramas.  Like I always knew he had 5 wives, but could never keep the more distance connections straight, but when made into a drama, it's SO MUCH EASIER!!  lol

Kinda like Heather's stories using real people of the Bible, just filling in dialog and action....

Good stuff.

so how does Beth Moore approach this subject on the whore?  Any insights there from her for us T?  

I know she tends to go in pretty deep and the studies I've done (not too many) I've enjoyed.  Thought provoking stuff.  

Not there yet, but I'll let ya know. 

Right now we're looking at the Greek word "semaino."  (Which carries the idea of figurative representation, or strictly speaking, to make known by some kind of sign.)

Personally this REALLY hit the spot for me in starting a new study on Revelations.  I always struggled with the whole symbolic/literal thing....

From the very first verse in Revelation God tells us He will use figurative language (things we know) to signify the incomprehensible (things our finite minds cannot wrap themselves around).  Makes sense since it is done in parables (to explain spiritual matters) throughout.

Good stuff.



it's both figurative and literal.  Basically the key to knowing comes down to this:  "If it makes sense, seek no other sense."  

So if it makes sense to be used literally, do so.  If not, the symbol has to stand for something and usually the key can be found elsewhere in scripture.  

Right.  I didn't mean to imply the whole book is figurative.  heh.

I just appreciate how we're told up front there will be some symbols, so when we get to dragons in 12 and 13 there isn't a big debate about literal vs figurative.

How far have you gotten?

Do you remember that KFC started a discussion series on the Book of The Apocalypse of St. John (Revelation) here on JU? I really enjoyed those discussions. 

It would be interesting to know how much is the same or different from the BM study,

Lula...I don't think Beth Moore will be too different.  My guess.  I tend to be really close to her thinking. We both look at the scriptures from an evangelical sense of things.   She may be, not sure, pre-trib tho which is basically just timing.   I'm now thinking pre-wrath makes the most sense.  So while we'd believe in the same events (wrath of God, Tribulation, Rapture, millennium kingdom etc) it would just be how the timing comes into play if she is even pre-trib which I'm not sure.  It's not really an essential but just a belief in how the events will happen in the end.  

Do you remember where we left off Lula?  I can't remember now.