Rev 14:8 | ACC Commentary

OVERVIEW:

“Babylon” means “confusion” and refers to the random trials and troubled disorders of this present life (OECUMENIUS, ANDREW OF CAESAREA). Babylon also refers to the city or people of the devil that works through vice for the ruin of the human race. This city, made drunk by error and idolatry, will inevitably fall (TYCONIUS). Those who are frenzied by idol worship possess a darkened mind, for they worship wood and stone and call forth the wrath of God, which leads to everlasting fire (OECUMENIUS, ANDREW OF CAESAREA). Indeed, all sin is a form of drunkenness and derangement (ANDREW OF CAESAREA).

14:8 | “Fallen, Fallen Is Babylon the Great!”

THE CITY OF THE DEVIL WILL INEVITABLY FALL. TYCONIUS: Babylon is interpreted as confusion. By it the city and the people of the devil are signified, as is also the entire seduction of the vices that it always exercises for its own ruin and for the ruin of the human race. It says that this city, which is hastening toward its fall, has already fallen. This is a common way of speaking in the Scripture, which often refers to events as past when they are yet in the future, especially when it knows that what it predicts will inevitably be fulfilled. Here is an example of this way of speaking: “They divided my clothes among themselves,” and other similar statements. However, it may also speak in this manner because it was already well known then that the haughty fall whenever they dare to become proud. Therefore the psalm says, “You have cast them down when they were lifted up,” for, to be sure, they were then thrown down when they were lifted up. According to this habit of speaking, then, the Scripture has said, “All nations have fallen because of the wine of their fornication,” because this city, which is drunk and is constructed from all nations that it gathers to itself, itself has drunk from the wine of fornication. For all the nations, made drunk by errors, constitute the city itself, but the Scripture, according to its style, talks only of the one [city]. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 14.8.

IDOLATRY AND APOSTASY DARKEN THE MIND. OECUMENIUS: By “Babylon” he is referring to the confusion and arbitrarily random trials of the present life—for confusion is the meaning of Babylon—and to the manic stupefaction of those who worship idols. And the city is magnified with names, being called by them the “inspired” city. But were you to consider the physical Babylon itself, you would not fall down before the sight before you. By the “wine of the wrath of her fornication” he refers to [the city’s] apostasy from God, as it is written, “You have destroyed every one that goes a whoring from you.” Such fornication entails a darkness of the mature reason, for who, possessing a sound mind, would choose to worship wood and stones and call forth the wrath of God? Therefore, concerning this wine it is said, “Their wine is the wrath of serpents and the incurable wrath of asps.” Babylon itself at first drank of this deadly wine, and then it compelled all the nations that it ruled to drink. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 14.8.

THE DERANGEMENT THAT COMES FROM SIN. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: He speaks of “Babylon,” which refers to the confusion of the world and the troubled disorder of this life, which in no way has abated. By “the wine of the wrath of her fornication” he means not only the frenzy that attends to idol worship and the ecstasy of their minds, but also to the drunkenness and derangement that attends all sin, by which everyone who whores against God is wholly destroyed, as the saying of the psalm goes. As it were, pulled up by its roots, such a Babylon falls completely at the appearance of the Jerusalem that is above, for those who have been workers of iniquity are sent to the everlasting fire. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 14.8.