The Identity of the “Great Prostitute”
“Mystery Babylon”
The great prostitute mentioned in the Book of Revelation is the same mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel. This “prostitute” is an adulteress…a married woman.
According to the Bible, God made a covenant of marriage to natural Israelite which she repeatedly broke by intermingling with foreign nations against His law and by worshiping other gods. They also did so by making alliances with other nations in an attempt to circumvent the will of God.
In Ezekiel, the nation is likened to two sisters due to the fact that the nation existed divided (the ten-tribe northern kingdom of Israel and the southern two tribe kingdom of Judah).
If you read the text below from Ezekiel and then the text concerning Babylon the Great, you will find striking similarity.
Ezekiel 16
32 ”’A wife who commits adultery. who takes strangers instead of her husband.
33 They give gifts to all prostitutes; but you give your gifts to all your lovers, and bribe them, that they may come to you on every side for your prostitution.
34 You are different from other women in your prostitution, in that no one follows you to play the prostitute; and whereas you give hire, and no hire is given to you, therefore you are different.’
35 ”Therefore, prostitute, hear the word of the LORD:
36 Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;
37 therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those who you have loved, with all those who you have hated; I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.
38 I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.
39 I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places; and they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels; and they shall leave you naked and bare.
40 They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords.
41 They shall burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; and I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you shall also give no hire any more.
Ezekiel 23
1 The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,
2 ”Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:
3 and they played the prostitute in Egypt; they played the prostitute in their youth; there were their breasts pressed, and there was handled the bosom of their virginity.
4 Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.
5 ”Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,
6 who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.
7 She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
8 Neither has she left her prostitution since the days of Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.
9 Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted.
10 These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they killed with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.
11 ”Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.
12 She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.
13 I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.
14 She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,
15 wearing belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth.
16 As soon as she saw them she doted on them and sent messengers to them into Chaldea.
17 The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
18 So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.
19 Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt.
20 She doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
21 Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the handling of your bosom by the Egyptians for the breasts of your youth.
22” Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Look, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side:
23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; desirable young men, all of them governors and officials, officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses.
24 They shall come against you from the north a with chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples; they shall set themselves against you with buckler and shield and helmet all around; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments.
25 I will set my jealousy against you, and they shall deal with you in fury; they shall take away your nose and your ears; and your residue shall fall by the sword: they shall take your sons and your daughters; and your residue shall be devoured by the fire.
26 They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels.
27 Thus will I make your lewdness to cease from you, and your prostitution brought from the land of Egypt; so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt anymore.
28 ”’For thus says the Lord GOD: Look, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated
29 and they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare; and the nakedness of your prostitution shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.
30 These things shall be done to you, because you have played the prostitute after the nations, and because you are polluted with their idols.
31 You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand.’
32 ”Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘You will drink of your sister’s cup, which is deep and large; you will be ridiculed and held in derision; it contains much.
33 You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria.
34 You shall even drink it and drain it out, and you shall gnaw the broken pieces of it, and shall tear your breasts; for I have spoken it,’ says the Lord GOD.
35 ”Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’”
36 The LORD said moreover to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations.
37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured.
38 Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths.
39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and look, thus have they done in the midst of my house.
40 ”’Furthermore you have sent for men who come from far, to whom a messenger was sent, and look, they came; for whom you did wash yourself, paint your eyes, and decorate yourself with ornaments,
41 and sit on a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon you set my incense and my oil.’
42 The voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with men of the common sort were brought drunkards from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on their hands twain, and beautiful crowns on their heads.
43 Then I said of her who was old in adulteries, ‘Now will they play the prostitute with her, and she with them.’
44 They went in to her, as they go in to a prostitute: so went they in to Oholah and to Oholibah, the lewd women.
45 Righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women who shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.
46 ”For thus says the Lord GOD: ‘I will bring up a company against them and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed.
47 The company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall kill their sons and their daughters and burn up their houses with fire.
48 ’Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.
49 They shall recompense your lewdness on you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.’”
Now compare the words of prophecy given to the apostle John in vision:
Revelation 17:
1 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters,
2 with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunk with the wine of her sexual immorality.”
3 He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored animal, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
5 And on her forehead a name was written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
6 I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement.
7 The angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
8 The beast that you saw was and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and is going a to destruction. Those who dwell on the earth and whose names have not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see that the beast was, and is not, but is to come.
9 Here is the mind that has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits.
This prostitute is the apostate house of Israel. The other kingdoms were not responsible for the murder/blood of the faithful prophets including Lord Jesus’.
Consider also the fact that, according to the Book of Revelation, the Lambs marriage will not occur until after his second coming which has yet to occur. While it is true that his “bride” has been being gathered since the time of his death and resurrection, the marriage has not taken place.
Therefore, although many professed Christian teachers claim otherwise, these words are not to be applied to the church. They did and still do apply to natural Israel.
Jesus Christ himself made this statement:
Luke 13:34
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused.”
These teachers are really a part of the devil’s effort to deceive and mislead…hiding the true identity of the great prostitute.
Remember Jesus said,
“For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear; they will perform great miracles and wonders in order to deceive even God’s chosen people, if possible.” Matthew 24:24.
There is only one group portrayed as an adulteress in the Bible…the nation of Israel.
As to the mystery of the name “Babylon”, this can be understood by reading from the book of Zechariah.
The angel speaking to the prophet, offers understanding to the mystery of the name and its association to Israel.
The Vision of the Woman in the Basket:
Zechariah 5
5 Then the angel who had been talking to me came closer to me and said, “Look up and see what is appearing!”
6 I asked him, “What is it?” He replied, “It is a big basket for measuring grain. But it represents the sins that everyone in this nation has committed.”
7 Then the angel lifted the basket’s cover, which was made of lead. There was a woman sitting inside the basket!
8 The angel said, “She represents the wicked things that people do.” Then the angel pushed her back into the basket and closed the very heavy lid again.
9 Then I looked up and saw two women in front of me. They were flying toward us, with their wings spread out in the wind. Their wings were large, like storks’ wings. They lifted the big basket up into the sky.
10 I asked the angel who had been talking to me, “Where are they taking that basket?”
11 He replied, “They are taking it to Babylonia to build a temple for it. When the temple is finished, they will set the basket there on a pedestal for people to worship it.”
Instead of becoming a “kingdom of priest” that lead the nations of the Earth to obedience and pure worship of God, they themselves broke His commandments. By their alliances with foreign nations, the nation made itself unclean and led the nations away from God. The nation set itself over the nations to be worshipped rather than directing worship to God.
She sits upon the beast to this day.
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