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blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Her destruction is brought about by the ten horns which
the beast carried, who are ten kings that reign for the brief hour of the Beast's dominion.
Chapter 18: follows with a further description of the character and fall of Babylon.
Again an angel cries, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and become the habitation of
demons, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird"
(18: 2). As chapter 17: tells of the kings of the earth, so 18: links all nations and
kings in the participation in Babylon's impure vintage. Jeremiah's command to Seraiah
is taken up and amplified:
"A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying,
Thus with violence shall the great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no
more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall
be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatever craft he be, shall be
found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in
thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the
bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were
the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was
found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth"
(Rev. 18: 21-24).
Let us note these closing words: they may be a figure of speech. They may, however,
be very awfully true. All the blood! not only of prophets, saints and martyrs, but every
murder and every execution, every war and every assassination, all traceable back to this
system of iniquity and to the father of lies (a murderer from the beginning), who, to
thwart the purpose of the Most High, made his throne at Babylon. Not only is the
influence and the judgment of Babylon world-wide in its effect (the very heavens resound
with Hallelujahs at her downfall), heaven itself can hold the glorious Son of God no
longer. He rides forth to conquer and to rule, and the reign of righteousness follows
swiftly on the destruction of that city which symbolized the dread authority of the prince
of darkness.
We must now return to the book of Genesis, to learn somewhat more of the
beginnings of Babel. Although the division of the earth among the sons of Noah comes
before the record of the building of the tower of Babel, the scattering that took place at
the confusion of tongues was the cause of the division recorded in chapter 10: There in
chapter 10: 5, 20 and 31, the descendants of Japheth, Ham and Shem are divided
according to their tongues. This therefore must have come after the record of chapter 11:,
for there we read "The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech" (`one lip,
and one in words'). The idea that the tower of Babel was built `to reach unto heaven' is
not Scriptural. The words are more correctly rendered "whose top with the heaven", and
far more likely denote a tower like the ancient temples of Denderah and Esneh which
have the signs of the zodiac represented on them.
Nimrod went back, it would appear to that deserted city, finished it, and sought to
overthrow the purpose of God by becoming the first earthly king. From this, apparently,
small beginning has spread all the harlot abominations of the earth, and as we saw by