REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE - Chapter 18 - Verse 7

Verse 7. How much she hath glorified herself. Been proud, boastful, arrogant. This was true of ancient Babylon that she was proud and haughty; and it has been no less true of mystical Babylon—Papal Rome.

And lived deliciously. By as much as she has lived in luxury and dissoluteness, so let her suffer now. The word used here and rendered lived deliciously—estrhniase is derived from the noun— strhnov—which is used in Re 18:3, and rendered delicacies. See Barnes on "Re 18:3".

It means "to live strenuously, rudely," as in English, "to live hard;" and then to revel, to live in luxury, riot, dissoluteness. No one can doubt the propriety of this as descriptive of ancient Babylon, and as little can its propriety be doubted as applied to Papal Rome.

So much torment and sorrow give her. Let her punishment correspond with her sins. This is expressing substantially the same idea which occurs in the previous verse.

For she saith in her heart. This is the estimate which she forms of herself.

I sit a queen. Indicative of pride, and of an asserted claim to rule.

And am no widow. Am not in the condition of a widow—a state of depression, sorrow, and mourning. All this indicates security and self-confidence, a description in every way applicable to Papal Rome.

And shall see no sorrow. This is indicative of a state where there was nothing feared, notwithstanding all the indications which existed of approaching calamity. In this state we may expect to find Papal Rome, even when its last judgments are about to come upon it; in this state it has usually been; in this state it is now, notwithstanding all the indications that are abroad in the world that its power is waning, and that the period of its fall approaches.

{a} "sit a queen" Isa 47:7-11; Zep 2:15