Mystery Babylon - Revelation 17

By looking at the Babylon description in Rev 17 and using the OT Book of Daniel as a key, someone determined from nothing other than history, that the Islamic Caliphate must be the Empire from which the Beast Empire comes. The writer is too verbose for my taste, I've restated his view in my own words.

This was that link. It is no longer current. http://www.greatbabylon.com/page3.html

This link is by a different author but he states the same thing.

 

Revelation 17 is the key to identifying the End - Time empire... historically thought to be a Revived Roman Empire (btw: I believed it was to be Rome until this year)

17:9 (This requires a mind that has wisdom.) The seven heads are seven mountains the woman sits on. They are also seven kings:


The heads are the leaders of Empires, the mountains are Empires and the kings are kings.

The key to figuring this out is that what is being described is not a CONCURENT collection of empires but instead SUCCESSIVE ones. Also remember that Revelation and Daniel go hand in hand.. and in Daniel all the dreams about empires were about successive empires, even if they comprised the same body.

 17:10 five have fallen; one is, and the other has not yet come, but whenever he does come, he must remain for only a brief time.

This is the key. 5 of the empires have already fallen when this was written around 100AD. What qualifies something to be an empire is that it occupied Israel. These 5, in order (with capital city), are

  1. Egypt (Memphis),
  2. Assyria (Nineveh),
  3. Babylon (Babylon),
  4. Media-Persia (Babylon),
  5. Greece (Babylon) [Greece was original seated elsewhere but Alexander eventually set his throne in Babylon then he died, the empire split into 4 , since it wasn't conquered, its still the same empire. According to Daniel, the offshoot that was significant was the Seleucids, which was the South-East region.. the one that contained Jerusalem]

Each of the empires above did two things... occupied Jerusalem and destroyed the Empire that preceded it.

So those were the 5 that were fallen.

The 1 that "is" , the 6th Empire, was referring to the Empire that was there in the first century AD.. Rome of course.

Then notice it says "the next one has not come yet"

This means there will be a 7th Empire that had not existed up to that point yet.

The mantle must pass from Rome to whatever the 7th Empire is by the same methods that worked for the past Empires. Namely, control of Jerusalem is transferred and then the old Empire is destroyed.

Rome (the 6th empire) has one thing in common with Greece (the 5th empire).. both of them had their capital city moved.

The seat of power for Rome moved from Rome to Constantinople. And it was the Eastern Roman Empire that kept control of Jerusalem.. just as with Greece breaking up into 4 groups, Rome sort of broke up into 2 (the Western empire died) however its still considered the same empire and ruled by 1 leader (not 2.. since the Western empire was no longer "Rome")

So who is the 7th Empire?

The Islamic Caliphate

The Islamic Caliphate (originally Arab but later Turk) seized control of Jerusalem, and nearly 800 years later in the 1400s, destroyed the Roman Empire with the sack of Constantinople.

Eventually the Caliphate moved its capital to that city. Where it remained until World War I.

It lost control of Jerusalem but it was not conquered but instead disintegrated from within when the Arabs revolted with the help of the West and the secular Turks ended the Caliphate by decree.


So the 5 past empires that were: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome

The one 1 that is: Rome

And the one that has not yet arrived: Islamic Caliphate

The 8th and Final Empire is the Beast Empire of the Anti-Christ

17:11 The beast that was, and is not, is himself an eighth king and yet is one of the seven, and is going to destruction.

So here he's saying the ID of the 8th Empire can be determined this way

- The 8th Empire comes from one of the previous 7, BUT NOT THE ONE THAT "IS". Meaning, The Beast Empire will be one of the past empires but not the Roman Empire.. because that is the one that "is"

No one ever took the throne away from the 7th Empire.. In all the previous transitions , the new empire took over from the old.

No empire took over from the 7th... that means the 8th empire is the 7th empire resurgent...

The Beast Empire is a new Islamic Caliphate risen from the ashes of the one that ended in the 1900s.

 17:12 The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but will receive ruling authority as kings with the beast for one hour.

Egypt had 1 horn, Assyria had 1, Babylon 1, Greece 4, Rome 1. That's 8.

Islam is broken up into Sunni and Shia sects.

Initially there will be two competing Caliphates.. referred to in the Bible as the Kings of the North and the Kings of the South. There will be a power struggle and the Mahdi/Antichrist will unite the two factions into one faction.

[Note: I am not very confident in that interpretation]

The 8th Empire will then be compromised of all seats of power of the previous 7 Empires. Memphis, Babylon, Constantantople. As well as reconquer Jerusalem.


And just like Mystery Babylon, Islam is both a political operation and a spiritual religion.

Islam is the only religion ever to occupy all of the 7 Empires at the same time.