Lamentation

This is the nation possessed by Coyote!

This is the nation that's gnawed off three legs
and is still in the trap and
wonders what trap you're talking about.

This is the nation that
took the loot to the drive-in
and spent it right away and
thinks that's an alibi.

This is the nation that insists
it didn't do it
and you can't prove a thing.

Alas, Babylon!
It's been fun!

And Now The Part We've All Been Waiting For

Revelation 18:

After this I saw another angel coming down from Heaven, having great authority; and the Earth was made bright with his splendor. And he called out in a mighty voice:

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
It has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit,
a haunt of every foul and hateful bird;
for all nations have drunk the wine of her impure passion
and the kings of the Earth have committed fornication with her,
and the merchants of the Earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness.

Then I heard another voice from Heaven, saying:

Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
for her sins are heaped up high as Heaven
and God has remembered her iniquities.
Render to her as she herself has rendered,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed.
As she glorified herself and played the wanton,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning.
Since in her heart she says, 'A Queen I sit!
I am no widow; mourning I shall never see!'
so shall her plagues come in a single day--
pestilence and mourning and famine--
and she shall be burned with fire,
for mighty is the Lord God
who judges her.

And the kings of the Earth, who committed fornication and were wanton with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say:

Alas! Alas! thou great city,
thou mighty city, Babylon!
In one hour has thy judgement come.

And the merchants of the Earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses, and chariots, and slaves--that is, human souls!

The fruit for which thy soul longed
has gone from thee, and all thy dainties and thy splendor
are lost to thee, never to be found again!

The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud:

Alas, alas, for the great city
that was clothed in fine linen,
in purple and scarlet,
bedecked with gold, with jewels and with pearls!
In one hour all this wealth has been laid waste!

And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning: "What city was like the great city!?"

And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out:

Alas, alas for the great city
where all who had ships at sea
grew rich by her wealth!
In one hour she has been laid waste!
Rejoice over her, o Heaven,
o saints and apostles and prophets
for God has given judgment for you
against her!

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and threw it down into the sea, saying:

So shall Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence
and shall be found no more;
and the sound of harpers and minstrels,
of flute players and trumpeters
shall be heard in thee no more;
and a craftsman of any craft
be found in thee no more;
and the voice of bridegroom and bride
shall be heard in thee no more;
for thy merchants were the great men of the Earth;
and all nations were deceived by thy sorcery.

And in her was found
the blood of prophets and saints
and of all who have been slain on Earth.

Revelation 17.15->

And he said to me, "The waters that you saw, where the harlot is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and devour her flesh and burn her to ashes, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by making common cause and giving over their royal power to the beast, until all the words of God shall be fulfilled. And tthe woman that you see is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the Earth."

More To This...

That last passage pretty much reduced me to bewilderment.

However, it makes a little more sense as translated in the New English version, in which our king who was, and is not, and is to climb out of the bottomless pit on its way to perdition... becomes one who has died, vanished that is into the pit of nonexistence, but will be resurrected to Get His as of the Judgment.

According to Malina & Pilch's _Social Science Commentary_ it makes lots of sense in astrological terms, ie as Jupiter, = Baal/Adonis, who "annually disappears during the dry season, only to emerge with the autumn rains," his reappearance being a marvel to "his devotees, that is those persons not listed in the scroll of life 'from the foundation of the world.' Those listed in the scroll of life are not astonished, since they know the God of Israel who raised Jesus from the dead is in charge."

There's also a mention of a mysterious eighth planet, the Ogdoad, for whatever that may be worth. It "marks completion, fullness, totality." A website I just meandered through describes this as like an eighth note to the scale that is somehow a recurrance of the first. In any event "...The destruction of the cosmic Sea Beast marks completion of whatever process is going on."

The significance for the writer is not just what's in the astrological sky, but what that implies for God's doings on Earth. We're getting not just allegory about his contemporary rulers, but an impression of something archetypal, a How Things Are in a wider sense. Thus Malina&Pilch see this whole section (back through the Plagues) as being about the Flood & its aftermath. "The link with the pre-Flood period is the founder of Babel/Babylon, Nimrod, a post-Flood giant." They quote the Targums about Nimrod as "'a man mighty in sin and in rebellion against the Lord on the Earth'.... "And thus began Babel's harlotry, a code word for blasphemous idolatry."

Anyway, the upshoot of all this is a vision of Venus, patron diety of Babylon in the Hellenistic period, female both as an evening star, and as a personification of a city. Her Canaanite version, Anatu, was a fierce war goddess, appropriately called "drunk with blood" as was commonly said of conquerers (God in at least one passage) as the protective diety of Babylon. Her cup, raised in a toast, was a common depiction of dieties bestowing their blessings, and the "abominations" associated with it "of course were essential elements in the worship" of that goddess.

Can we take "Babylon" as code for "Rome," as Jews of this period were known to diplomatically put their opinion of that city? Probably, but the fact that this can resonate in my mind with "Washington" is another sign that we're talking about a recurring theme.

There are differences. In their chapter 'The Ancient City', Malina & Plilch say:

"It is difficult, if not impossible, for most modern Bible readers to understand what the ancient city was. The reason... is that Euro-American society is a global society, rooted in urbanized countries. The ancient world was always rural, and ancient cities were ruralized central places.... The first century Mediterranean civitas or polis... was really a large, central place in which properly pedigreed, well-born farmers and ranchers displayed and employed their unbelievable wealth in competition for honor among each other. Largeholders... found it in their interests to live near other largeholders in central places that likewise provided them with organized force (an army) to protect their interests from the vast masses of other persons....

"Imperial central cities were always characterized by violence against the surrounding majority from whom elites sought to extract taxes. This was a subsistence economy, so there was no surplus. All taxes were a form of extortion. No taxes ever really benefitted the taxed population. The Roman architectural contribution revealing the city's dedication to violence against the outgroup was the amphitheater--a structure built solely for the ingroup's enjoyment of physical pain, torture, mutilation and death of the outgroup..."

Another difference, even from Rome, is that a "Greco-Roman City" was differently conceived by its inhabitants than a "Middle Eastern City" like Babylon or Jerusalem. A Greco-Roman city was founded by a hero or group of heros, by marking off its territory. Deities, though they belonged in the picture, might be invoked, but the public liturgies would honor exemplary citizens. Residents were held together by a contractual set of legally binding duties, their taxes were for the benefit of the city elite and the purpose of it all was "the well-being of the citizenry."

A Middle Eastern city would be founded by a diety, by the establishment of the appropriate temple. "Political religion is dependent on the diety taking up residence at a given place with his chosen servants... "Residents are those dedicated to the deity, that is, servants of the deity and slaves of the deity, with the king as main representative and (son) servant of the diety." Government was theocratic, for the well-being of the central deity.

It seems to me that in Jerusalem you had a Middle-Eastern city with a compassionate and ethical diety, concerned for the well-being of the inhabitants. The city elite liked the Greco-Roman idea of it all being for their benefit--but to the pious and the not-so-elite the more humanistic concept was intrinsically blasphemous, especially when the rulers of Rome took up deification as an alternate way of combining the two urban concepts.

And us, today? Back to Babel with Greco-Roman ideology. A plague of microNimbrods. Courts of "due process." "For the people" long translated to "government of the non-elite, by the elite, now shamelessly for the elite." Public projects carried out by people who know they can't perform their supposed function. A vast secular priesthood devoted to instilling the worship of material wealth and destructive power. Elimination of any place for a subsistence existence--that much difference from "the Ancient City"--but the defacto difference may be roughly that between being a chicken in a traditional chicken yard, and living in a nice modern cage facility.

Revelation 17.7-14

When I saw her I marveled greatly.

But the angel said to me, "Why marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.

"The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and got to perdition. And the dwellers on Earth whose names have not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, will marvel to behold the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.

"This calls for a mind with wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen. One is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while.

"As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to perdition. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.

"These are of one mind, and give over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.