3 Bible Tips: Babylon
From Genesis to Revelation, Babylon represents the city that opposes the plan of God.
1. Babylon had its roots in the humanistic approach of the Tower of Babel where people rejected God's commands.
"As the people migrated eastward, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there...
"'Let's build a great city with a tower that reaches to the skies—a monument to our greatness! This will bring us all together and keep us from scattering all over the world'" (Genesis 11:2, 4, New Living Translation; see Genesis 9:1 where God had told them to "fill the earth").
2. Babylon, the literal empire that conquered Judah, was also a type of Satan's spiritual kingdom.
"That you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say: 'How the oppressor has ceased, the golden city ceased!'...
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High'" (Isaiah 14:4, 12-14).
3. The evil end-time Babylon will be destroyed at the return of Jesus Christ.
"And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, 'Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.'
"And I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities'" (Revelation 18:2-5).
For more about Babylon, see "Satan's War Against God's People" and "The Two Women of Revelation" from the free booklet The Book of Revelation Unveiled.