Babylon

Babylon (Greek form of the Semitic Bāb-ilu, "gate of God"; Hebrew Babel, linked by the text to balal, "to confuse") was the great city on the Euphrates in the plain of Shinar and the capital of the empire that destroyed Jerusalem and carried Judah into exile. More than any other place except Jerusalem itself, Babylon becomes in Scripture a theological symbol — the archetype of proud, God-defying human civilization, set in lasting opposition to the city of God.

Its story begins at the dawn of human history. In Shinar the descendants of Noah built a city and a tower "with its top in the heavens" to make a name for themselves, and the LORD confused their language and scattered them — "therefore its name was called Babel" (Genesis 11:9). Founded, by tradition, within the kingdom of Nimrod (Genesis 10:10), Babylon thus enters the Bible as the very emblem of collective pride reaching against heaven. It rose to imperial supremacy under Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605–562 BC), who rebuilt it into one of the wonders of the ancient world, with massive walls, the great ziggurat, and the hanging gardens.

The decisive biblical event is the Babylonian exile. Because of Judah's persistent covenant-breaking, God gave Jerusalem into Nebuchadnezzar's hand; the city and temple were destroyed in 587/586 BC and the people deported (2 Kings 25:8–11). Jeremiah foretold that the captivity would last seventy years before Babylon itself was punished (Jeremiah 25:11–12), yet urged the exiles to seek the welfare of the city of their captivity (Jeremiah 29:7). By the rivers of Babylon the exiles wept for Zion (Psalm 137:1). There Daniel and his companions served in a pagan court, and there the handwriting on the wall announced the kingdom's fall (Daniel 5:25–28); in 539 BC Babylon fell to Cyrus the Persian, whose decree the next year permitted the Jews to return (Ezra 1:1–3).

In the prophets, Babylon is both a literal empire and a moral symbol. Isaiah's oracles depict the fall of its arrogant king (Isaiah 13:19; Isaiah 14:4), and Jeremiah devotes two long chapters to its doom (Jeremiah 50:1–3). The New Testament takes up this symbolic charge: Peter sends greetings from "she who is at Babylon" (1 Peter 5:13), almost certainly a veiled name for Rome, and Revelation unveils "Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes" (Revelation 17:5) as the whole world-system of idolatry, luxury, and violence opposed to God — whose final overthrow is proclaimed, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great" (Revelation 18:2). Over against this doomed city stands the new Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb.