Reading Revelation 17 as Symbolic Prophecy With Concrete Meaning

Revelation 17 communicates through symbols, but the symbols are not empty poetry. They convey realities about political power, false worship, moral corruption, and divine judgment. The chapter presents a woman described as “Babylon the Great,” portrayed as a prostitute who sits on a beast, intoxicates the nations, and claims a kind of world-dominating influence. The beast and its horns represent political power structures that carry and support the woman for a time, then turn on her. The point is not to entertain imagination. The point is to reveal how Jehovah will bring judgment upon a corrupt religious-moral power that has seduced the nations.

Within that symbolic structure, Revelation 17:16-17 states: “And the ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the prostitute, and they will make her devastated and naked, and they will eat up her flesh and burn her completely with fire. For God put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose, to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.”

This is the text the question targets: who are “their,” and what did God put into “their hearts”?

Who Are “Their”?

The nearest antecedent in the text is explicit: “the ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast.” The phrase “their hearts” in verse 17 refers to the horns—identified earlier as ten kings who receive authority for a short time and act with one mind (Revelation 17:12-13). These kings are not pictured as godly rulers. They are rulers who align themselves with the beastly political power. The beast itself symbolizes a broader political system that stands in opposition to God’s rule. The kings are the component rulers or political powers that, for a time, coordinate their authority within that beastly system.

So “their” refers to those political rulers and powers symbolized by the ten horns, acting in concert with the beast. The text emphasizes unity: “one mind,” “one thought.” The rulers and the beast system cooperate to attack the prostitute. Their unity is not righteousness. It is coordinated hostility. Yet it becomes the instrument of Jehovah’s judgment upon Babylon the Great.

What Is “It” That God Put Into Their Hearts?

Verse 17 states two closely related ideas. God put into their hearts “to carry out His purpose,” and specifically “to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.” The “it” is not a new moral heart implanted in wicked rulers. It is a divinely directed outcome: Jehovah ensures that their political calculations, ambitions, and fears converge into a unified action that accomplishes His judgment against the prostitute.

The language “God put it into their hearts” does not mean Jehovah approves of their cruelty as cruelty. It means Jehovah, as Sovereign, can govern the boundaries and direction of human power so that even rebellious rulers end up serving His judicial purposes. Scripture elsewhere shows the same kind of truth without blurring moral responsibility. Jehovah can raise up a ruler for His purposes, and He can also bring that ruler down. He can allow hardened hearts to run their course, and He can restrain or remove restraint at decisive moments. The rulers still choose what they love: power, dominance, survival, advantage. Jehovah ensures that their choices do not derail His declared outcomes.

So the “it” is the impetus, the strategic resolve, the unified political will to turn on Babylon the Great and strip her of power, support, and wealth. The kings and the beast had previously supported her, carried her, benefited from her influence, and used her for legitimacy and control. But the text says they will come to hate her. That hatred becomes the engine of destruction: devastation, exposure, consumption, burning. Jehovah uses their hatred as the instrument of His judgment.

How Can God Use Wicked Rulers Without Becoming the Author of Wickedness?

The verse forces readers to think clearly about sovereignty and responsibility. Revelation does not invite the reader to excuse the beast or the horns as though they are righteous agents. The beast remains beastly. The horns remain worldly rulers who, in other contexts, oppose the holy ones and blaspheme God. Yet Jehovah’s supremacy is such that He can direct the flow of history so that wicked power destroys wicked religion, and then Jehovah judges the wicked political power as well.

The moral structure is this: Jehovah judges Babylon the Great for her corruption and bloodguilt, and He uses one wicked instrument to punish another wicked entity, without endorsing the instrument’s wicked character. The instrument is accountable to Jehovah for its own acts. Revelation later shows that political powers do not escape judgment simply because they were used as a tool.

The phrase “until the words of God are fulfilled” is the anchor. History is not random. It is not governed by human propaganda. Jehovah’s declared judgment will stand. When the time comes, the rulers’ “one thought” will converge into action, and their authority will be consolidated toward the beastly system’s final aims, all under the boundary line Jehovah has drawn. Their hearts are not sanctified. Their hearts are steered toward a particular course that accomplishes the judgment Jehovah has foretold.

Why the Text Emphasizes “One Thought”

Revelation 17 repeatedly stresses coordinated unity among political powers. The ten kings “have one thought” and “give their power and authority to the beast” (17:13). Verse 17 repeats it: “to carry out their one thought.” This repetition reveals a key aspect of the final judgment: it will not be a scattered set of local events that can be explained away as unrelated. It will be a unified movement of political will that results in the collapse of Babylon the Great’s influence.

In practical terms, false religion’s strength has often come from its ability to secure patronage, protection, and legitimacy from political powers. Revelation portrays a reversal: the very powers that once used religion will turn on it. When that reversal becomes unified—“one thought”—the prostitute is finished. The unity itself is part of the judgment. It signals that the time for Babylon’s seduction has ended and that Jehovah has decreed her fall.

What Babylon the Great Represents in the Flow of Revelation

The woman is not merely “immorality” in the abstract. She is an organized, influential, global religious-moral force that corrupts and intoxicates nations. Revelation identifies her as “Babylon the Great,” evoking the Old Testament theme of Babylon as the center of idolatry, arrogance, and opposition to God. In Revelation, the prostitute embodies false worship that sells itself to political power, uses wealth and splendor to seduce, and persecutes or corrupts true worship.

The judgment of Babylon the Great is thus a judgment on religion that has become a tool of the world rather than submission to God. The prostitute’s “fornication” in Revelation is spiritual unfaithfulness—alliances, compromises, and idolatrous loyalties. The political rulers, however, do not turn on her because they suddenly love truth. They turn on her because, at that point, their interests demand it. Jehovah ensures that their interests align with His declared judgment. That is what it means that God “put it into their hearts.”

The Practical Warning for Christians

Revelation 17 is not only a prediction. It is a warning. It teaches Christians never to trust political power as a savior, and never to trade faithfulness for protection. It also teaches that false religion’s apparent stability is temporary. A system can look untouchable because it has patrons and alliances. But when Jehovah’s judgment arrives, those alliances become the means of collapse.

Christians guided by the Spirit-inspired Word recognize that the decisive dividing line is loyalty to God and Christ, not membership in religious institutions that seek prestige, state favor, or cultural approval. The fall of Babylon the Great is not merely the fall of “some other people.” It is a summons to separate from spiritual corruption, to refuse entanglement, and to cling to truth.

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