Brief Table of Symbols of Revelation 17
| Symbol | Interpretation | References |
| Abyss | Prison - the abyss is the same as the bottomless pit | Revelation 9:1-3; 20:1-3, 7; note that the bottomless pit is defined in Revelation 9 as a prison and this is clarified and reinforced in Revelation 20. |
| Angel | Messenger of God | Daniel 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26; Hebrews 1:14; Revelation 14:6-11, 22:16 |
| Ministers of the churches (human) | Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18, 3:1, 7, 14 | |
| Jesus | Revelation 10:1 | |
| Deliverers of God's judgments | Revelation 16:2, 4 | |
| Protectors of God's people | Daniel 6:22; Revelation 7:1-2 | |
| Satan | Revelation 9:11 | |
| Destructive men | Revelation 9:15 | |
| Babylon | False, apostate Christian Religion | Genesis 10:8-10, 11:6-9; Jeremiah 51:44, 47, 52; Revelation 18:2, 3, 17:1-5, 4:1 (Babylon of Revelation must be about the future after John's time, so must be Christian and cannot refer to just any false, apostate religion or religions prior to the rise of Christianity) |
| Beast (the body of a beast, not including its heads and horns) |
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Daniel 2:37-39; 7:17, 23-24; 8:20-22 (note the priority order in which the definitions occur - it is consistent). See notes for references of the heads and horns. Heads, horns, and beasts all represent exactly the same things. The only difference is that the body of a beast represents history before the heads, and heads represents history before that of horns, so the horns come last in history. |
| Daughters (implied in Revelation 17) | The woman of Revelation 17 is a mother of harlots, which implies that she has daughters. When applied to churches, it represents Christian Churches that have split from another church for reasons usually involving differences in beliefs. | If the woman is a church, then the daughters must also be churches. Since daughters are born from the mother, this implies that the churches have split, most logically because of differences in beliefs. |
| Desert (usually translated as wilderness) | A type of prison in which a power is restrained. Is not a literal, physical prison with actual bars and locked doors. | Revelation 9:1-3; 20:1-3, 7, 17:3, 8; note that the woman and the beast are in the wilderness and come out of the bottomless pit (a prison), so the wilderness is a bottomless pit or a prison |
| Desolate | To be stripped of wealth and destroyed | Revelation 18:19 |
| Earth | Nations or kingdoms (either is acceptable). For the dragon and woman of Revelation 12, this means they are among the nations, not that they control them or own them. | Compare Revelation 17:2 with Daniel 7:17 and realize that the kings in Daniel 7:17 are the political leaders of the nations. Therefore, they are the kings of the nations or kingdoms and earth symbolizes nations or kingdoms which the kings lead. |
| Specifically for the earth beast of Revelation 13, it rises from the earth, which still means nations or kingdoms in that application. The earth beast does not rise out of waters, meaning that it does not rise from where nations, peoples, tongues, and multitudes are, but rather where there is an absence of them. Yet earth means nations, so it rises from the nations. This may not seem logical because how can there be nations without the other things? But, it can be if the nations come from elsewhere. Thus, this is telling us that the earth beast rises in a place without prior nations against which this power must struggle to come into existence. It indirectly tells us that it arises through immigration. This can apply only to America because of the timing and the mode of rise of it. | Revelation 13 | |
| Eat her flesh | Take her things from her and destroy whatever remains, normall done only in desperate circumstances | Revelation 19:18 - is literal, but the woman is not literal, so must refer to symbolic eating of her flesh, the things she consists of, so must refer to the taking of these things from her and destruction of anything else remaining |
| Fallen | A line of kings is no longer in power because a city has fallen into enemy hands | Isaiah 21:9 - used to describe the fall of Babylon and as with any city that has fallen, its king is no longer in power. This means that no more kings of that line will die. |
| Christ has been replaced as the head of a Christian Church by Satan and, as as a visible sign of this change, the churche turns to legal means to prosecute people for "heresy" | Revelation 18:1-3 - Babylon (representing the Christian Churches, becomes the habitation of demons, so no longer follow Christ and begin to persecute as a result) | |
| Fire, burn her with | To destroy those who are the leaders of the woman (the city she represents) and to destroy their property. Fire destroys so this is death for those who are "burned". | Revelation 18:8; 20:9 |
| Forehead | Mind | Romans 7:25; Ezekiel 3:8, 9 |
| Fornication | Improper reliance of the church upon the civil leaders for things the church should not have, illicit connection between leaders of church & leaders of government | Ezekiel 16:15, 26; Isaiah 23:17; James 4:4; Revelation 14:4 |
| Garments | Covering of righteousness from God | Genesis 35:2, Isaiah 61:10: Isaiah 52:1; Zechariah 3:3-5; Romans 13:14 |
| Covering of our own righteousness which is as filthy rags (if the covering is not from God) | Isaiah 64:6, Matthew 22 (will not get us into heaven) | |
| Harlot | False, apostate Christian Church (this cannot refer to just any religion at any point in time but must refer to the future of John's time - see Revelation 4:1) | Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1-3, 6-9; Ezekiel 16 |
| Heads |
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Daniel 2:37-39; 7:17, 23-24; 8:20-22 (note the priority order in which the definitions occur - it is consistent and for a reason - the king definition should always be considered first). Compare Daniel 8:20 to Daniel 7:5 and note that the horns of the ram in Daniel 8:20 are the same as the bear of Daniel 7:5. Also, compare Daniel 8:21 to Daniel 7:6 and note that the great horn of the goat is the same as the body of the leopard in Daniel 7:6. Thus, heads, horns, and beasts represent the same thing, so the horns come last in history. |
| Horns |
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Daniel 2:37-39; 7:17, 23-24; 8:20-22 (note the priority order in which the definitions occur - it is consistent and for a reason - the king definition should always be considered first). Compare Daniel 8:22 to 7:6 and note that the four horns of the goat in Daniel 8 are the same as the four leopard heads in Daniel 7. Thus, heads, horns, and beasts represent the same thing, so the horns come last in history. |
| Is of the seven (Revelation 17:11) | This means "to come out of or from", so because the seven heads are the seven kings (representing the founders of each line of kings by name) and are Papal, this means that the 8th king will start as one of the seven kings (one of the seven names) and will become the 8th king when he gets the power to be the beast (meaning he gets the legal power to prosecute people for heresy) and changes his name, apparently as a result of his new status that will come to him then. | Revelation 17:11; Daniel 7:6, 17, 23 - 25; 8:21 - 22 (consider that the four heads of the leopard or the four horns of the goat are four kings, so are the four generals, by name, who took over Alexander's kingdom). |
| Judgment | Investigations in courts of law are normally done in three steps:
The woman is judged as a harlot and is destroyed by burning, which can only be done for the daughter of a priest who turns to harlotry. Therefore, she is the daughter of a priest. The Bible shows examples of God investigating things for the benefit of the angels and beings on other worlds, such as personally questioning Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eve. He knew what had happened and did not need to do this, so could only have done so for the benefit of others in heaven and on other world, including those he investigated. |
Leviticus 21:9; Revelation 17:1, 16 |
| Kings | Daniel - Kings who arise from the earth | Political kings, leaders of the nations |
| Daniel - Diverse King | Religious kings, meaning their authority is primarily in the religious sphere of things rather than civil power | |
| Revelation 17 - Kings of the earth | Political kings, leaders of the nations | |
| Revelation 17 - Kings | Religious kings, meaning their authority is primarily in the religious sphere of things rather than civil power | |
| Lamb | Jesus, sacrifice | John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:7; Genesis 22:7, 8 |
| Merchants of the earth | Business Leaders who promote the interests of the woman of Revelation 17 and sell things to her | Revelation 18:11-13, 14-19, 23 |
| Mountains | Many in the days of Babylon considered a mountain to be a symbol of the dwelling place of a the gods. Similar ideas were held by the Jews because many references to mountains in the Bible are associated with gods or their worship. The mountain that the stone of Daniel 2 grows into contains 3 real divine beings, so it can be seen both as a religious kingdom and as a dwelling place for the divine beings. | Daniel 2:34, 35, 44, 9:16, 20; Jeremiah 51:25, 44, 47 |
| Religious kingdom - God's kingdom is primarily religious in nature rather than nonreligious because it originates with God, not man, and is governed exclusively by God himself. His laws are religious in nature rather than nonreligious. | Daniel 2:34, 35, 44 | |
| Nakedness | Natural, sinful state | Matthew 22:1-14, Ezekiel 16:36-43; Revelation 3:17-18, 16:15 |
| One hour | This seems to refer to a short time period and is neither literal time nor symbolic prophetic time (which would be about 15 days). Literal time makes no sense and neither does symbolic prophetic time because both are too short to accomplish the stated purpose for them to have power and finally realize that they need the help of the beast to accomplish their objective (which is the reason they turn their power and authority over to the beast - they realize they are not doing the job well enough). Their objective is to force the people of God to worship the beast (obey the beast). They will do anything to accomplish that objective, including inflicting torture and death. | Revelation 18:17, 19 |
| Pearls | Things of God | Revelation 21:21 |
| Gospel | Matthew 13:45-46 | |
| Precious stones | Things of God (such as the city of God or the temple of God) or appertaining to God himself | Exodus 24:10, 25:7, 28:17-21, Revelation 4:3, 21:11, 19 |
| Royalty (crowns of kings) | 2 Samuel 12:30 | |
| Great wealth | 2 Chronicles 32:27 | |
| Works of a person | 1 Corinthians 3:11-12 | |
| prostitute | Same as a harlot. False, apostate Christian Church (this cannot refer to just any religion at any point in time but must refer to the future of John's time - see Revelation 4:1) | Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1-3, 6-9; Ezekiel 16 |
| Purple (color) | Things of God, temple of God, God's presence, access to God and access to salvation | Exodus 26:36, 28:6, 8, 15, 36:37 |
| Receive power | A church obtains legal authority to prosecute people for heresy. Note that the 10 horns receive power with the beast - meaning at the same time. Thus, when the beast rises again by receiving legal power to prosecute people for heresy, the 10 horns should come to power at the same time by the same means. | Daniel 7:25 (they shall be given into his hand) |
| Scarlet (color) | Things of God, temple of God, God's presence, access to God and access to salvation | Exodus 26:36, 28:6, 8, 15, 36:37 |
| Seven Heads (of the sea beast of Revelation 13 and scarlet beast of Revelation 17) and seven heads of the dragon | Seven Papal lines of kings occurring after 1798. The seven heads on the beasts in Revelation 13 and 17 are divided by name (Gregory, Leo, Benedict, Pius, John, Paul, John Paul) just as the four heads of the leopard in Daniel 7 are divided by the names of their founders (Cassander, Lysimachus. Seleucus, Ptolemy) | The seven heads have blasphemy on them, which means they claim to be God and claim to be able to forgive sins against God's laws, both of which only the Papacy claims to have the power to do. The body represents time from 538 to 1798, so the seven heads must represent time beginning in 1798. See Matthew 9:1-8, 26:61-66. The dragon's seven heads are the same as those of the sea beast of Revelation 13 and the scarlet beast of Revelation 17 (the dragon secondarily represents Rome so the heads and horns on it must be an outgrowth of Rome) |
| Sit (or sitteth in the KJV) or sitting | This indicates to sit in a position of authority or power over others. When the woman sits upon the waters, she sits in power and authority over the nations because Revelation 17:18 says she has a kingdom over the kings of the earth, who, as rulers over the nations, thereby give her authority over the people within the nations. This is true only so long as she sits upon the waters. When she goes to the desert and sits upon the 7 heads of the beast, she is no longer sitting on the waters and the 7 heads are said to be kings, not kings of the earth. Thus, during this time in the desert, she no longer has authority over either the kings of the earth or the people of the nations. | Proverbs 21:23 is an example of sitting in a position in authority. 1 Kings 1:35 is an example of a king sitting on his throne, which is a symbol of his position and authority. Revelation 18:7; 19:4; 20:4, 11; 21:5 |
| Waters | Peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues | Revelation 17:15 |
| Whore | Same as a harlot. False, apostate Christian Church (this cannot refer to just any religion at any point in time but must refer to the future of John's time - see Revelation 4:1) | Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1-3, 6-9; Ezekiel 16 |
| Wilderness | Prison | Revelation 9:1-3; 20:1-3, 7, 17:3, 8; note that the woman and the beast are in the wilderness and come out of the bottomless pit (a prison), so the wilderness is a bottomless pit or a prison |
| Wine | Falses doctrines or teachings | Daniel 5:2-4, 23; Jeremiah 25:15-18, 51:7 |
| Jesus' blood of atonement | Matthew 26:21-29 | |
| Wine of her fornication | As a phrase, it means false teachings, especially her doctrine that she has the right to punish those who disobey her religious laws which leads nations to like what she has to offer so that they become "drunk" (this means they are deceived by her) on it and do not use good judgment. | Revelation 17:2, 6, 14; 18:23 (note especially the phrase "for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived") |
| Wine of the wrath of God | As a phrase, it means punishment God inflicts on sinners | Revelation 14:10-11 |
| Wine of the wrath of her fornication | As a phrase, it means punishment or persecution the woman of Revelation 17 inflicts on others | Revelation 14:8 compared to similar phrase in Revelation 14:10 shows it means punishment |
| Woman, impure | False, apostate Christian Church of the New Testament era | Ezekiel 23:2-21; Revelation 14:4; Hosea 2:5; Hosea 3:1; Ezekiel 16:15-58 |
| She is the symbolic "daughter" of the pure woman of Revelation 12. | Revelation 17:1, 16; Leviticus 21:9; ask yourself these questions: she is burned because she is a prostitute which is prescribed in the law is if she is the daughter of a priest. Who is the nearest priest in Revelation (which answers the question of who is her father)? Who is his symbolic "wife" (which answers the question of who is her mother)? Therefore, the woman of Revelation 17 is the daughter of the woman of Revelation 12. |