a race (as of the same habit) · noun — nominative plural neuter
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
tongues
γλῶσσαι.glōssai
G1100
the tongue · noun — nominative plural feminine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Revelation 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the…
Isaiah 8:7-8 Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory:…
Jeremiah 51:13 O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness.
Jeremiah 51:55 Because the LORD hath spoiled Babylon, and destroyed out of her the great voice; when her waves do roar like great waters, a noise of their…
Psalms 65:7 Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.
Psalms 93:3-4 The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.
Jeremiah 51:42 The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.
Revelation 10:11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Revelation 17:14–end
Here we have some account of the downfall of Babylon, to be more fully described in the following chapter.
I. Here is a war begun between the beast and his followers, and the Lamb and his followers. The beast and his army, to an eye of sense, appear much stronger than the Lamb and his army: one would think an army with a lamb at the head of them could not stand before the great red dragon. But,
II. Here is a victory gained by the Lamb: The Lamb shall overcome. Christ must reign till all enemies be put under his feet; he will be sure to meet with many enemies, and much opposition, but he will also be sure to gain the victory.
III. Here is the ground or reason of the victory assigned; and this…
(Rev 17:1; Isa 8:7.) An impious parody of Jehovah who "sitteth upon the flood" [ALFORD]. Also, contrast the "many waters" Rev 19:6, "Alleluia."
peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues--The "peoples," &c., here mark the universality of the spiritual fornication of the Church. The "tongues" remind us of the original Babel, the confusion of tongues, the beginning of Babylon, and the first commencement of idolatrous apostasy after the flood, as the tower was doubtless dedicated to the deified heavens. Thus, Babylon is the appropriate name of the harlot. The Pope, as the chief representative of the harlot, claims a double supremacy over all peoples, typified by the "two swords" accord…
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues - "So many words," Bishop Newton observes, "in the plural number, fitly denote the great extensiveness of her power and jurisdiction. She herself glories in the title of the Catholic Church, and exults in the number of her votaries as a certain proof of the true religion. Cardinal Bellarmin's first note of the true Church is, the very name of the Catholic Church; and his fourth note is, amplitude, or multitude, and variety of believers; for the truly Catholic Church, says he, ought not only to comprehend all ages, but likewise all places, all nations, all kinds o…
The Church Fathers
He says "the waters" on which "the prostitute sits are peoples and nations", on which the city, that is, holds the kingdom.
Christ, who teaches and shows that the people of the Gentiles were coming into that place that the Jews had lost and that we were arriving afterward through the merit of faith, made wine from water, that is, he showed that the people of the Gentiles rather would resort together and come to the nuptials of Christ and of his church when the Jews were leaving. For the divine Scripture declares in the Apocalypse that the waters signify the peoples, saying, "The waters that you saw on which that harlot sits are peoples and crowds and nations of the heathen and tongues." We perceive that this is actually also contained in the sacrament of the chalice. For because Christ, who bore our sins, also bore us all, we see that people are signified in the water, but in the wine the blood of Christ is shown. But when water is mixed with wine in the chalice, the people are united to Christ, and the multitude of the believers is bound and joined to him in whom they believe. This association and mingling of water and wine are so mixed in the chalice of the Lord that the mixture cannot mutually be separated. Whence nothing can separate the church, that is, the multitude established faithfully and firmly in the church, persevering in that which it has believed, from Christ as long as it clings and remains in undivided love. But thus, in the consecrating of the chalice of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, nor can wine alone. For if anyone offers wine alone, the blood of Christ begins to be without us. If, in truth, the water is alone, the people begin to be without Christ. But when both are mixed and, in the union, are joined to each other and mingled together, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is completed.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Antichrist — Against Christ, or an opposition Christ, a rival Christ. The word is used only by the apostle John. Referring to false teachers, he says (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7), “Even now are there many…
Harlot — (1.) Heb. zonah (Gen. 34:31; 38:15). In verses 21, 22 the Hebrew word used in kedeshah, i.e., a woman consecrated or devoted to prostitution in connection with the abominable worship of Asherah or…
Horn · SYMBOLI — SYMBOLI
Water · SYMBOLI — SYMBOLI
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And he saith unto me,.... That is, the angel, who proposed to give John the interpretation of the vision, he went on with it as follows:
the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth; see Gill on Revelation 17:1,
are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues; denoting the vast multitude of people, of which the several kingdoms, of divers languages, consist, which belong to the jurisdiction of Rome Papal: it is an eastern way of speaking, and is particularly used to express the various kingdoms, and infinite number of people belonging to the Babylonish monarchy, which was an emblem of the antichristian state, Daniel 3:4 and these are compared to waters, to many waters; which…
While the prostitute rules over the masses, it does not bring her victory. Instead, the beast hates and kills the great prostitute. Satan strikes even those he uses for his evil purposes.
