Page:Darby - Notes on the Book of Revelations, 1839.djvu/147

 is spoken of in the Old Testament; but this is not its character here—she rides the beast. In the Old Testament she is never, accordingly, spoken of as committing fornication; for in a certain sense, though perhaps, through him, an evil one, she belonged to the king of the earth: he had made her end builded her for his majesty and his glory;—here she rides on the beast, using him, though afterwards hated and impoverished, &c. by the ten kings. Babylon, of old, had deceived the nations by the multitude of her sorceries and her enchantments; but that is another thing:—evil or good, she belonged to the king of Babylon; she rose by him, and fell with him:—here she has no king, but lives in evil, her own mistress, with the kings of the earth. Israel was an adulteress, not Babylon, then.