The Great Harlot of Revelation: Introduction
By Noah and Anna McHugh
15 years ago, I followed one single verse from Isaiah down a literal rabbit hole.
I spent six years in the Navy doing Intelligence and Analysis which trained my brain to go digging and searching for answers and
clues that weren't out in the open for people to readily find. I stumbled across Isaiah 27: 9, and I could not foreshadow the literal journey that God would take me on as I unpacked the meaning. Ultimately, this whole passage is an End Times prophecy but in verse 9, a profound mystery unfolds:
Isaiah 27:9
Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces, no Asherim or sun pillars will remain standing.
We know Paul talked about the cultivated tree and the wild tree saying that if the original branches could be cut off of the original tree, then we being wild branches that were grafted on afterwards are much more in danger of the fire than the original branches.
Romans 11:17-21
If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
Isaiah 27 refers to Jacob and his great sin and how it's not going to be atoned for until the complete repentance of idolatry, the fruit being the removal of these images. It is kind of a conflict of interest because we know that Yeshua came and he died and he took away our sin, yet we see here that only when the people of Jacob completely turn away from all idolatry and their idols are all destroyed will their sins truly be removed. Our sin cannot be entirely erased until repentance takes place in our hearts and actions.
We, as believers, can simplify this concept by throwing it out, saying that “it already happened”, and avoiding all accountability as the people of God, whether grafted in or of the actual tree. But when you look around, you still see these images on every street corner AND in every home. During the beginning of this 15 year study, I lived in the United Kingdom. I would read about what these occult images were, and then sure enough, the images would be on every street as I walked past in cemeteries, government buildings and CHURCHES mostly.
It's really easy to just read over this verse because it is vague to our modern understanding. Almost all Bible translations are going to modify the word “Asherim” and “Sun Pillars” or obelisks, so it's even easier to read over nearly every mention of Israel’s idolatry written by the prophets because the words are skewed and vague in definition about what sacred pillars or Sacred Stones or carved images or idols are and what they represented to the religions of the nations surrounding Israel.
There is not a lot of definition given, but it specifically mentions “Asherim” and Sun images found directly in the Hebrew. So what are these images?
There's one additional verse a little further in the passage found in Isaiah 59 verse 1 and 2.
Isaiah 59:1-2
Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Until the sins that Israel committed are done away with and not continued anymore I.e. repenting for our rebellion and adulteries, we cannot be atoned for in completion. Yeshua can save us any time, but he doesn't forgive us for sins that we're currently partaking in.
This is not to say the grace and blood of Yeshua does not cover us, but we will not see the fullness of the fruit of that salvation until we do away with all idolatry. As much as we as believers want to pretend we have the same spiritual gifts and fullness of the fruit of salvation that the early church and apostles had, it is not there. Look around. Is anyone healing the sick or raising the dead by the hundreds? No, we are not. And not because Yeshua isn’t willing or capable of filling us with His Spirit again.
Know that these issues that I'm bringing up are not here to castigate anybody. The research that I have found was hidden from all of us for Millennia and it's been hidden purposely by the Serpent because he knew that if we knew what participation in these customs would cost us, believers wouldn't do it. He got us to secretly carry out a lot of these practices. A huge mistake we continue to make as believers is underestimating our opponent. If his strategies were so easy to detect, then the elect would not be deceived in Revelation. We have lost the meaning of idolatry purposely just as Balak asked Balaam to get Israel to sin so that they could um wipe them out in in combat. The exact same thing has happened with the people of God where the enemy knows that if we are obeying God's Word, we receive divine protection and blessing so he gets us to sin without knowing we are sinning. This keeps us from getting the full measure of our
protection.
The great Harlot of Revelation gives a lot of detail on that final Beast Kingdom, and why the idolatry is being judged.
This also gives insight that the idolatry spoken of in the major and minor prophets is just as relevant and important to believers in the End Times. Ultimately, this great Harlot is the thing keeping Israel from reaching the fullness and completion of Yeshua’s salvation (His Second coming and dwelling with us). That is why why it stuck in my cross so much because he's saying the full fruit of Israel's sin being taken away will be
He tells the end from the beginning, so I'm going to start in the end.
Revelation 17: 1-5
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”
Every single one of these descriptors are referring to Scripture we can assess and get better picture at what this very dense vision symbolizes.
We know the Great Harlot is:
The mother of prostitutes and abominations of the Earth Rev. 17:5
2. She rides the Beast the Nations that bow down to her and cultivated her worship so she sits in rulership and an authority of them.
3. She rides in authority the beast system with many different names and forms. She has many blasphemous names. Rev. 17:4. Names also imply many languages and tongues and the Harlot will be known throughout the world under different names
4. She comes out of the waters (waters meaning the peoples or nations). Rev. 17: 15 According to verse 15, the angel then tells John that ‘the waters’ symbolizes the peoples or nations.
The Mother of Abominations
What is an abomination in Scripture?
Deuteronomy 13: 16-17
They made him jealous with strange
Gods with Abominations they provoked him to anger they sacrificed to demons who
were not Gods to Gods whom they have not known New Gods who came lately who your fathers did not dread (In other translations demons is replaced with gods, idols, detestable things.)
Deuteronomy 7: 26
Do not bring any detestable objects into your home, for then you will be destroyed, just like them. You must utterly detest such things, for they are set apart for destruction.
If we are supposed to utterly detest abominations, but do not know what they are or look like, how then can we obey what God has commanded?
Ezekiel 8:5-6
Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and behold, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy. And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see still greater abominations.”
This is the first instance of the Abomination that causes desolation that you see in Scripture, and the verbiage in the language are the same as in Revelation. God is walking Ezekiel through the evils of Israel and what they are doing in the temple. Instead of worshiping him, they're worshiping all of these elements of death and worshiping all of the pagan gods. How will we be able to identify the Idol of Jealousy when it is placed in the Holy Place in End Times, if we do not know what an abomination is or looks like? God says to Ezekiel that because of the abominations which Israel is committing in His House, He must leave. This means God will not sanctify it even in His own House! This passage goes against the Christian structure that Yeshua will sanctify any customs of man. God himself left His own Temple, His own House, because of these abominations.
If the Father will leave His own Home, it's not a stretch by any means that He will leave our homes if we have these images in them.
Abominations are idols.
Therefore, if Revelation describes a great prostitute as the mother of all Abominations she is in fact the mother of all the gods or the idols. Idols steal the rightful worship from God which is the greatest which is the great crime that the Harlot stands in judgment for. If the Abominations are idols, then the prostitute's cup is filled with the idols of the earth and the the wine in that cup is the
blood sacrifices and worship that are conducted and given to this woman and all of her idols. Riding the beast with the Blasphemous names, she's depicted as being in authority over them.
“She rides a beast with many names.”
If the deity that we find is in fact The Prostitute of Revelation she will be a single goddess or idol known throughout the world and in Scripture. She will also be known by many names and this will point us to the great prostitute. The Bible explains that the harlot goes by so many names and have to look past the
names and look at the features, identifications and elements that this woman is known for in Revelation. She was the mother of all the idols which will lead us to one entity, no matter what religion or background. She will have to be in worldwide authority to this day otherwise she doesn't fit the prophecy of Revelation 17.
There are different embodiments of this great prostitute throughout Scripture, just as there are prophetic embodiments of Jesus through the lives of David, Moses and Joseph. The way those righteous men were used to paint a picture to say who Yeshua would be, there is also the inverse where the evil men and women in the Bible all paint a picture as to the final outcome fulfillment of that evil. The righteous paint the picture of the ultimate righteous who one to come, Yeshua, and all of the wicked line up to paint the picture of the ultimate Evil.
Jezebel is one of the primary comparisons and prophetic pictures of the great harlot that was to come.
She is the most obvious embodiment of the Great Harlot. This is not a stretch in the imagination considering that the Church of Thyatira is judged in Revelation 2 for having listened to her. We will examine this verse further along in the study.
1 Kings 16: 31-33
So Ahab took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
Ahab takes for his wife Jezebel, who was the daughter of Etbaal, King of the Sidonians, who is the high priest of Baal and she brings Baal and Asherah worship to all of Israel. Jezebel here is playing the part of the Great harlot prophetically. Her sins (idolatry and sexual immorality) recorded in First Kings line up directly with the sins described that the Harlot of the world is being judged for. The name Jezebel in Hebrew means “Baal has exalted” which is a Blasphemous name against Elohim. Jezebel incited King Ahab of Israel to bring Asherah and Baal idolatry to Israel on a national scale, and Jezebel led Israel into this idol worship in the same way that the great harlot leads the world into idol worship.
Jehu judges Jezebel’s sins
2 Kings 9: 22
And when Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace can there be, so long as the whoring and the sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many?”
The Harlot’s Judgement
Nahum 3:4-5
All because of the wanton lust of a prostitute, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.“I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame.
Judgement of the Church for following Jezebel
Revelation 2:20
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
In Revelation 2, Yeshua reprimands the church of Thyatira for following Jezebel along with her idolatry and sexual immorality. This passage in Revelation gives us a clear and uncharted vantage point. Yeshua was rebuking an ancient assembly, but also of one to come! This means we need to evaluate our worship and fruit, within our churches specifically. Believers will be judged for partaking in the idol worship. It is vital that we know what this worship entails and what it signifies, so that we don't partake. There is grace for deception, but there is only so much protection we can have when we align ourselves with unclean spirits and immoral acts. Natural consequences are inevitable.
David had natural consequences the entirety of his life after his egregious sins, even after God proclaimed his sins to forgiven. He still, however, had to adhere to the natural consequences of his actions. His family had disastrous suffering from his immorality. Sin, however great or small, brings conflict, pain and suffering into our lives. Grace has covered us, but carrying our cross entails that we submit to our testing, most of which is brought on by the natural ramifications of our transgressions to God.
Paul rejoiced in his suffering because he properly understood this concept of testing. Paul stoned and murdered many of the saints, and we see him later, being stoned and rejoicing over it. He was properly understanding the concept that every sin has a physical repercussion, even though we are forgiven for it. David sinned, was forgiven, and had physical consequences. Paul sinned, was forgiven, and had physical consequences. We are be redeemed by Yeshua’ s resurrection which covered our spiritual consequences. However, this doesn’t mean that we do not still have physical and natural repercussions for the sins we commit while we live on this earth.
Not only is it relevant to study what idolatry is and looks like, it is dire. Do we want Yeshua to come back to our church and be upset with how we applied His Gospel?
Through the prophetic significance of The Harlot’s counterpart Jezebel, deep perspective and insight into what the Harlot’s worship looks like in the modern era. Who did Jezebel worship? Baal and Asherah.
Since she led Israel in the worship of Baal and Asherah, examining what the worship of Baal and Asherah looked like is key to unlocking this mystery. In this next study, we will be examining Asherah worship.
What did the Asherah of the nations in the Bible look like? And why was God so enraged for Israel for following their worship?
Next chapter, these questions are answered and it gives profound discernment to the Great Harlot and how she seizes the worship of the world and authority of the Beast Kingdom of the Last Days. How does she continue to steal God’s worship today, both in and out of home and church?