What Does Revelation 17:18 Mean?
And the woman you perceive is that great city, which holds a kingdom over the kings of the earth.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.THE KEY
Rule here wears a human face: the woman is the city, and the city’s authority reaches the kings themselves.
THE MEANING
The woman is the great city, whose reach extends over the earth’s kings. Power is present in the governing city behind the visible rulers, as one embodied public force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that power stops at the people wearing crowns: the city behind them can govern the rulers themselves.
THE ROOT
βασιλείαν
basileian
GROWS FROM
βασιλ-
basil-
Kingship, sovereignty, or rule; in this verse, the Greek phrase is literally “having kingship” over the kings.
“kingdom” in this verse is basileian. The word translated “reigneth” belongs to the same word family as “king.” The verse presents the city’s rule as reaching the rulers who bear that title: their visible authority is not the highest power in view.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: A king or ruler.
βασιλεύς
This is the title echoed by the kings over whom the city has rule.
basileuō: To exercise kingship or rule.
βασιλεύω
This verb shares the kingship word family and makes the city’s authority an active rule.
πόλις
polis
GROWS FROM
πολι-
poli-
City and civic life; the word family describes both the place and the people belonging to it.
The city is more than a setting: its word family reaches into citizenship and the life of a civic body. Here that public order takes the form of a woman and exercises power over rulers.
ALSO GROWS
politēs: A member of a city or civic community.
πολίτης
It brings the people who make up a city into view beneath the image of the city itself.
politeuomai: To conduct oneself as part of a civic community.
πολιτεύομαι
It shows the city as a shared order of life, not just a collection of buildings.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives cities a woman’s identity to make their character and relation visible.
But the Jerusalem above is free; she is the mother of us all.And I, John, see the set-apart city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, made ready as a bride arranged for her husband.THE THREAD
As much as she gave herself weight and feasted, so much scourging and mourning give her; for she says in her heart, I sit as a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never encounter mourning.The Greek word for “queen” (βασίλισσα, basilissa) shares the βασιλ- (basil-) word family with βασιλείαν (basileian, “kingship, rule”) in this verse. Revelation 17:18 shows the city ruling over kings; here the same woman claims the title of queen.
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