What Does Revelation 17:2 Mean?
The kings of the earth have sold themselves to her, and those who settle upon the earth are made drunk with the wine of her harlotry.
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
With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.THE KEY
One corruption travels from the rulers’ sexual union to a whole earth made drunk by its wine.
THE MEANING
The verse shows kings joining the woman in sexual unfaithfulness and the earth’s inhabitants becoming intoxicated by the wine of that same unfaithfulness. Its reach moves from the rulers’ union to a population whose perception is clouded by its influence. The image speaks wherever corruption at the center spreads its intoxicating effect through the wider world.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the corruption of rulers stays at the summit; the verse shows its wine reaching the inhabitants of the whole earth.
THE ROOT
πορνεία
porneia
GROWS FROM
πορν-
porn-
The Greek word family for sexual immorality, including prostitution.
“harlotry” in this verse is porneia. The Greek repeats this family: the kings commit sexual unfaithfulness, and the wine itself comes from her unfaithfulness. What draws the rulers into union also becomes the intoxicating source for the wider world.
ALSO GROWS
porneuō: To commit sexual immorality.
πορνεύω
This is the verb used for what the kings do, linking their action directly to the noun that describes the wine’s source.
pornē: A prostitute.
πόρνη
This related word keeps the sexual imagery concrete: the woman’s influence is portrayed through an image of sexual commerce and unfaithfulness.
ἐμεθύσθησαν
emethysthēsan
GROWS FROM
μεθυ-
methy-
To be drunk or intoxicated.
“made drunk” in this verse is emethysthēsan. The verb is passive: the inhabitants are portrayed as receiving the intoxication from her wine. The related Greek word family spans becoming drunk and causing drunkenness, bringing the state and its influence into the same image.
ALSO GROWS
methyō: To be drunk or become intoxicated.
μεθύω
It names the state that overtakes the earth’s inhabitants in the verse.
methyskō: To make drunk or intoxicate.
μεθύσκω
This related verb makes the wine’s effect visible: the image includes not only drunkenness, but an influence that produces it.
THE PATTERN
A corrupting influence spreads like an intoxicating cup, drawing rulers and peoples into shared disorder.
Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD'S hand, that made all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations rave.Wine is a mocker, strong drink is roaring, and whoever reels in it is not wise.For all the nations have drunk from the wine of the seething of her selling herself, and the kings of the earth have sold themselves with her, and the traders of the earth have grown rich from the abundance of her feasts.THE THREAD
For all the nations have drunk from the wine of the seething of her selling herself, and the kings of the earth have sold themselves with her, and the traders of the earth have grown rich from the abundance of her feasts.The Greek repeats the same porneia family for the kings’ act and the source of the wine, and repeats the wine image itself. The next chapter makes the reach explicit: nations drink, kings join her, and merchants prosper through her abundance.
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