What Does Revelation 18:16 Mean?
And saying, Woe, woe, the great city, that was wrapped in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and gilded with gold, and precious stone, and pearls!
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 saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!THE KEY
The city’s magnificence is something thrown around it: even its most dazzling identity is a covering.
THE MEANING
You see a city whose grandeur is assembled on its surface: fine linen, purple, scarlet, gold, precious stones, and pearls. The doubled cry holds grief for a city so wrapped in display. Its splendor is visible, yet the word for being clothed presents it as something laid around the city.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that visible wealth proves a city is secure; even here, its glittering clothing appears inside a cry of grief.
THE ROOT
περιβεβλημένη
peribeblēmenē
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
ballō
to throw, cast, or put
“wrapped” in this verse is peribeblēmenē. The verb περιβάλλω (periballō, cast around) presents the city’s garments as material thrown over it: its grandeur surrounds it as an outer layer. The same root appears in ἐκβάλλω (ekballō, cast out), spanning what is put around and what is driven away.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: to cast, throw, or put
βάλλω
This is the seed within the word for being clothed: the finery is cast around the city.
ekballō: to cast out or drive away
ἐκβάλλω
The same root that can describe putting something around also appears in a word for casting something out, making the city’s covering feel like an outer layer rather than its substance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes clothing the visible sign of a figure’s splendor, while the source of that clothing changes what the splendor means.
And saying, Woe, woe, the great city, that was wrapped in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and gilded with gold, and precious stone, and pearls!But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his weight was wrapped as one of these.I will exult greatly in the LORD; my living soul shall leap in my God; for he has clothed me in garments of deliverance, he has wrapped me in the robe of alignment, as a bridegroom dons a headdress, and as a bride binds on her jewels.THE THREAD
But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his weight was wrapped as one of these.Matthew uses the same verb περιβάλλω (periballō, cast around) for the lilies’ clothing. Revelation’s city is wrapped in costly goods; Matthew’s lilies surpass Solomon’s glory, opening the shared image of being clothed while exposing different sources of splendor.
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