The Harlot Woman

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Rev. 17:3 “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.”

When we look at the “woman” in the scriptures we obviously start with Eve in the garden of Eden. She is a type of a bride. Further down in Genesis, we come to the story of Sarah, Abraham’s wife and Hagar. Paul in Galatians 4:22-31 says they symbolically speak of two Covenants. Hagar is a type of the Law or work-based religion, and Sarah is a type of Grace, the New Covenant. Looking down through scripture we see in Proverbs the conflict between the two women: the true wife and the harlot. In Proverbs 2:16-19, King Solomon gives this warning to those who would be seduced by the harlot:

“It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.”

This is not physical adultery but spiritual adultery. This wicked woman is also seen in the Lord Jesus’ parable of the leaven. Mat 13:33 He spoke another parable to them saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.” Leaven in scripture speaks of sin and false teaching. So this parable speaks of the false religious system that will spread its leaven (sin, false teaching) until one dayit is present in the entire meal. This is what is pictured by the woman, mystery Babylon, in Rev 17. Jezebel is also portrayed as a symbol for the wicked woman/religious system (see Rev 2:20).