Revelation 16:19

16:19 The ¹  great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations ²  collapsed. ³  So ⁴  Babylon the great was remembered before God, and was given the cup ⁵  filled with the wine made of God’s furious wrath. ⁶ 

Revelation 6:6

6:6 Then ⁷  I heard something like a voice from among the four living creatures saying, “A quart ⁸  of wheat will cost a day’s pay ⁹  and three quarts of barley will cost a day’s pay. But ¹⁰  do not damage the olive oil and the wine!”

Revelation 14:10

14:10 that person ¹¹  will also drink of the wine of God’s anger ¹²  that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur ¹³  in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.

Revelation 18:3

18:3 For all the nations ¹⁴  have fallen ¹⁵  from

the wine of her immoral passion, ¹⁶ 

and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality with her,

and the merchants of the earth have gotten rich from the power of her sensual behavior.” ¹⁷ 

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¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

² tn Or “of the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

³ tn Grk “fell.”

⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of Babylon’s misdeeds (see Rev 14:8).

⁵ tn Grk “the cup of the wine of the anger of the wrath of him.” The concatenation of four genitives has been rendered somewhat differently by various translations (see the note on the word “wrath”).

⁶ tn Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός (qumo") and ὀργή (orgh) in Rev 16:19 and 19:15 are taken to be a strengthening of the thought as in the OT and Qumran literature (Exod 32:12; Jer 32:37; Lam 2:3; CD 10:9). Thus in Rev 14:8 (to which the present passage alludes) and 18:3 there is irony: The wine of immoral behavior with which Babylon makes the nations drunk becomes the wine of God’s wrath for her.

⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

⁸ tn BDAG 1086 s.v. χοῖνιξ states, “a dry measure, oft. used for grain, approximately equivalent to one quart or one liter, quart. A χ.of grain was a daily ration for one pers.…Rv 6:6ab.”

⁹ tn Grk “a quart of wheat for a denarius.” A denarius was one day’s pay for an average worker. The words “will cost” are used to indicate the genitive of price or value; otherwise the English reader could understand the phrase to mean “a quart of wheat to be given as a day’s pay.”

¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

¹¹ tn Grk “he himself.”

¹² tn The Greek word for “anger” here is θυμός (qumos), a wordplay on the “passion” (θυμός) of the personified city of Babylon in 14:8.

¹³ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”

¹⁴ tn Or “all the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

¹⁵ tc ‡ Several mss (א A C 1006* 1611 1841 2030 Ï^K), including the best witnesses, read “have fallen” (πεπτώκασιν or πέπτωκαν [peptwkasin or peptwkan]). The singular πέπτωκεν (peptwken), which is better grammatically with the neuter plural subject πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (panta ta eqnh, “all the nations”), is read by 1854 2062 pc; 2042 pc read πεπότικεν (pepotiken). A few mss (1006^c 2329 pc latt sy^h) read “have drunk” (πέπωκαν/πεπώκασιν, pepwkan/pepwkasin); the singular πέπωκεν (pepwken) is read by P 051 1 2053* al. The more difficult reading and that which has the best ms support is “have fallen.” That it is not too difficult is evidenced by the fact that the great majority of Byzantine minuscules, which have a tendency to smooth out problems, left it stand as is. Nonetheless, it is somewhat difficult (TCGNT 683 says that this reading is “scarcely suitable in the context”), and for that reason certain mss seem to have changed it to “have drunk” to agree with the idea of “wine” (οἴνου, oinou). One can understand how this could happen: A scribe coming to the text and seeing the term “wine” expects a verb of drinking. When he sees “have fallen” and knows that in Greek the verbs “have fallen” and “have drunk” are spelled similarly, he concludes that there has been a slip of the pen in the ms he is using, which he then seeks to correct back to the “have drunk” reading. This appears to be more reasonable than to conclude that three early uncials (i.e., א A C) as well as a great number of other witnesses all felt the need to change “have drunk” (πέπωκαν) to “have fallen” (πέπτωκαν), even if “fallen” occurs in the immediate context (“fallen, fallen, [ἔπεσεν ἔπεσεν, epesen epesen] Babylon the great” in the preceding verse). The preferred reading, on both external and internal grounds, is “have fallen,” and thus the Seer intends to focus on the effects of wine, namely, a drunken stupor.

¹⁶ tn See the notes on the words “passion” in Rev 14:8 and “wrath” in 16:19.

¹⁷ tn According to BDAG 949 s.v. στρῆνος and στρηνιάω, these terms can refer either to luxury or sensuality. In the context of Rev 18, however (as L&N 88.254 indicate) the stress is on gratification of the senses by sexual immorality, so that meaning was emphasized in the translation here.