Revelation 17:10; There are Seven Kings (2)

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Revelation 17:10  And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. 

The best solution is that the seven kings represent seven literal Gentile kingdoms that follow one another in succession (Walvoord). In Daniel 7:17, 23 kings and kingdoms are interchangeable, showing that a king can stand for the kingdom ruled by that king (Swete, Lee). The seven kingdoms are the seven that dominate world scene throughout human history: Egypt (Neo-Babylonia, Genesis 10:8-11), Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the future kingdom of the beast (Seiss, Hailey).

Throw Out the Lifeline

The matching of this sequence with the rest of verse 10 provides confirmation to this conclusion.

… five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. 

What appears in chapter 13 as though they existed simultaneously is actually a succession of kings or kingdoms, according to thee words (Beckwith).

The five which have fallen as five forms of Gentile world power which had already existed by the time John wrote this book: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece. The “the one is” is the Roman Empire which was in power at the time of writing (Walvoord). The “other is not yet come” will be the future kingdom of the beast. The five kingdoms of the past are ones who have persecuted God’s people.

  • Egypt – Ezekiel 29-30
  • Nineveh or Assyria – Nahum 3:1-19
  • Babylon – Isaiah 21:9 and Jeremiah 50-51
  • Persia – Daniel 10:13 and 11:2
  • Greece – Daniel 11:3-4

The persecutor of God’s people during John’s lifetime was Rome. Adding to the case for identifying these as kingdoms is the appropriateness of the very “are fallen” which speaks of a kingdom’s fall (eg. Revelation 14:8; 18:2) (Alford).

Revelation 14:8  And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 

Revelation 18:2  And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 

So the angel’s clarifying word to John about the seven heads spans essentially the entire history of Gentile World empires.

The future leader and his empire will have a short life according to the words “and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.”

The adjective “a short space” has the idea of brevity as it does in Revelation 12:12.

Revelation 12:12  Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 

This is a limitation of God’s will (Lenski) and indicates among other things that its time will be shorter than the six previous empires (Seiss). This factor alone would eliminate the possibility of the seven kings being first-century Roman emperors.

[Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22 – An Exegetical Commentary, Moody, 1995, 298-299]