Revelation 18:23

The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a bride and bridegroom will never call out in you again. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — A heavenly voice addresses Babylon the Great in the second person, pronouncing the final terms of her fall within the lament over her destruction (Rev 18:2–3, 19–24).

The words — φῶς (phōs, "light") is the noun that carries the verse's image: not merely illumination but the presence of knowledge and life, here declared permanently extinguished.

The thread — "Your merchants were the great ones of the earth" mirrors Isaiah 23:8's description of Tyre ("whose merchants are renowned on the earth"), while the charge of sorcery that deceived the nations echoes Nahum 3:4's "seductive mistress of sorcery, who betrays nations."

Why it lands — The verse names the mechanism of Babylon's power as deception (φαρμακία), asking the reader to see how seduction operates through commerce and culture rather than overt coercion.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

Cross-references

Revelation 18:3 All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”
Isaiah 23:8 Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose traders are princes, whose merchants are renowned on the earth?
Nahum 3:4 because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the seductive mistress of sorcery, who betrays nations by her prostitution and clans by her witchcraft.
Jeremiah 7:34 I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”
Revelation 22:15 But outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
2 Kings 9:22 When Joram saw Jehu, he asked, “Have you come in peace, Jehu?” “How can there be peace,” he replied, “as long as the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?”
Job 21:17 How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?
Proverbs 4:18 The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday.
Proverbs 24:20 For the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be extinguished.
Jeremiah 16:9 For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.