fire, and a dark cloud and thick darkness and a tempest, . . . But you have approached a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels, in general assembly, and the congregation of the first-born who have been enrolled in the heavens, and God the Judge of all, and the spiritual lives of righteous ones who have been made perfect, and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, which speaks in a better way than Abel’s blood. . . . At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying: ‘Yet once more I will set in commotion not only the earth but also the heaven.’ Now the expression ‘Yet once more’ signifies the removal of the things being shaken as things that have been made, in order that the things not being shaken may remain. Wherefore, seeing that we are to receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us continue to have undeserved kindness, through which we may acceptably render God sacred service with godly fear.”

16. (a) What expressions of Hebrews 12:18-28 prove God’s woman is a heavenly organization? (b) Jehovah’s pronouncement of sentence upon Satan meant what concerning his woman and her Seed?

¹⁶ The Jerusalem above is here called “a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem.” She is God’s woman or wife. She is the heavenly organization made up of the “myriad of angels, in general assembly.” This organization of holy angels was present with Jehovah God in heaven when he pronounced sentence upon the Great Serpent at the garden of Eden almost six thousand years ago. Thus when Jehovah spoke of putting enmity between the Serpent and the “woman” and said that the woman’s seed would bruise the Serpent in the head, Jehovah’s woman or wife was there with him in heaven. She was the “woman” to provide the Seed for this act. The One whom she provided directly for this victorious act was the only-begotten Son of God, who became Jesus Christ on earth and who said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

17. (a) When and how did Jesus become heavenly Jerusalem’s firstborn spiritual son? (b) When did his sonship become full-fledged?

¹⁷ The first step in this direction was the birth of Jesus in the year 2 B.C. But the heavenly Jerusalem really brought him forth as her firstborn spiritual Son thirty years later, A.D. 29. In that year Jesus was baptized in water, and his heavenly Father poured down holy spirit upon him and announced his begettal as a spiritual Son by saying: “This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.” Three and a half years later the heavenly Jerusalem really did bring him forth as a full-fledged spirit Son of hers when God healed the heel wound inflicted by the Great Serpent and raised Jesus Christ from the dead to spirit life in heaven. Then the heavenly Jerusalem received him into the midst of her organization of angelic sons in heaven, but as the Chief One among them, in the position of Archangel.—Matt. 3:13-17; 27:27 to 28:10; 1 Pet. 3:18, 19.

18. How could heavenly Jerusalem then rejoice, as Sarah rejoiced?

¹⁸ At this marvelous event heavenly Jerusalem had great cause for being glad and crying aloud. Her childlessness as measured from the time of the promise of a Seed to her at the garden of Eden had ended with the full birth of her most glorious Son. She rejoiced, just as the aged Sarah rejoiced at the birth of her only son Isaac.

19. What additional children was heavenly Jerusalem to have?

¹⁹ However, the apostle Paul said to his Christian brothers: “Now we, brothers, are children belonging to the promise the same as Isaac was. Wherefore, brothers, we are children belonging to the promise the same as Isaac was. Wherefore, brothers, we are children . . . of the free woman.” (Gal. 4:27, 28, 31) This brings to light the fact that the heavenly Jerusalem was to have additional children for the fulfillment of Jehovah’s promise in Genesis 3:15 concerning the Seed of the woman.

20. When did these other spiritual children begin to be brought forth, giving still more reason for Jehovah’s woman to cry out joyfully?

²⁰ Yet as Isaiah 54:1 foretold, she was to have spiritual children in greater numbers than the children of the symbolic slave girl who, in the form of the nation of natural Israel, had been united for a while with Jehovah God. These other spiritual children, according to the promise of Genesis 3:15, began to be brought forth on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus Christ’s resurrection, when the holy spirit was poured out upon one hundred and twenty faithful disciples of Jesus who were waiting in Jerusalem. (Acts 2:1-39) There Jehovah begot them by his spirit. At this Jehovah’s woman, the long-time barren heavenly Jerusalem, had still more reason to be glad and cry out joyfully. Today, in this year 1963, she has a remnant of this spiritual seed yet on earth, who are awaiting their full birth in the heavens.

THE ENEMY WOMAN

21. (a) Since what time was God’s woman symbolized by earthly Jerusalem? (b) When did the enemy woman appear?

²¹ Who, though, is that other woman, the enemy of the heavenly Jerusalem? And when did God’s woman confront this enemy woman for the first time? Ever since King David captured the citadel of Jerusalem and made it his capital city in the eleventh century before Christ, God’s woman had been symbolized by the Jerusalem on earth. In fact, she came to be called by the name of this earthly city. (2 Sam. 5:1-9) Earthly Jerusalem had its roots in the city of Salem, where King Melchizedek was “priest of the Most High God” in the days of the patriarch Abraham in the twentieth century before Christ. (Gen. 14:17-20) But, of course, God’s woman, the heavenly Jerusalem, existed before that. In the days of ancient Salem the enemy woman was already existing, and in part of the realm over which she held sway the patriarch Abraham was moving around. It was around two hundred years before Abraham’s birth that the enemy woman appeared.

22. (a) How did the enemy woman get to be named after the ancient city Babylon? (b) What indicates that the enemy woman is something greater than the literal city?

²² According to the last book of the Bible the enemy woman came to be called by the name of an earthly city. Her mysterious name, Babylon the Great, points back to the city of Babylon built on the bank of the Euphrates River in the land of Shinar in the twenty-third century before Christ. This city became a symbol of Babylon the Great. However, because she is called the Great it indicates that the enemy woman is something greater than the literal city of Babylon on the Euphrates. The enemy woman still exists today, even after ancient Babylon has lain in moldering ruins for more than a thousand years. (Rev. 14:8; 17:5) True, Babylon the Great has her roots in ancient Babylon, but she is greater and of a longer life and wields more world power than ever that ancient Wonder City did.

23. Who built Babylon, and what was the purpose of the city builders?

²³ In the century following the global flood of Noah’s day the riverside city was built, not by that godly man but by a great-grandson of his, an ambitious rebellious descendant named Nimrod. His city is the first city that the Bible names after the Flood, and it became the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom. (Gen. 10:8-12) It was built to obstruct the carrying out of God’s will concerning the earth as man’s home. It was made the seat of false religion, which is denoted by the fact that the city builders started putting up a “tower with its top in the heavens.” All this project was planned and carried forward to make a name, not for the God of Noah, but for the city builders, particularly for Nimrod its king, who came to be called “Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.”

24. Jehovah’s displeasure with the scheme was shown how, and what confusion resulted?

²⁴ Jehovah God and his woman in heaven were not pleased with the scheme. He could not bless the city. So, in order to show his displeasure and to hold up the project, he confused the language of the builders. Unable to understand one another and work together, the builders scattered according to their language groups, leaving only a minority in the city under Nimrod. Because their language was confused at this religious center and because confusion resulted in the city for awhile, its name was called Confusion. This is what the name Babel means in Hebrew, the language that Noah and his faithful son Shem spoke. In the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures the name is Babylon.—Gen. 11:1-10.

25. (a) What did the scattered city builders carry with them? (b) As a result, when and how did Babylon the Great appear as an enemy woman?

²⁵ King Nimrod set up a small-scale empire of his own, with eight cities in it, the capital city being Babel or Babylon. Of course, his false religion which was in opposition to Jehovah prevailed in his own empire. But the false religion of Babylon became more widespread than that. The builders who had received a confusion of language and who therefore had to scatter to distant territories carried Babylon’s religion with them but, of course, in their new languages. Their religious ideas remained the same but were expressed in different languages. What resulted? An empire of false religion with the religion of Babylon as its common base was established, with a varied and complicated organization, but with all its religious doctrines and practices basically those of original Babylon. Here Babylon the Great made its appearance in the arena of conflict. Here God’s woman, the heavenly Jerusalem or Zion, came face to face with the enemy woman, the world empire of false religion based upon the religion of ancient Babylon.

26. Who dominates the world empire of Babylonish religion?

²⁶ The Great Serpent, the lying Satan the Devil, was behind the building of Babylon and its religious tower and behind its false religion. He was really the invisible god of Babylon and of her false religion. He became what the Holy Scriptures call him, “the god of this system of things.” (2 Cor. 4:4) He dominates the world empire of Babylonish religion.

27. (a) What is the religion of God’s woman? (b) Who practiced her religion on earth, and why did they suffer religious opposition?

²⁷ To the contrary of this, the religion of God’s woman, the heavenly Jerusalem, is the worship of the one living and true God, Jehovah her husband. Her religion met with stout opposition on the earth. The contest of religions now set in after the Flood. By the religious opposition on earth the heavenly Jerusalem, God’s woman, was not directly affected. But she had practicers of her religion on the earth, such as Noah, Shem and the patriarch Abraham, a descendant of Shem. These godly men and their families were directly affected by the religious opposition from Babylon the Great. What this enemy woman did against Noah, Shem, Abraham and his God-fearing descendants was as if done to God’s woman. This was especially true because through this line of faithful men the Seed of God’s woman was to come.

28. Through what line of descent was Abraham born and what did Jehovah promise to him?

²⁸ Noah’s blessing upon his son Shem made it certain that the woman’s Seed in its earthly, human connections would come through Shem rather than through Japheth and Ham. (Gen. 9:24-27) In Shem’s own lifetime Jehovah God called his descendant Abraham out from the neighborhood of Babylon in the land of Shinar. When inviting Abraham out Jehovah said to him: “I shall make a great nation out of you and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing. And . . . all the families of the ground will certainly bless themselves by means of you.” And after Abraham arrived in the Promised Land hundreds of miles to the west of Babylon, Jehovah said: “To your seed I am going to give this land.”

29. (a) In what manner did Jehovah make certain the promised Seed would come through Abraham and Isaac? (b) Then why was Babylon the Great against Abraham’s descendants?

²⁹ When, over thirty years later, Abraham obeyed Jehovah and proceeded to offer up as a human sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, Jehovah’s angel stopped Abraham and said: “I shall surely bless you and I shall surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand that are on the seashore; and your seed will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves due to the fact that you have listened to my voice.” (Gen. 12:1-3, 7; 22:1-18) This made it certain that the promised Seed of God’s woman would come through Abraham and his son Isaac as an earthly channel. When this Seed came to power, it would mean hurt to the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, the god of Babylon the Great. For this reason she, as the woman enemy of God’s woman, was against that Seed and the line of descent by which the Seed would come.

Part Two

1. (a) For how long did Babylon the Great have its seat in the ancient city of Babylon? (b) How did Babylon the Great hold sway over other world powers? (c) To what end has she taken advantage of her religious control?

THE principal seat of Babylon the Great as a world empire of false religion was in the ancient city of Babylon on the Euphrates River. This continued to be the case until Babylon fell from her position as the third world power of Bible history in 539 B.C. and yielded place to the Medo-Persian World Power. Two other world powers preceded the Babylonian World Power, and those two were (1) the Egyptian and (2) the Assyrian. Nevertheless, Babylon the Great, the world empire of Babylonish religion, had also held sway over those two earlier world powers. She took advantage of her religious control over them to use them against the Seed of God’s woman by trying to destroy the line of descent by which the Seed came. Babylon the Great is an international harlot, and she yields herself to the political rulers of the earth in order to gain her religious objectives. She thus unites religion to politics.

2. In Egypt, what did Babylon the Great try to do? With what measure of success?

² After Joseph, the grandson of the patriarch Isaac, died as the prime minister of Egypt, Babylon the Great as a religious force worked with Egypt’s Pharaohs in a try at destroying Joseph’s people, the Hebrews. These were then guests, alien residents, in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh made them slaves at hard labor, to kill them off. This failing, Pharaoh decreed that all Hebrew male babies should be killed at birth. Babylon the Great must have felt triumphant over God’s woman, who was represented in Egypt by the Hebrews, the sons of Israel. Despite the devilish measure applied by Pharaoh who committed religious fornication with Babylon the Great, Hebrew male babies continued to be born and preserved, including Moses.

3. How was vexation heaped upon Babylon the Great in Egypt?

³ When forty years old Moses tried to lead a movement for liberating the children of Israel, but was obliged to flee to the distant land of Midian. Forty years later Jehovah sent Moses back as his prophet to lead the Israelites out of the land of slavery. By a string of ten devastating plagues in a row upon Egypt Jehovah acted in behalf of the Seed of his woman, for “upon their gods Jehovah had executed judgments,” which left all the firstborn sons of Egypt dead. What a vexation this must have been to religious Babylon the Great! Shortly afterward Jehovah exposed the helplessness of her religion by destroying all of Pharaoh’s military pursuit forces in the depths of the Red Sea but bringing the Israelites safely through and on their way to the land that he had promised to give to Abraham his friend.—Num. 33:4; Ps. 78:43-53; Ex. 15:1-21.

4. (a) The family line of what king of Israel got to be the target of the enemy woman? (b) The overreaching of Solomon was accomplished how?

⁴ Four hundred and forty-three years later saw King David ruling in Zion, the citadel of Jerusalem, as sovereign over all twelve tribes of Israel. Because David proved to be a man agreeable to his own heart, Jehovah made a covenant with him for an everlasting kingdom in his royal line. (2 Sam. 7:1-18; 1 Sam. 13:14) By this royal covenant with David, God’s woman knew that her promised Seed must come through the family line of King David. In short order, the enemy woman Babylon the Great got to know this and she set herself against David’s royal line. Solomon the son of David succeeded him to “Jehovah’s throne” in Zion (Jerusalem) and built the magnificent temple for Jehovah’s worship. He also further beautified Jerusalem as the holy city of Israel’s God. But Solomon did not prove to be the promised Seed of God’s woman. Religious Babylon the Great overreached King Solomon in his old age by means of her representatives, the many pagan wives of Solomon, for whom he built religious high places for the worship of their gods.—1 Ki. 11:1-10.

5. What developed after Solomon’s death to endanger the earthly representative of God’s woman?

⁵ After unfaithful Solomon’s death a rebellion split the kingdom of the house of David in two. The rebellious northern kingdom of Israel set up its own national capital and the worship of golden calves, and finally at Samaria, the third capital, the worship of Baal was introduced. But Jerusalem (Zion) remained the capital of the kingdom of Judah of but two tribes, with the tribe of Levi serving at Jehovah’s temple. (1 Ki. 11:41 to 16:33) Two centuries passed thus, and then the Israelites began to feel the domination of a new world power, in the eighth century before Christ. In the year 740 B.C. Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, was sacked by King Sargon II of Assyria and the kingdom was overthrown and the surviving Israelites were deported to Assyrian territories. Some years later came the invasion of the land of Judah by the Assyrians under King Sennacherib son of Sargon II. Jerusalem, the earthly representative of God’s woman, became endangered. At that time Babylon was subject to Assyria; yet Assyria practiced Babylonish religion.

6. On behalf of Assyria’s king and god, what arrogant taunts were hurled at the city of Jerusalem?

⁶ From his siege position before the Judean city of Lachish the Assyrian Sennacherib sent messengers to Jerusalem and arrogantly demanded that King Hezekiah surrender the holy city. The Assyrian