Some 200 years before the event, Jehovah commanded: “Go, post a lookout that he may tell just what he sees.” What news did this watchman have to announce? “She has fallen! Babylon has fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he has broken to the earth!” (Isaiah 21:6, 9) Sure enough, in 539 B.C.E., the prophetic declaration came true. Mighty Babylon fell, and God’s covenant people were soon able to return to their homeland.

13. (a) What message has Jehovah’s watchman proclaimed? (b) How can it be said that Babylon the Great has fallen?

¹³ What did this watchman see? Again, Jehovah’s watchman, his witness class, announced: “She has fallen! Babylon has fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he [Jehovah] has broken to the earth!” (Isaiah 21:9) This time, following World War I, it is Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion, that is toppled from its perch of authority. (Jeremiah 50:1-3; Revelation 14:8) No wonder! The Great War, as it was then called, started in Christendom, where the clergy on both sides fueled the conflagration by preaching the cream of their youth into the trenches. What a disgrace! In 1919, Babylon the Great could not prevent the Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known, from escaping from their inactive state and embarking on a worldwide witnessing campaign that still continues. (Matthew 24:14) That signaled a fall for Babylon the Great, just as the release of Israel in the sixth century B.C.E. signaled a fall for ancient Babylon.