Standing afar off for the fear of her torment,.... Lest they themselves should share in it, who have partook of her sins; either they will not be in a capacity to help her, or they will be dispirited, and will be in awe and dread of God's righteous judgments:saying, alas!
alas! that great city Babylon! that mighty city! it will aggravate their sorrow, when they reflect upon the former grandeur, magnificence, power, and authority, of the city and see of Rome, so often called in this book the great city; and so it is by other writers; the Jews call it so: they say , when the Messiah comes,"the kings of the world shall be gathered to atbr atrq, "the great city" of Rome; and the holy blessed God will cast upon them fire and hail, and great hail stones, (with which compare Re 16:21), and they shall perish from the world, except those kings that do not come there.'
'It is common with the Jewish writers to call the Roman empire Edom; and Magdiel, one of the dukes of Edom, Ge 36:43 who has his name from "greatness", is interpreted by one of their commentators of Rome; the reason of which, another of them says , is because Rome is become great above all kingdoms: the mount of Esau in Ob 1:21 is interpreted abr akrk ty, "that great city" of Esau, which is Rome , and the same epithet it has in the Talmud ; and Porphyry calls it thn megalhn polin, "that great city", without making mention of its name, as here; so among the Latins , "Magnoe spes altera" Romae:for in one hour is thy judgment come: the Ethiopic version reads, "the hour of her judgment"; the time of her punishment fixed by God; but the sense is, that her vengeance was suddenly come upon her; this is the judgment of the great whore, which the angel proposed to show to John, Re 17:1.
Zohar in Gen. fol. 74. 3. Jarchi in Gen. xxxvi. 43. Abarbinel in Dan. fol. 42. 3. Jarchi in Obadiah, ver. 21. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 21. 2. Servius in Virgil, Eclog. 6. p.