16:19a
The great city was split into three parts: This clause refers to cracks forming in the ground. The cracks were so deep and wide that the people could not cross from one part of the city to another. Other ways to translate this are:
The great city…split into three sections (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
The great city divided/separated into three
The great city: The word great implies that the city is an important or well-known city. This phrase may refer to Babylon or Jerusalem or the whole unbelieving world. Your translation should not name the city here.
16:19b
the cities of the nations: This phrase refers to the cities around the earth. The earthquake destroyed them.
collapsed: This word indicates that the earthquake caused all the buildings in the cities to fall down.
16:19c
And God remembered Babylon the great: The Greek clause is literally “the great Babylon was remembered before God.” It indicates that God thought again about the evil deeds of the people of Babylon. He decided to act against her at this time.
The clause does not indicate that God had forgotten about their evil deeds. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate that God forgot. If this is true in your language, translate the correct meaning. For example:
God considered Babylon the Great
-or-
God turned ⌊again⌋ to/upon Babylon the Great
Babylon the great: The city of Babylon is called great because at that time it had a vast empire and great influence over neighboring countries. For example:
great Babylon (Revised Standard Version)
Babylon: The name of this city is probably a symbol for people who oppose God. The king of Babylon conquered Jerusalem about six hundred years before Jesus lived on earth. The city was well known for idol worship. It had a vast empire at that time.
But at the time that Jesus and John lived on earth, Babylon was only ruins. So it is a symbol here. It may refer to Rome, or it may refer to a future powerful city. So you should use the name Babylon here.
16:19d
gave her: The pronoun her refers to Babylon. Here and in the following chapters the city is spoken about as if it were a woman. She was given the cup. For example:
gave to her
This phrase implies that God made her drink the wine. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate that she refused to drink. If that is true in your language, you may want to indicate that she drank. For example:
made her drink
-or-
gave to her and she drank
the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath: The word wine is a metaphor for the fury of His wrath. The cup is part of that metaphor. The metaphor indicates that Babylon will experience the full intensity of God’s anger.
In some languages a literal translation would not indicate the correct meaning. If this is true in your language, you may want to:
• Translate literally and explain its meaning in a footnote. An example footnote is:
These words indicates that Babylon will experience the full intensity of God’s anger.
• Translate the meaning without the metaphor. For example:
the full intensity of his great anger
See how you translated a similar metaphor (“the wine of God’s anger, poured undiluted into the cup of his wrath”) in 14:10.
wine: Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from the juice of grapes. In some languages people are not familiar with wine. If that is true in your language, you may want to:
• Use a general word for a common beverage in your area. You may then want a footnote to explain the literal word. For example:
Literally: “wine.”
• Use the word for the common alcoholic beverage in your area. You may then want a footnote to explain the literal word, using the major language word. For example:
Literally: “wine.”
See how you translated this word in 14:8. You probably do not need to repeat here the part of the footnote explaining what wine is.
the fury of His wrath: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as fury refers to a great amount of emotion. The phrase refers to the great amount of anger that God has toward Babylon. Other ways to translate this phrase are:
his fierce wrath (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
his terrible anger (New Century Version)
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.