[B-Greek] Revelation 16:19 - the great city

Robert Dee rdee at coastalnow.net
Tue Dec 27 08:23:32 EST 2005


I express my thanks to all for their considered comments on Revelation 16:19 and "the great city."

Marko Jauhiainen (and others) expressed the thought (in various ways) that "the issue cannot 
be settled on the basis of the structure of the Greek sentence alone." And that was one of the
main things I was trying to find out.

Permit me to extend the question a little bit.

Note the use of KAI throughout vss.19-21. Apparently, "the great earthquake" in verse 18 is the
major event, with the events of 19-21 describing what happens during that 'quake.' And, in each
case, the individual events are begun with KAI. 

WE Vine (just as one example), says that KAI is "chiefly used for connecting words, clauses and
sentences." But he also gives examples of other uses. One in particular is the "epexegetic or 
explanatory use." (All basic stuff, to be sure)

In verses 19-21, all of the other events (besides the remembering of Babylon) are clearly seperate
events. And thus, the KAI, which begins the description of each, would seem to be strictly in the
conjunctive sense. In fact, to my (admittedly inexperienced) view, the whole account in verses 19-21
looks not unlike a 'laundry or shopping list,' with each seperate item connected to the list with 
"and" [KAI].

If one wishes to say that Babylon and "the great city" in verse 19 were the same, would he have to 
hold that the KAI before Babylon was epexegetic? And, if it was explanatory of what happens to 
"the great city," why would John place it after the statement about the "cities of the nations," and 
not after the 'splitting of the great city,' where it would make more sense as an eplanatory phrase
of what happened to that "great city"?

(Of course, one could bypass these questions about KAI by saying that the 'splitting of the great city'
and 'God remembering Babylon,' were two seperate events happening to the same city. But that
would, of necessity, reduce the symbolic [read emphatic] force of the "three" in the splitting of "the 
great city." In effect, either God would be giving a cup of wrath to an already dead city, or 'being 
split into three parts' is not as bad as it sounds.)

I hope I haven't crossed the line from Greek to exegesis, although, a certain amount of contextual
discussion is necessary when commenting on the use of KAI. I am trying to keep it within the 
bounds of the immediate context.

I thank all of you again for your valued thoughts.

Robert J. Dee
rdee at coastalnow.net
Walthourville, Ga, USA  





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