Revelation's Great Harlot

From Days of Vengeance, By Robert Chilton:

Throughout Scripture, Israel is regarded as God’s Wife; the covenant is a marriage bond, and she is expected to be faithful to it. Her apostasy from God is called adultery, and she is identified as a harlot. There are numerous examples of this in the prophets:


How the faithful city has become a harlot,
She who was full of justice!
Righteousness once lodged in her,
But now murderers. (Isa. 1:21)


For long ago I broke your yoke
And tore off your bonds;
But you said: I will not serve!
For on every high hill
And under every green tree
You have lain down as a harlot. (Jer. 2:20)


Your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD. But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passerby who might be willing. (Ezek. 16:14-15)


Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations!  For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.  You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.
(Hos. 9:1)


Throughout Scripture, it is Israel whom the prophets characteristically condemn as a harlot. Accordingly, when St. John brings lawsuit against Israel for her rejection of Christ, the greatest apostasy of all time (cf. Matt. 21:33-45), he appropriately calls her “the Great Harlot . . . the Mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the Land” (Rev. 17:1, 5).