The reference in verse two to the harlot’ s fornication with the kings, and the wine of her fornication making drunk the inhabitants of the land were symbols of the extensions of Jerusalem’ s affiliations with foreign people, and the passion to be like the nations around them, as Israel demanded in 1 Samuel 8:5. These affiliations so enamored the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem as to be characterized in the symbolism of being drunk with. the wine of her fornication. The apocalypse was consistently that of apostate Jerusalem. It described the iniquities of Israel from their national sin of demanding a king to be as other nations under Samuel, the course that carried them into exile; and that in the visions of Revelation brought their city and their national existence to destruction.