The name written on the woman’ s head, in verse five, was the inscription: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. The spiritual evils of the land of Judea with all the national apostasies of Judaism were her offspring.
The prophet Hosea employed the same figure of whoredom, or harlotry, in his descriptions of Israel in chapters 1:2 and 2:1-5 of his book of prophecy. Stronger terms defining spiritual adulteries, fornications and harlotry, could not have been employed to set forth the spiritual luridness of Israel which brought on her exile--and the same extreme analogies apply to the spiritual decadence of Jerusalem which culminated in destruction, devastation downfall and termination.