Revelation 17:6,7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I saw the woman, &c. Infamous as the woman is for her idolatry, she is no less detestable for her cruelty, which are the two principal characters of the antichristian empire. She is drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs Or witnesses; of Jesus So that Rome may well be called, the slaughter-house of the martyrs. “This may indeed be applied both to pagan and to Christian Rome, for both have in their turns cruelly persecuted the saints and martyrs of Jesus; but the latter is more deserving of the character, as she hath far exceeded the former both in the degree and duration of her persecutions. It is very true, as it was hinted before, that if Rome pagan hath slain her thousands of innocent Christians, Rome Christian hath slain her ten thousands. For not to mention other outrageous slaughters and barbarities, the croisades against the Waldenses and Albigenses, the murders committed by the duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the massacres in France and Ireland, will probably amount to above ten times the number of all the Christians slain in all the ten persecutions of the Roman emperors put together. St. John's admiration also plainly evinces that Christian Rome was intended: for it could be no matter of surprise to him that a heathen city should persecute the Christians, when he himself had seen and suffered the persecution under Nero: but that a city, professedly Christian, should wanton and riot in the blood of Christians, was a subject of astonishment indeed; and well might he, as it is emphatically expressed, wonder with great wonder.” And the angel said. Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery It was not thought sufficient to represent these things only in vision, and therefore the angel, like the αγγελος, nuntius, or messenger, in the ancient drama, undertakes to explain the mystery, the mystic scene or secret meaning, of the woman, and of the beast that carries her: and the angel's interpretation is indeed, as Bishop Newton observes, the best key to the Revelation, the best clew to direct and conduct us through this intricate labyrinth.