Revelation 18:7,8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

How much she hath glorified herself By pride, and pomp, and arrogant boasting; and lived deliciously In all kinds of elegance, luxury, and wantonness; so much torment and sorrow give her Proportioning the punishment to the sin; for, or because, she saith in her heart As did ancient Babylon, Isaiah 47:8-9; I sit Her usual style. Hence those expressions, the chair, the see of Rome. She sat so many years as a queen, over many kings, “mistress of all churches; the supreme, the infallible, the only spouse of Christ; a church out of which there is no salvation:” and am no widow But the spouse of Christ; and shall see no sorrow From the death of my children, or any other calamity, for God himself will defend “the church.” Therefore As both the natural and judicial consequence of this proud security; shall her plagues come in one day All at once, in full extremity; death The death of her children, with an incapacity of bearing more; mourning Πενθος, sorrow, or lamentation, instead of carnal pleasure and delights; and famine In the room of luxurious plenty; the very things from which she imagined herself to be most safe; and she shall be utterly burned with fire Even ancient Rome, which gloried in the name of the eternal city; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her Expressions these which, as Bishop Newton observes, “can imply no less than a total destruction by fire; but Rome hath never yet been totally destroyed by fire. The most that Alaric and Totilas did was burning some parts of the city: but if only some parts of the city were burned, it was not an event important enough to be ascribed to the Lord God particularly, and to be considered as a strong exertion of his judgment.”