1. Revelation 18:14 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Who is speaking in this verse?

Revelation 18:14 (ESV)

14 “The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!”

In Revelation 18:11–13 John had described the response of the merchants to Babylon’s fall. The present verse unexpectedly contains a shift to the second person singular pronoun “you,” “your.” The referent of the singular pronoun can scarcely be the merchants of Revelation 18:11 because that would require a plural. As the kings in Revelation 18:9 addressed fallen Babylon in their dirge, so this verse addresses fallen Babylon. We could surmise that the speaker is the “another voice” mentioned in Revelation 18:4, which would make sense. However, since the speaker is not explicitly identified, our attention ought not to lie on who says these words but on what is said.