The Greek word behind this English phrase means simply to “throw.” It is the exact same term used earlier in the verse to describe what the mighty angel did to the stone; he “threw” it. The addition of the term “down” is misleading as it is not in the Greek and leaves us with the impression that the angel is here describing how Babylon’s fall (Revelation 18:2) is to occur (as if her fall is yet to happen in the future). Christ Jesus, though, has triumphed (Revelation 5:5) and so every civilization that thinks (under the impulse of the dragon and his beasts) to develop a paradise apart from God (e.g., Babel, Genesis 11:1–32; Babylon, Daniel 4:30) “is fallen” (Revelation 18:2). So the Roman Empire, Napoleon’s Republic, the British Empire, Hitler’s Third Reich, etc., could not succeed; all were “fallen” from the start. Thus, every Babylon is also “thrown,” heaved away so as to be gone; the Third Reich, the British Empire, the Roman Empire are as irretrievably gone today as a millstone flung into the depths of the sea was irretrievably gone in the days of the apostle. In the eye of our mind, then, the present sentence is not to form the picture of Babylon’s (future) collapse (“thrown down”) but is to form the picture of Babylon being thrown away. Babylon is not thrown vertically (“down”) but horizontally (away, from land “into the sea,” where she will indeed sink).
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more;