What is meant by “sorcery”?

The term translated as sorcery is easily open to misunderstanding because it appears rarely in Scripture, yet when it does appear it is in dark contexts (Galatians 5:20; Revelation 9:21; Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:15; LXX: Exodus 7:11,Exodus 7:22; Exodus 8:7, Exodus 8:18; Isaiah 47:9, Isaiah 47:12). Furthermore, the English word sorcery has its own loading, so we are tempted to come to this text with elements of witchcraft in mind. A further complication stems from the fact that the Greek word used here is in fact the origin of our English words pharmacy and pharmaceutical, terms we associate with drugs and/or the drug industry (whether licit or illicit).

From the places where the word is used, we learn that pharmakeia (the Greek term) functioned in contexts where people sought to manipulate a deity to their own advantage (in whatever manner). Any effort at manipulation is fundamentally offensive to the living God because the activity assumes that people have power over the Almighty, and so it implies an inherent denial of his Godness and an equal denial of people’s finiteness and place under his overarching and sovereign control over all that happens. This is why God mocked the sorcerers of Egypt (Exodus 7:1 – 8:32), forbade any form of sorcery among his people (Deuteronomy 18:10), and punished his people for tolerating sorcery (Micah 5:12; Malachi 3:5; Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:15).

In the present passage the mighty angel provides a second reason for why Babylon will be hurled away: All nations were deceived by your sorcery. The great city Babylon did not deny the existence of God (or gods) but denied the Godness of any deity, and so treated deities as so many tools to be used for its own advantage, that is, to establish its own paradise.  And the nations of the earth foolishly bought into that very warped theology.