Demons are angels who joined Satan in his rebellion in the beginning and so have fallen from their high state. As a result of their fall, God has consigned them to “prison” (1 Peter 3:19), that is, “hell,” where they are in “chains of gloomy darkness” (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6). Here, though, the angel tells John that demons receive a “dwelling place” in fallen Babylon (today’s concentrations of people in city, civilization, and state that celebrate independence from God). The term “dwelling place” refers simply to one’s home, the place one dwells (Exodus 12:20; Ephesians 2:22). During Jesus’ earthly ministry, demons possessed particular people, which is to say that they inhabited them, dwelt in them (Mark 5:1–2). In fact, when the Jews accused Jesus of being in league with “Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” Jesus spoke of an expelled unclean spirit saying, “I will return to my house” with seven more spirits, “and they enter and dwell there” (Luke 11:24–26). Though hell is the place to which sovereign God has dispatched demons, they are not so restricted to hell that they can never camp on earth with a person/people/city as their (temporary) dwelling place. Fallen Babylon is such a place.
2 And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.