The Voice of Many Waters: Babylon Enthroned on the Nations and the Alleluia of the Redeemed
Old Testament: Jeremias 51:13
O thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, thy end is come for thy entire destruction.
Old Testament, also: Jeremias 51:55
Because the Lord hath laid Babylon waste, and destroyed out of her the great voice: and their wave shall roar like many waters: their voice hath made a noise:
New Testament: Apocalypse 17:1, 15; Apocalypse 19:6
And there came one of the seven angels, who had the seven vials, and spoke with me, saying: Come, I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters, ... And he said to me: The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and nations, and tongues. ... And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty hath reigned.
The connection
Jeremias spoke to Babylon as a queen enthroned on the waters: "O thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, thy end is come" (Jeremias 51:13). When she falls, "the Lord hath ... destroyed out of her the great voice", and the roar of her waves is silenced (51:55). St John takes up the oracle almost word for word: "Come, I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters" (Apocalypse 17:1). And the angel tells him what the waters are: "peoples, and nations, and tongues" (17:15). Babylon sits on the nations. When she falls, her music stops: "the voice of harpers ... shall no more be heard at all in thee" (Apocalypse 18:22). Then the waters she sat on find a voice of their own: "I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty hath reigned" (19:6). The peoples once held under the harlot become the song of the Bride, and the harps silenced in Babylon sound in heaven, "as the noise of many waters ... the voice of harpers, harping on their harps" (14:2). Even the Lord's own voice is "as the sound of many waters" (1:15): the redeemed sing in His likeness. St Cyprian reads the same waters as the peoples: "the divine Scripture in the Apocalypse declares that the waters signify the people." The Catechism hears in the Apocalypse's Alleluia the Church's song of praise, joined to the liturgy of heaven (CCC 2642).
Moral sense
Babylon also holds a cup: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, that made all the earth drunk" (Jeremias 51:7), and the harlot's cup is "full of the abomination" (Apocalypse 17:4). Christ offers another. St Cyprian, writing on the chalice of the Mass, sees the water mixed into the wine as the people joined to Christ: "in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when the water is mingled in the cup with wine, the people is made one with Christ." Every soul is drawn by one of the two cups. The one holds the nations down; the other lifts them into Him, and from that union the Alleluia rises. "Many waters cannot quench charity" (Canticles 8:7).
Anagogical sense
The great voice taken from Babylon is given to heaven: "I heard as it were the voice of much people in heaven, saying: Alleluia" (Apocalypse 19:1). In Babylon "the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard no more" (18:23); in heaven "the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath prepared herself" (19:7). The nations end not scattered under a harlot but gathered before the throne, "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues" (7:9).
The Fathers
St Cyprian, Epistle 62 (Schaff), on the cup of the Lord: "the divine Scripture in the Apocalypse declares that the waters signify the people"; "in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when the water is mingled in the cup with wine, the people is made one with Christ, and the assembly of believers is associated and conjoined with Him on whom it believes."
Warrant
Scriptural, because Apocalypse 17:1 repeats Jeremias 51:13 and Apocalypse 17:15 interprets the waters. St Cyprian (Epistle 62 in Schaff) cites Apocalypse 17:15 to read the waters as the peoples, and on that ground reads the water in the chalice as the people made one with Christ; St Victorinus of Pettau comments on the harlot upon many waters at Apocalypse 17. Checked in the languages: the Septuagint of Jeremias (28:13 in Swete's numbering) has kataskenountas eph hydasi pollois, dwelling upon many waters, and John has kathemenes epi hydaton pollon, sitting upon many waters; the Hebrew is mayim rabbim. The great voice, phone megale, destroyed out of Babylon at Jeremias 51:55 in the Septuagint is the great voice of much people in heaven at Apocalypse 19:1, and the voice of many waters, phone hydaton pollon, at 19:6 is the Lord's own at 1:15 and Ezechiel 43:2. The lead was Dunk's, from the many waters of Jeremias, the Psalms, Esther, Numbers and the Apocalypse read together.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2642.
The verses
Jeremias 51:13 · Jeremias 51:55 · Apocalypse 17:1 · Apocalypse 17:15 · Apocalypse 19:6
