<p>18:8 <i>Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death and mourning and famine- </i>The Philistines, clearly typical of Israel's present Arab neighbours, will also die from severe famine in the last days (Is. 14:30). This may well be due to the weaponry used to inflict this upon Israel&nbsp;being used by the Islamists against themselves.&nbsp;Babylon's famine coming &quot;in one day&quot; would suggest something along these lines - how else can a famine be suddenly created in a day? Famine coming in a day also speaks of modern 'just in time' supply networks and transport, which once interrupted can bring an area to food bankruptcy very suddenly. Earlier than our own age, this would have been impossible. But we can also understand this strange language of famine in a day by proposing that the meaning of time is collapsed around the Lord's return. This would enable all the latter day prophecies to come true, but not in real time as we know it. Babylon is to be punished with famine in one day; yet famine is a process (Rev. 18:8). In one day her judgments come, and yet also in one hour (18:10). Surely&nbsp;the lesson is that time is compressed. The events around Christ's return were prefigured by those at the time of Joshua's conquest of the land. Some of the records of his campaigns require a huge amount to have been achieved by his soldiers within around 36 hours. The comment that so much was achieved &quot;at one time&quot; (Josh. 10:42) may hint at a compression of time to enable it. &quot;The sun stood still&quot; may well be intended to teach that the meaning of time was collapsed by God, rather than that the sun literally stood still (Josh. 10:12,13). And the sun standing still over Gibeon is mentioned in Is. 28:21 as typical of the time when Yahweh will do &quot;His strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act&quot; in the last days. The same may be true when the shadow went back for Hezekiah. The movement of the planets need not have been altered; the meaning of time was simply suspended. Rev. 8:12, also speaking of the last days, says that &ldquo;the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise&rdquo;. Could this mean that one day and one night last only two thirds of their usual length, whilst the judgments of the fourth Angel are poured out upon the land? I would suggest that the Lord had in mind the suspension of time when he asked that &quot;the hour might pass from him&quot; in Gethsemane (Mk. 14:35); rather than asking to escape the cross in this request, he was perhaps asking for it all to happen in only a moment of real time.</p><p><i>And she shall be completely burned with fire. For strong is the Lord God who judges her</i>- This is the judgment for whores. Babylon is literal Jerusalem where she is enthroned (see on 16:19). The punishment by fire in Jerusalem would then make good sense of the Lord's idea that Gehenna- the always burning fire near Jerusalem- is to be used to destroy all God's enemies of all ages. They will share in the condemnation of the world they so loved in their lives. The burning was Sodom's judgment; and we have seen on :4 that Babylon is Sodom is Jerusalem.</p>