<p>18:10 <i>Standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying: Woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city For in one hour does your judgment come</i>- Their deep grief stands in contradistinction from the Heavenly rejoicing at Babylon's fall (:20). They are her sympathizers and are not brought to repentance by her fall. They fear that her torment shall come upon them. They retreat from her, just as the animals and birds scuttle away from under the falling tree of Babylon. They praise Babylon's strength and glory after she has fallen. They are not themselves in Babylon, but have benefitted from her through commerce, as the rest of the chapter makes clear. They would therefore refer to the commercial leaders of the 'sea' around the 'earth'; the Gentile nations who became enriched by Babylon's wealth and demand for delicacies. Surely Western commercial leaders are within this group. They are stunned by how quickly the whole system fell apart, in one hour. Her &quot;torment&quot; however has been going on throughout the three and a half years of the tribulation; for the two witnesses tormented those who dwelt in the land (11:10 s.w.), leading to such rejoicing when they are killed at the end of the tribulation. That torment was a foretaste of the final torment of condemnation spoken of so often (14:10; 20:10 etc.). Again we can perceive that the torment was in order to give Babylon and the beast a chance of repentance by showing them ahead of time what Divine judgment would look like for them unless they repented.</p><p>The destruction of the city is a sudden thing. The phrase &ldquo;in one hour&rdquo; occurs three times in Rev. 18. This destruction is like that of Sodom and Gomorrah- in a moment, by Divine intervention through fire, sulphur etc. This is not how Rome came to an end, indeed Rome as a city did not really come to an end; and literal Babylon was not physically destroyed &ldquo;in one hour&rdquo; in 536 BC. The predicted fall of Babylon must therefore be in our last days, referring to the destruction in a moment of the city which has become the capital of the beast- Jerusalem.</p>