The Use of Code Words? Are They Scriptural?:
... Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath: Revelation 16:19b.... And the woman whom you saw is that great city, which has kingship over the kings of the earth.
In the end of days, there is a destruction of Babylon, the great city who sits on many waters, ruling over the kings of the earth. In order for a destruction to occur, there needs to be a great city - Rev 17, which is also a merchant port city - Rev 18.
Babylon aka: Babel, the land of Nimrod, is located in the land of Shinar, the land between the rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. In Zechariah 5:5-11 a woman named Wickedness is sealed inside an ephah (measuring basket for commerce) and transported to the land of Shinar where a temple is built for her. Inside the temple, the woman in the ephah is placed upon a pedestal: for worship. It is easy to see where the woman and the ephah are going by reading scripture as written - the land of Shinar, the region of Babylonia. The woman is wickedness, trapped in the ephah which represents commerce = wicked commerce.
The Bible is consistent with the location of Babylon, man, not so much. In scripture, Babylon is always Babylon. But when we get to the prophetic significance of Babylon found in Revelation 14:8; 16:19b; 17:1-18; 18:1-24, something changes; Babylon is no longer Babylon. The prophetic significance of Babylon in the last days has been removed, and Babylon becomes a 'code word', indicating that Babylon is somewhere other than Babylon.
