Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
Here we have, I. A doleful lamentation made by Babylon's friends for her fall; and here observe, 1. Who are the mourners, namely, those who had been bewitched by her fornication, those who had been sharers in her sensual pleasures, and those who had been gainers by her wealth and trade - the kings and the merchants of the earth: the kings of the earth...
Commenting on Revelation 18:9-24
And a mighty angel,.... Not Christ, nor one of the ministering spirits, but some man or set of men, perhaps the same with him in Rev 18:1 took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea; just as Jeremiah took a stone and bound it to his book after he had read it, and cast it into the river Euphrates...
Verse 20. Rejoice over her. Over her ruin. There is a strong contrast between this language and that which precedes. Kings, merchants, and seamen, who had been countenanced and sustained by her in the indulgence of corrupt passions, or who had been enriched by traffic with her, would have occasion to mourn. But not so they who had been persecuted by her. Not so the church of the redeemed.