Babylon, the Metropolis of Satan.

It is most instructive to trace through Scripture the various indications that Babylon was, and will be, the very metropolis of Satan, while Jerusalem is the metropolis of Jehovah. God is in this sense, not the author of Babel, “confusion," but of Salem, “peace.”
There is a very intimate connection between the events which took place in Babylon and its neighborhood. Very early in Genesis, even further back than the tenth chapter, we have the first suggestion of this part of the world being of special interest to Satan; for it is believed by many, that the garden of Eden was in the same locality as Babylon itself. There were four rivers or branches of the same river, that watered it, and we read, “The fourth river is Euphrates,” while “the name of the third is Hiddekel," or Tigris. Between these two lay the plain of Shinar, on which in later days arose the great city. In that magnificent account in Ezekiel 28, of the mighty king of Tyre, who evidently represents Satan, the god of this world, we read (vv. 12, 13), “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God."
The garden of Eden may have been in some special way the domain of Satan, and it may have been the scene of his fall. When man was created, it became the place where he won his first victory over man, as he successfully tempted him to rebel against God. Is it not very striking that Babylon will be the scene of Satan's final overthrow, before he is cast into the bottomless pit for the thousand years?
The next event is the building of the tower of Babel. The account in Genesis 11 chronologically precedes the generations of the sons of Noah in chapter 10; for we see from verse 20 that their tongues had already been divided. It explains the origin of Babylon, for the tower was the first beginning of the great city that arose later. After the flood, the ark rested on Mount Ararat, far to the north in Armenia; but the sons of Noah did not remain there for long. When they had begun to multiply, they sought a new home and journeyed till they came to the land of Shinar. Perhaps they were seeking the site of the garden of Eden. “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded.” This was the site of man's first organized attempt after the flood, to build a great city and set up his [Satan’s] power in opposition to God. The Babylon of Revelation 18 will be his last attempt.
There is one other very significant event connected with this same locality.  Nebuchadnezzar set up his huge image, sixty cubits, or probably about ninety feet high, in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. He doubtless wished to reproduce in some way the image that he had seen in vision. According to Daniel's interpretation, we know that the image in the vision was a prophetic forecast of the times of the Gentiles, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar himself, the “head of gold." Daniel's words, "Thou art this head of gold," had evidently filled him with pride. The vision in chapter 2, ended with the destruction of the image by “the stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands, that brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold.” It was therefore very appropriate that the actual image should be set up in that spot; for the destruction of Babylon will be the destruction of the image, the ending of the “Times of the Gentiles.”
But it is not merely very interesting to link together these events geographically and historically. The important spiritual truth we learn from the study is that one great characteristic is common to them all. They are different stages in the history of man's attempt to lift himself to a lofty eminence. Each one represents a step in man's downward course of proud independence. His first departure from God in the garden of Eden; his great attempt to rear up “a tower whose top may reach unto heaven"—the tower on the plain; his vaunted exhibition of his mighty power in the lofty image on the plain; and finally, the last achievement of civilization in the magnificent city soon to be built.
God's estimate of it is given in the vision of wickedness in Zechariah 5. “Lifted up  between the earth and the heaven" by the “two women," they go "to build it a house in the land of Shinar," the most appropriate place for it in all the world. When the time is ripe, they rapidly fly towards this spot. “The wind is in their wings;" not the breath of the Spirit of God, but a great wind such as that of which we read in Job 1, produced by, and representing the prince of the power of the air.
The history of Babylon is the history of pride and all that it has brought forth in the form of false religion, etc. We read in Jeremiah 51: 53: “Though Babylon should mount up to heaven." This is what she has always tried to do; and so we read in Revelation 18: 7. “How much she hath glorified herself." In Isaiah 14, we have these remarkable words: "Take up this proverb against the king of Babylon . . . . How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . . For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.”
"The Christian Workers Magazine" Jan. 1917