For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.” And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off
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 cried when they saw the smoke of her burning,.... See Gill on Rev 18:9. saying, what city is like unto this great city? as before for magnificence and grandeur, so now for sorrow, desolation, and ruin; nor was any city like it for power and authority, for pride and luxury, for idolatry and superstition, blasphemy and impenitence; the like the sailors say of Tyre...
Verse 17. For in one hour. In a very brief period--so short that it seemed to them to be but one hour. In the prediction () it is said that it would be "in one day," () here it is said, that to the lookers-on it seemed to be but an hour. There is no inconsistency, therefore, between the two statements. So great riches is come to nought.