River Euphrates is river Tiber in Revelation

[FransJVermeiren]

Recently I read Myth and History in the Book of Revelation (1979) by John M. Court. On p. 74 I came across this passage on the river Euphrates:
Significantly, part of this theme of the sixth trumpet vision is resumed in the description of the outpouring of the sixth bowl in the sequence of ‘last plagues’; the area affected by this sixth plague is ‘the great river Euphrates’, with the result that the water is dried up, ‘to prepare the way for the kings from the east’ (16:12). Again, the theme of invasion from the East, with its local reference to the natural frontier of the Euphrates, is applied to a cosmic setting, this time the mustering for Armageddon.

Court takes the Euphrates river literally, as he makes it the starting point of his reasoning on an invasion from beyond this eastern natural frontier of the Roman empire. But I thought: if Babylon is the code name for Rome in Revelation, couldn’t the Euphrates river be the code name for the Tiber river?

Searching the internet I quickly found the book A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Books of the New Testament (1845), by H. Hammond (thanks to Google books). On p. 594 Hammond's note on ‘Euphrates’ in 16:12 goes as follows:
That it is agreeable to the calling of Rome Babylon (…) to set Euphrates, the river that belongs to Babylon, to signify Tiber, that belongs to Rome, hath been formerly shewed (…). And that it so signifies here, there is little doubt. From hence it follows, that the drying up of Euphrates, being an allusion to the history of Cyrus, prophetically set down, Jer. l. 38, and drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up, and ch. li., where is mention of the drying up her sea, and making her springs dry, ver. 36, it must in reason be interpreted thereby. There, in the taking of Babylon, Cyrus turned away the river Euphrates, and entered the city through the channel thereof. And so the drying of the river being preparative to the taking of the city, and the making that weak and accessible which otherwise was impregnable, this phase of drying up the water of Euphrates is thought commodious to be made use of to express the weakening of the strength of Rome, and making it conquerable, or, as it here follows, that the ways ———— might be prepared. To prepare a way, we know is to remove difficulties and obstructions, to level and plain a passage, and that in the prophets expressed by exalting valleys, and bringing hills low, and plaining the rough places. And when rivers and waters are in the way, then the drying them up, is preparing the way, making them passable.

In Fallen is Babylon (1998) Frederick J. Murphy also takes ‘Euphrates’ literally, just like Court.

Therefore my question: does anyone know of recent scholarship that mentions or builds upon Hammond’s ‘Tiber’ thesis?

[DCHindley]

Thought I'd try R H Charles' 2 vols on Revelation in the International Critical Commentary (1920), and the river Tiber as the referent to the word Euphrates does not come up at all. There is one mention of a slightly different spelling for the word in a single manuscript, but nothing related to the Tiber.

The Euphrates drying up is sort of like opening the gates at the horse race, with the horses ridden by the Parthian kings, led by Nero (redivivus), breaking into a gallop to retake his throne in Rome.

I guess that Charles felt that it did not make a lot of interpretative difference whether the river drying up was near the start of the march (Babylon) or near the end of it (Rome), so he accepted the text literally.

DCH

[FransJVermeiren]

Nevertheless, the 'Tiber' option could yield a nice messianic picture.

In 539 BCE Cyrus the Great, the only foreign king called 'anointed' in the Old Testament, conquered Babylon by draining the Euphrates and marching into the city through the dry riverbed. The writer of Revelation hopes that in the near future the same will happen to Rome. An angel (some kind of powerful advance guard) will cause the Tiber to dry up, that way creating a huge natural breach in the city walls. On this broad avenue the messianic army will march into exposed Rome and conquer it. After this final victory over the capital of the hostile Roman empire, the anointed Jewish/Essene messiah will be installed, and world dominion will pass from the Romans to the Jews. From now on the messiah will eternally reign the whole inhabited world ('and he shall reign for ever and ever' Rv 11:15).