Hands in the Bible represent power, the force with which things are put into action. To be specific, they represent the power of spiritual good -- which is the love of others and serving others -- expressed through spiritual truth -- which is an understanding and knowledge of what it is to love and serve others. This is in contrast to the feet, which represent power on the natural level, and a “rod,” which represents the power of the hand passed down into external or natural ideas. In a few cases in the Bible, hands also represent communication and a drawing together. This is true when people lift their hands to heaven or to Jehovah, and also when the Lord touches children or touches people to heal them.

755. 18:2 And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great." This symbolically means that the influx made known that by the Lord's Divine power, people who were caught up in the Roman Catholic religion and at the same time in a love of exercising dominion because of it, were all destroyed in the spiritual world and cast into numerous hells.

That this is the symbolic meaning of these words can be seen from the short work, The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed (London, 1758), where Babylon's destruction is described, nos. 53-64, from which it can be seen that the people of the Roman Catholic religion who were destroyed and cast into hell were those who, driven by the fire of their self-love, exercised dominion over the Lord's Divine sanctities having to do with heaven and the church, and who were nothing but idolaters. On the other hand, those of the same religion who lived in accordance with the Ten Commandments by refraining from evils as sins, and at the same time looked to the Lord, were saved, as may be seen in A Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World, no. 58, to which there is no need to add more.

Something similar is said of Babylon in Isaiah:

A lion cried... on the watchtower... and said, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon! And all the carved images of her gods He has broken to the ground." (Isaiah 21:8-9)

People of that religion of the same character are, since the Last Judgment, gathered together and from time to time sent to their comrades.