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The Tribulation Part 8: The Woman, The Devil, and The War in Heaven
In part 7, we heard the Seventh Trumpet sound, ending the trumpet series of judgments. Now, as we continue on in this series, we witness a great and awesome sight:" A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.” (Revelation 12:1-2, NASB)
We see a woman envisioned in this sight; that precludes this from being God or an angel due to the fact that the Lord or the angels he sends are always referenced as "he". The description of being "clothed in the sun" tells us that there is radiance about this woman, while the moon being under her feet means her feet are shod with the moon; these allude to Genesis 37:9-10, where the sun and moon are symbolic of Jacob and Rachael. The 12 stars above the woman's head indicate the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel), which in themselves represented the 12 Tribes of Israel. The number 12 has always represented Israel in the Old Testament, and during the Tribulation, Israel is once again under the Law, as it was in the OT. By contrast, "MYSTERY BABYLON" in Revelation 17 is depicted as being "drunk with the blood of the saints", and riding a beast; a far cry from this woman.
The woman in this vision is Israel, and she is about to give birth.
“Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.” (Revelation 12:3-4, NASB)
Unlike v1-2, the next two verses are pretty clear on who the dragon is: Satan. His color is red, which here would appear to symbolize blood and the shedding of it. This is not blood shed of himself sacrificially as Jesus did, but blood shed of others by murder and carnage. Satan, as described by Jesus:
"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44, NASB, emphasis mine)
The "third of the stars in heaven" refers to a third of the angels that followed Satan in his rebellion. This seems to glimpse back to a point in time where they rebelled and were cast down to the Earth. That Satan is standing in front of this woman to "devour" her child means that he seeks to destroy the child she will bring forth, thus ending its existence moments after it is born. He considers the child a threat that must be subsumed by him. And the only true threat to Satan is anything that will remove him from his perceived position of power over the Earth. In scripture, we see this played out when Herod the Great ordered the murder of all the children age 2 and younger in Bethlehem; the assault from Satan upon the infant Christ.
"And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days." (Revelation 12:5-6, NASB)
This seals the identity of the Child: it is the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the seed of a woman. It is now that we realize that we are looking symbolically at several points in time for both the woman and the dragon: the beginning for both; the focal point of history where they clash, the current moment they are in, and the moment in the Tribulation as John is seeing it revealed. The child being snatched up to Heaven is the Ascension of Jesus, and the subsequent event of the woman fleeing into the desert is Israel fleeing from Satan, a foreshadowing of Revelation 13's events. The word “then” in the passage denotes this as an event after the Ascension of Jesus, but since we are looking at great swaths of time, it doesn’t happen right after the Ascension. 1,260 days is 3 and 1/2 years, the remainder of the Tribulation. We are seeing in this vision an abridged history of the enmity between the Devil and Israel, and ultimately the Devil and Christ:
"And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:15, NASB)
But as the vision ends, John sees another event: one of great magnitude. And we see why Satan was described previously: he is removed from God's presence...
...by force:
"And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him." (Revelation 12: 7-9, NASB)
The descriptor of "dragon" is now directly connected to Satan, identifying him as the same one in the vision. And it is that same dragon, Satan, who along with his minions is thrown out of heaven and land on the Earth. As this happens, there is great rejoicing in heaven:
"Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them.”" (Revelation 10-12a, NASB)
But with it, a warning for those on the Earth, Jew and Gentile alike:
"”Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.””(Revelation 12:12b, NASB)
And this should alert those reading this verse, because at this point in the Tribulation, the Earth is already being bombarded by judgments. Satan and his minions, no longer having free access to Heaven, will take their anger out their ancient enemy, mankind, and in specific, Israel:
"And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth.” (Revelation 12:13-16, NASB)
Satan, enraged at his swift, unexpected "departure" from God's throne room, takes his wrath out first on Israel. But The Lord intervenes for her, giving her swiftness and silence to flee to a place of safety prepared for her in the desert where God would feed and protect her until the end of the Tribulation. Satan, who is unwilling to take "no" for any sort of answer, becomes even more defiant and proceeds to send "water" after her. Since literal water is obviously not meant here, what we are seeing in this is Satan sending an overwhelming force (perhaps military or possibly world opinion) after Israel in order to prevent her escape. The word “Earth” in this verse is clear, as the reference “the Land” usually means Israel. But the “Earth” in Revelation speaks of the planet; whether it is the literal ground or speaking of the world at large is another matter. But it is clear here that what Satan sends after Israel to prevent her from fleeing into the desert is itself halted by “the Earth” absorbing what the Adversary sent to inundate her.
Satan then turns his attentions on those that have accepted Christ as their savior during the Tribulation:
"So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” (Revelation 12:17, NASB)
Because this comes on the heels of Satan’s failed attempt to destroy Israel, a possibility I’d like to propose (this is my theory, not official Scripture) that Satan is focusing his attention on the ones who he feels prevented his “flood” from “sweeping away” Israel: Tribulation believers. But this really doesn’t fit with the term “the Earth”, and as such it remains to bee seen during that time what this verse means.
As a side note: This is yet another reason why the entire Tribulation is referred to as the time of God's wrath: Satan only enters directly into it after being cast out of heaven halfway through it. It demonstrates further that Satan is not in charge of the Tribulation…
..God is.
Satan is at this point ready (and more than willing) to demonstrate just how nasty he can truly be. His "masterpiece" is ready to come up onto "the Land", and the entire world is about to see what happens when “the god of this world” taken open control of the nations of this planet.
Sin fails, and in the Tribulation, we get to see just how badly it does so.
In part 9, we will see the emergence of The Beast.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
