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And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

New Defender's Study Bible Notes

12:1 great wonder in heaven. “Wonder” is the same as “sign.” By calling this miraculous scene in the heavens a sign John helps to confirm that the other events described in Revelation should be understood literally if they are not designated as signs. Since the meaning of the sign is not explained in the immediate context, it must be understood in terms of previous revelation. As a matter of fact, the sign is so comprehensive that it embraces the entire plan of redemption, beginning with the Edenic promise. Here, in the middle of the book of Revelation, the Lord has provided through John several parenthetical revelations, each extending from primeval history up to this climactic point, the midpoint of the seven-year tribulation, and then even on beyond to the end.


12:1 twelve stars. While this symbol might at first suggest a connection with Joseph’s dream (Genesis 37:9-10), in which he saw the sun, moon and eleven stars, representing his parents and brothers, bowing down to him, there are important differences, and the sign must go far beyond that. The key is in Revelation 12:17, the climactic verse of the chapter, referring to the enmity of the dragon against the woman and her seed. This recalls God’s Protevangelic promise in Eden. Speaking to the old serpent, He had said: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed, and her seed; [He] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15). Thus the woman in the sign must represent Eve “the mother of all living” first of all, then Israel, the wife of Jehovah, and the church, the bride of Christ. Even beyond that, the phrase “the woman” must refer to all godly women and finally to Mary, the particular godly woman who was chosen to bring the promised Seed into the world.

The sign will have special application in this context to Israel; the church will have been taken out of the world, and God will be dealing with Israel in a special way once again. The sun may well symbolize Christ Himself, the light of the world (John 8:12), for the woman has “put on Christ.” The moon is a sort of counterfeit light, or false religion, which the woman has put under her feet; and the twelve stars in her crown possibly represent the tribes of Israel, soon to be revived and restored as the special nation of God’s election.


12:2 delivered. There is a general application here to the whole world, “because the [creation] itself [must] be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:21-22). The more specific application, however, must be to Israel and then Mary herself: “Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail.” “But thou Bethlehem Ephrata,…out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 4:10; 5:2). Note also such tangentially related passages as Galatians 4:26 and I Timothy 2:15.


12:3 great red dragon. The sign of the great dragon is explained in Revelation 12:9. He is “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,” who has tried to destroy the woman and her spiritual seed ever since Eden. Parenthetically, in order to be used as a sign, the dragon itself must have been a real animal, well known and feared by the ancient world but now extinct (see on Genesis 1:21; Job 40:15-24; Isaiah 27:1). Though evolutionists would disagree, dragons almost certainly were dinosaurs, universally known by the nations of antiquity to exist as real creatures.


12:3 ten horns. The “seven heads and ten horns” on this hydra-headed dragon evidently represent the great kingdoms of past history and the chief current kingdoms of this final period of history, all of which have been and will be imbued with the spirit of the old serpent (I John 5:19). See notes on Revelation 17:10-12 for more specific identification.


12:4 to the earth. These “stars of heaven” are identified as Satan’s angels in Revelation 12:9. In Satan’s primeval rebellion against God, he was able to persuade a third of God’s “innumerable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22) to follow him. They were “cast out into the earth” (Revelation 12:9) as a result (see also Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:17; Luke 10:18). Some even went to the lowest hell (II Peter 2:4) and some were bound in the Euphrates (Revelation 9:14) as a result of further specific and very flagrant sins. There are still multitudes of demonic angels, however, freely roaming the world and serving “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), and these hosts will be more active and dangerous than ever in these final days.


12:4 devour her child. Ever since the Protevangelic promise of Genesis 3:15, Satan has been attempting to prevent the promised Seed from being born, beginning with his attack on Cain and Abel (I John 3:12), and even attempting to corrupt the entire human race in the days of Noah (Genesis 6:4-13). In spite of his efforts, once Christ was born, Satan tried to destroy Him with Herod’s slaughter of the babes at Bethlehem. When that failed, he then tried to corrupt Christ in the wilderness temptation, and finally tried several times to have Him slain before He could go to the cross.


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