Revelation 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

John sees a woman about to give birth and a great red dragon waiting to devour her child; the child is taken up to God, and the woman flees to a place God prepared in the wilderness. Michael and his angels fight the dragon and his angels, who do not prevail, and the dragon is cast down to the earth, and a loud voice in heaven announces that the accuser of God's people has been cast down. The dragon then chases the woman, who is given eagle's wings and kept safe, and when the earth swallows the flood he pours after her, he goes off to make war on the rest of her children. The chapter names the dragon plainly as the ancient serpent, the devil, and Satan.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • A great sign appeared in heaven.
   • The sign was a woman clothed with the sun.
   • The moon was under the woman's feet.
   • A crown of twelve stars was on the woman's head.
2. 12:2
   • The woman was pregnant.
   • The woman cried out.
   • The woman was in labor.
   • The woman was in pain to give birth.
3. 12:3
   • Another sign appeared in heaven.
   • The second sign was a great red dragon.
   • The dragon had seven heads.
   • The dragon had ten horns.
   • The dragon had seven royal crowns on his heads.
4. 12:4
   • The dragon's tail dragged a third of the stars of heaven.
   • The dragon's tail cast those stars to the earth.
   • The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth.
   • The dragon stood there in order to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5. 12:5
   • The woman gave birth to a male child.
   • The male child was to rule all nations with an iron rod.
   • The woman's child was caught up to God and to his throne.
6. 12:6
   • The woman fled into the wilderness.
   • In the wilderness the woman has a place prepared by God.
   • They were to feed her there.
   • She was to be fed there for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
7. 12:7
   • There was war in heaven.
   • Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.
   • The dragon and his angels fought.
8. 12:8
   • The dragon and his angels did not prevail.
   • Their place was no longer found in heaven.
9. 12:9
   • The great dragon was cast out.
   • The great dragon is the ancient serpent.
   • The dragon is called the Devil and Satan.
   • The dragon deceives the whole inhabited world.
   • The dragon was cast out into the earth.
   • The dragon's angels were cast out with him.
10. 12:10
    • I heard a loud voice speaking in heaven.
    • The voice said that salvation has now come.
    • The voice said that strength has now come.
    • The voice said that the kingdom of our God has now come.
    • The voice said that the power of his Christ has now come.
    • The voice said that the accuser of our brothers is cast down.
    • The voice said that the accuser accused them before our God day and night.
11. 12:11
    • They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.
    • They overcame him by the word of their testimony.
    • They did not love their lives unto death.
12. 12:12
    • The heavens are told to rejoice.
    • Those who dwell in the heavens are told to rejoice.
    • Woe is pronounced on the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea.
    • The devil has come down to them.
    • The devil has great wrath.
    • The devil knows that he has only a short time.
13. 12:13
    • The dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth.
    • The dragon persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child.
14. 12:14
    • The woman was given two wings of a great eagle.
    • The wings were given so that she might fly into the wilderness to her place.
    • In her place she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.
    • She is kept there away from the face of the serpent.
15. 12:15
    • The serpent cast water like a river out of his mouth after the woman.
    • The serpent did this so that he might cause her to be swept away by the flood.
16. 12:16
    • The earth helped the woman.
    • The earth opened its mouth.
    • The earth swallowed up the river that the dragon cast out of his mouth.
17. 12:17
    • The dragon was enraged at the woman.
    • The dragon went to make war with the rest of her offspring.
    • The rest of her offspring keep the commandments of God.
    • The rest of her offspring have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1

"A great wonder" does not mean a marvel here. The Greek word means a sign, something put on display to be read. The crown on the woman is a stephanos, the wreath given to a victor or worn at a feast, which is a different word from the royal headband worn by the dragon in verse 3. A sun, a moon and stars standing for a family recalls Joseph's dream in Genesis 37:9, where they are his father, mother and brothers.

12:2

"Travailing in birth" is old English for being in labor. To travail was to work hard and suffer, and it was the usual word for the pains of childbirth.

12:3

The dragon's "crowns" translate a second Greek word, diadems: the cloth bands tied around the head that marked a king, which is why the rendering calls them royal. Seven heads and ten horns draw on Daniel 7, where horns stand for kings and the kingdoms they rule.

12:4

KJV "drew" here means dragged or swept along, not attracted.

12:5

"A man child" is the KJV's way of writing a male child. "A rod of iron" quotes Psalm 2:9; the word covers both a shepherd's staff and a ruler's scepter, and the Greek verb behind "rule" literally means to shepherd.

12:6

"Threescore" is sixty, so the number is 1,260 days. Counted on a calendar of thirty day months, that is three and a half years, the same span named another way in verse 14 and taken from Daniel. "Wilderness" means dry, empty, unfarmed country rather than forest, and for Jewish readers it was where the nation lived off food God supplied after leaving Egypt.

12:7

Michael appears in Daniel 10 and 12 as the angelic prince who stands guard over Israel, and Jude 9 calls him an archangel, meaning a chief among angels.

12:9

Three titles are stacked on one figure. "Devil" translates the Greek diabolos, meaning slanderer or accuser, someone who brings a charge. "Satan" is a Hebrew word meaning the adversary or the accuser, used in Job 1 and Zechariah 3 for the figure who presses charges against someone in God's court. "That old serpent" means the ancient serpent, pointing back to Genesis 3; "old" in 1611 English often means long ago rather than elderly.

12:10

The imagery is a courtroom, continuing from verse 9: "accuser" is the prosecutor's role, and "accused" is the ordinary legal word for pressing a charge against someone. "His Christ" is a title, not a surname. Christ is the Greek for the Hebrew Messiah, the anointed one, a king marked out by having oil poured over his head.

12:11

"The word of their testimony" uses the Greek martyria, the evidence a witness gives in court. The word is the root of the English "martyr," a sense it acquired because so many who gave that evidence were killed for it, which is what the second half of the verse describes.

12:12

"Woe" is not a curse or an insult. It is the cry a Hebrew prophet used to open an announcement that disaster is on the way.

12:13

KJV "persecuted" here carries its older and more physical sense: he chased her, went after her in pursuit.

12:14

"A time, and times, and half a time" comes from Daniel 7:25 and 12:7. "Time" means a year and "times" was read as two, so the phrase adds up to three and a half years, the same period as the 1,260 days of verse 6. The eagle's wings echo Exodus 19:4, where God tells Israel he carried them out of Egypt on eagles' wings.

12:15

A sudden flood sweeping everything away was a common picture in the Bible for an enemy attack or a disaster that no one can stand against.

12:17

"The remnant of her seed" means the rest of her offspring, the children other than the one already born. "The testimony of Jesus Christ" is ambiguous in Greek and can mean either the witness Jesus himself bore or the witness others bear about him; the rendering leaves it open. The chapter also ends differently in different manuscripts: the oldest read "and he stood upon the sand of the sea," making the dragon the one standing, which modern Bibles print as verse 18, while the manuscripts behind the KJV read "and I stood upon the sand of the sea" and attach it to the opening of chapter 13.