Summary
Satan attempts to destroy the church, but the earth herself comes to its rescue.
Analysis
The pursuit of the woman who is both church and mother of the MessiahThe Messiah was the one who, it was believed, would come to free the people of Israel from bondage and exile. In Jewish thought the Messiah is the anticipated one who will come, as prophesied by Isaiah. In Christian thought Jesus of Nazareth is identified... continues after Satan is thrown down from heaven. In his great wrath, he seeks to sweep the woman away with a floodThe flood refers to the catastrophic deluge in Genesis. In the biblical account Noah, his family, and selected beasts survive the flood in an ark; thereafter they received a rainbow in the sky as a sign of God's promise. Many other cultures also have flood.... The woman is saved when the earth comes to her assistance. In most English translations, the pronoun that refers to the earth is translated as a neuter pronoun: “its” (12:16). However, in Greek, the pronoun (and the earth) is feminine, and so it would be appropriate to translate “the earth opened her mouth and swallowed the river” (12:16). Within the context of the Roman EmpireThe region we today call Palestine and Israel was under Roman rule during the time of Jesus and the early church. The Roman Empire was in its ascendancy during the first century, making it the most powerful political and military force on earth., it is probable that John is intentionally protesting against Roman imperial propaganda. A stock piece of Roman visual imagery was the emperor as a warrior, subduing nature, portrayed as a woman. The message of this imagery was that the emperor’s power of war led to agricultural prosperity. John, in his vision of the earth thwarting the dragon, condemns this link between war and prosperity. In John’s eyes, the Roman emperor is part of the destructive forces allied with the dragon. The earth does not submit to this destruction, but instead rises up against it. This rebellion of mother earth, is part of John’s contention that creationCreation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and... itself is redeemed through the blood of the Lamb.
