Revelation 12:6 - Exposition

And the woman fled into the wilderness. As with Christ, so with his Church. His great trial took place in the wilderness; so the trial of the Church occurs in the wilderness, by which figure the world is typified. It is generally pointed out that this verse is here inserted in anticipation of Revelation 12:14 . We prefer rather to look upon it as occurring in its natural place, the narrative being interrupted by Revelation 12:7-13 in order to account for the implacable hostility of the devil. Where she hath a place prepared of God . א , A, B, P, and others insert ἐκεῖ as well as ὅπου , "where she there hath," etc.—a redundancy which is an ordinary Hebraism. Though the Church is "in the world," she is not "of the world" ( John 17:14 , John 17:15 ); though the woman is in the "wilderness," her place is "prepared of God." The harlot's abode ( Revelation 17:1-18 .) is in the wilderness, and it is also of the wilderness; it is not in a place specially prepared of God. That they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days. The sense is the same as in Revelation 12:14 , "that she should be sustained there." The interpretation of the 1260 days, or 3.5 years, coincides here with that adopted in Revelation 11:2 . It describes the period of this world's existence, during the whole of which the devil persecutes the Church of God. As Auberlen points out, this is, in Revelation 13:5 , declared to be "the period of the power of the beast, that is, the world power." (For a discussion of the whole subject of this period, see on Revelation 11:2 .)