Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Revelation 13:4
4. Worshipped the dragon In retaining many of the forms and practices of old paganism. As the dragon is the impersonation of the pagan empire, so the beast is the impersonation of the nominally Christianized empire, and personal attributes and acts are ascribed to both alike. But the latter is made to individualize itself through the second beast and the image, as a sort of triunity, a three yet one. So that the official acts of the representative “image” are spoken of as the acts of... read more
Whedon's Commentary on the Bible - Revelation 13:3
3 . The proposed name must be not in the Saxon, Latin, or Hebrew language, but in the Greek. Says E.B. Elliott, (vol. iii, p. 205,) “There is the highest probability of the language and number of the word being Greek, and not Hebrew, because the apocalypse was intended for the use of the Gentiles, to whom Hebrew was scarcely known; because the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet are expressly selected by Christ in the apocalypse, and not those of the Hebrew, to express his... read more