Revelation 12:13-17

13When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth,
he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
14The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so
that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert,
where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a
time, out of the serpent's reach. 15Then from his mouth the
serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and
sweep her away with the torrent. 16But the earth helped the
woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that
the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17Then the dragon
was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against
the rest of her offspring—those who obey God's commandments
and hold to the testimony of Jesus.




12:13 - Now that he has concluded the brief interlude describing the war in
heaven, John returns to the woman’s flight from the Dragon. As a direct result
of his defeat in the heavenly war and the realization the he had been hurled
to the earth , the Dragon turns his attention toward the woman who had given
birth to the male child . This was a key point for John to make sure that the
early church understood. The persecution that would endure was taking place
precisely because the Dragon had already been defeated by Christ. All of
Satan’s attacks on the church should serve as a reminder to the church that,
although they are very real and dangerous, Satan has already been conquered.
Also, don’t miss the fact that the persecution of the church, symbolized by the
woman, happens first on the land, which is a symbol of Israel. This is the first
place that the Dragon would seek to destroy the Church.



12:14 - Rather than being destroyed, the woman was given the two wings of
the great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the
desert. This imagery borrows from the book of Exodus in which the people
of God are saved by God in the wilderness. Moses says that God protected
them, "like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads
its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions" (Deut. 32:11). In verse
10, it says that God found them in a howling waste. Curiously, there is only
one other time that "hover" and "waste" are used together in the entire
Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament). That place is Genesis 1:2
which describes the earth as a waste or "without form" and says that the Spirit
was "hovering". No doubt, Moses was drawing attention to the fact that the
salvation of Israel was a creation event. John, then, is tying these things
together, indicating that the formation and protection of the Church is also a
creation event. This is why so much of the language in the Revelation that
describes the coming of the New Covenant is cataclysmic and creation-related
language. The reason for the woman being in the desert is not that she has
been abandoned, but is evidence that is being taken care of during the time of
the tribulation. This is reminiscent of Job who questions the treatment of the
donkey in the wilderness, comparing it to the plight of the poor (Job 24:5).
God’s answer is that the donkey is precisely where God wants him to be and
is being taken care of (Job 39:5).



12:15-16 - Just as the Israelites were trapped between their enemy, the
satanically-inspired Egypt and the Red Sea, so is the woman trapped by the
Dragon and the water like a river that was spewed out of his mouth. The idea
of a menacing river flowing from the mouth of Israel’s enemies, seeking to
destroy God’s people is a familiar one (Ps. 18:4, 16; 124:3-6; Isa. 8:5-8; 59:19;
Jer. 46:7-8; 47:2; Hos. 5:10). Once again the Church escapes as a result of
divine protection. The earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and
swallowing the river. John uses the imagery here from Numbers 16:28-33,
when the leaders of a rebellion against Moses were swallowed up by the earth.
The point is clear: regardless of what the Dragon does to attack the Church,
she is protected by the power of God and will not be destroyed.



12:17 - The Dragon failed to destroy the Church during the short time that he
had (Rev. 12:12). Frustrated from that attempt, he turns his anger towards the
rest of her offspring. Milton Terry, in Biblical Apocalyptics: A Study of the
Most Notable Revelations of God and of Christ in the Canonical Scriptures,
explains this distinction between the woman and her offspring. "These
distinctions are easily made and maintained. The Church, considered as an
institution and an organic body, is distinguishable from her children, as Isaiah
66:7-8 and Galatians 4:22-26 clearly show. . . We accordingly observe that the
Church is in one point of view the totality of all her members of children; in
other ways, familiar to the Scripture, her individual members are thought of a
s related to her as children and mother." Having failed to destroy the mother
and offspring, Satan turns toward the rest of the primarily Gentile Christian
Church. The Saints overcome the Dragon by the word of their testimony and
their faithful obedience (Rev. 12:11). This is not meant as a strictly chronological
passage as if Satan will only attack the Church after the Jewish War.
This is, instead, the culmination of events of the ‘last days’, symbolized by the
flight of the woman.