12:6 How are we to understand this?
12:6 How are we to understand this?
In our study on Rev 12:1-5 we learned that the woman symbolizes the nation of Israel. Here she flees into the wilderness where God has prepared a place of refuge for her to escape Satan's wrath after he is cast out of heaven down to earth and fails to destroy the "man-child" the woman gives birth to (cp Rev 12:1-17).
We also learned in our study on Re 12:1-5 that the man-child symbolizes the hundred and forty-four thousand Jews - the firstfruits out of the tribulation of a new, redeemed Israel (See comments on Rev 7:1-8 and 12:1-5).
When Satan cannot destroy the hundred and forty-four thousand Jews because they are "caught up unto God" - raptured to heaven (Re 12:5) - he persecutes the woman through Antichrist.
He causes Antichrist to break his seven-year peace treaty with Israel in the middle of the treaty, and empowers him to make war with Israel during the last three and a half years of the tribulation "... a thousand two hundred and three score days" (cp Dan 7:7-8, 21, 24-25; 8:8-10, 23-25; 9:27; 2Th 2:7-9; Rev 13:1-2, 4-7).
A time and times and the dividing of times in Dan 7:25 also refers to the last three and a half years of the tribulation. The two wings of a great eagle in Rev 12:14, symbolizes how God sustains Israel during her flight from the forces of Antichrist and for the three and a half years she is in the wilderness. This symbolism has its origin in the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt (cp Ex 19:4; Deut 32:11-12; Isa 63:9).
The "water as a flood" which the dragon casts out of his mouth after the woman in Rev 12:15, refers to the armies of Antichrist. Armies are often symbolized by floods in the Old Testament (cp Jer 46:7-8; 47:1-4; Dan 9:26-27; 11:21-26, 40). The earth will open up and swallow the armies of Antichrist as it swallowed up those who rebelled against Moses in the Old Testament (cp Nu 16:28-35).
The remnant of the woman's seed in Rev 12:17 which the dragon went to make war with after the woman escaped from the armies of Antichrist are Jews who did not flee with the woman into the wilderness. They obviously get saved after the hundred and forty-four thousand are raptured. The name of the place in the wilderness to which the woman will flee is Petra, or Sela, as it is also called, which is located in Moab (cp Isa 16:1-5; 26:20).