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Rev 12:5. Ἔτεκεν, brought forth) The Christian Church brought forth a male child, Christ, considered not personally, but in His kingdom. Vitringa interprets it of Constantine, when he gained possession of the empire; D. Lange weightily refutes him, in his Comm. upon the Apocalypse, f. 137, 141. Nor, however, as the same writer supposes, is the conversion of Israel here signified; for that nation does not bring forth, at its conversion, but is born: and the crown of twelve stars prefigures the conversion of the twelve tribes: comp. Gen 37:9. The birth here described has already long ago taken place; that conversion [of the twelve tribes] has not yet taken place. The woman brought forth, when in the ninth century, more nations than before, together with their princes, were, under the name of Slavonians, added to the assembly of the Christian name. Therefore almost the whole of this chapter has been fulfilled, although D. Lange refers it to the future, in the same place (see above), and in Epicr. p. 408. The very war of the dragon with the rest of the seed of the woman, Rev 12:17, precedes the rising of the beast out of the sea; but this took place in the eleventh century, as will presently be shown.-ὑιον ἄῤῥενα) Learned men have brought together to this place passages in Aristophanes and Alciphron, where a woman is said to have brought forth παιδίον ἄῤῥεν· but the cases differ; for παιδίον is generic, ὑιὸς specific. Nor, however, does John write ὑιὸν ἄῤῥενα without reason. For thus also Jer 20:15, it is said בן וכר, where in the Greek it is υἱὸς ἄρσην, or simply ἄρσην as in this passage. Primasius omitting the word son, says male, as Rev 12:13 has it.-ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ, with a rod of iron) The rod is for long continued obstinacy, until they submit themselves to obedience.