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Rev_12:3-4. By another sign now becoming visible, the mortal enemy of the woman and her child, i.e., the devil, is described to the seer. The idea of the devil (cf. Rev_12:9) as a δράκων [3035] is based upon Genesis 3,[3036] to which the connection of ὁ δράκων ὁ μέγας with ὁ ὅφις ὁ αρχ ., Rev_12:9, and the interchange of the expressions ὁ δράκων and ὁ ὄφις , Rev_12:13; Rev_12:15, clearly refers. The great size of the dragon may be inferred from his dreadful power;[3037] he appears to be fiery red, either “because fire[3038] is the symbol of destruction and corruption,”[3039] or “because he is the ἈΝΘΡΩΠΟΚΤΌΝΟς ἈΠʼ ἈΡΧῆς ,”[3040] and also “is intent upon the murder of the child of the woman, as well as the murder of all believers;”[3041] in favor of the last is especially the circumstance that the representation of the devil is given with concrete distinctness, viz., with respect to the Romish secular power which is drunken with the blood of the martyrs.[3042] The objection that ΠΥῤῬΟς is not blood-red[3043] is not pertinent.[3044]
ἜΧΩΝ ΚΕΦΑΛᾺς
ἙΠΤᾺ -G0- ΔΙΑΔΉΜΑΤΑ -G0-. The two questions as to in what manner the ten horns on the seven diademed heads should be regarded as distributed, and what is the proper meaning and reference of these heads, horns, and diadems, inseparably cohere, but are not to be answered from the context of ch. 12 alone, but only from ch. 13 compared with ch. 17. Upon a mere conjecture depend the views of Vitr., that the middle head (i.e., Diocletian) bore all the ten horns (i.e., governed ten provinces); and of De Wette, that three heads had double horns. The opinion also of Bengel, received by Hengstenb., Ebrard, etc., that one of the heads, viz., the seventh, bore all ten horns, cannot be derived from Rev_17:12.
With respect to the meaning of the heads, etc., only a few among the older allegorists have misjudged that since the seven heads, ten horns, and ten diadems are common to the dragon and the beast furnished with power from the same, ch. 13, the interpretation there given by John himself must regulate the explanation also of ch. 12 The devil manifestly appears as the proper author, working in the deepest foundation of every antichristian being, in such form as corresponds to the form of the beast, i.e., of the antichristian power actually entering this earthly world, and serving the dragon as an instrument. Without any support, therefore, are all such expositions as that of Tirinus, who understands the seven heads of the dragon as the seven deadly sins.[3045] But De Wette’s proposition also to explain the heads as an emblem of sagacity, and the horns of power, and the numbers seven and ten as the well-known mystical numbers without precise significance, in no way satisfies the analogy of ch. 13; the numbers also maintain their definite application in ch. 13. (and ch 11), and, therefore, cannot be taken in similar indefiniteness as that of the ΤῸ ΤΡΊΤΟΝ Τ . ἈΣΤ . directly afterwards in Rev_12:4. It is[3046] the antichristian secular power of the Roman Empire which is beheld in ch. 13 under the form of the seven-headed and ten-horned beast;[3047] and, besides, the precise number of heads, horns, and diadems was based upon the historical relations of that empire;[3048] according to this is to be understood the analogous and, as it were, archetypal appearance of the dragon working by means of that secular power.[3049] Erroneous, therefore, are all the explanations which, instead of the concrete reference to the Roman Empire, either introduce extraneous specialties,[3050] or keep to indefinite generality.[3051] The latter applies especially also against Hofm.,[3052] Hengstenb., and Ebrard, who by a false explanation of properly adduced passages, Rev_17:9 and ch. 13, and by an incorrect comparison of the ten horns of the dragon with the ten (still future) kings, Rev_17:12, understand the seven dragon-heads of the seven phases of the godless secular power; but the ten horns, which (improperly) are regarded as on the seven heads, of the tenfold division of that ultimate secular power. Among the older allegorists, Calov. has correctly received the reference as made to Rome, but perverted it by not explaining the seven crowned dragon-heads from the relations of the imperial succession,[3053] but by regarding them as designations of the seven forms of government received in the entire history of Rome.[3054] The corresponding original form of the dragon must also be understood according to the standard, derived from chs. 13 and 17, of the beast in the service of the dragon, through which the Roman secular government with its emperors is symbolized. The ten horns correspond to ten personal rulers, who as emperors stand within the horizon of the prophet as possessors of the Roman Empire: (1) Augustus, (2) Tiberius, (3) Caligula, (4) Claudius, (5) Nero, (6) Galba, (7) Otho, (8) Vitellius, (9) Vespasian, (10) Titus. Thus also in Rev_13:1 the ten horns of the beast, each of which bears a diadem, are meant; but in other respects the same fundamental view in chs. 13 and 17 is not applied and carried out with entire uniformity. The idea that one of the seven heads is mortally wounded, but again healed, applies indeed to the beast of ch. 13, but not to the dragon; and both descriptions, chs. 12 and 13, are distinguished from the statement of ch. 17 especially by the fact that in the former a genuine emperor, the last possessor of the Roman Empire, and ten kings still to come, who are distinguished throughout from those indicated by the ten horns of chs. 12 and 13, come within the sphere of the prophecy; while, on the other hand, ch. 17 makes no further reference to that which is designated in ch. 13 by the mortal wound of the one head, than by the inequality, common to all three chapters, between the number ten of the horns and seven of the heads. The seven heads are expressly designated as seven kings, i.e., emperors; John also says that the sixth is present.[3055] This peculiar relation between the number “ten” of the emperors and “seven” of the emperors, can only have the meaning which is indicated in another way also by the healed mortal wound, viz., that only with seven wearers of the diadem is the actual and true possession of the government found,—according to which a horn is to be regarded as on each of the seven heads of the dragon (and of the beast, Rev_13:1),[3056]—while three among the ten wearers of the diadem, viz., the three chiefs, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, by their rebellion possessed only an “uncertain and, as it were, unsettled imperial power.”[3057] The three horns, which recall these three usurpers, are on one of the seven heads neither in the dragon nor the beast. Where they are to be regarded, is not to be inferred in the same way from the idea of the forms of the dragon and the beast as the position of the seven (crowned, Rev_13:1) horns on the seven (crowned, Rev_12:3) heads; if John himself had had a precise view of the position of those three horns, he might have regarded them—corresponding to the historical condition—as between the fifth and the sixth crowned heads.
καὶ ἡ οὐρὰ , κ . τ . λ . By a highly dramatic stroke John portrays the track of the dragon, as by moving his dreadful tail hither and thither, he tore away a large (the third, Rev_8:7 sq.) part of the stars of heaven, and cast them down to earth. An undoubted adumbration of this description is Dan_8:10, where a horn that grew up to heaven cast down the stars. But in John the dragon appears ἘΝ Τῷ ΟὐΡΑΝῷ , like the woman, Rev_12:1; the more readily suggested, therefore, is the conception, that while in an eager rage he lashes about his tail, it casts down from heaven the stars which it strikes.[3058] An attempt at false allegorizing lies in this feature of the description, in the fact that the seven heads, etc., have certainly a precise figurative reference; but the circumstance already that the numerical statement ΤῸ ΤΡΊΤΟΝ , Rev_12:4, is to be taken only schematically, while the numbers Rev_12:3 are to be taken with literal accuracy, gives the description another character. The allegorical explanations offered[3059] could be only arbitrary and fluctuating, because they depend entirely upon the error that they seek for a definitely ascribed prophetic thought, where the text gives only the expressive feature of a poetical description; a feature, however, which is important and characteristic in the entire presentation of the dragon, because thereby, in a way corresponding to the nature of dragons[3060] and the visionary locality ( ἐν τ . οὐρανῷ ), the rage and eagerness of the devil appearing as a dragon are made visible.
The dragon has in view, above all things, the child who is about to be born of the woman; he puts himself[3061] before the travailing woman, in order that, when she have given birth, he may devour the child.
[3035] Cf Kidduschim, p. 29, 2 b.; Wetst.: “A demon appeared to him in the form of a dragon having seven heads.”
[3036] Cf. 2Co_11:3.
[3037] Cf. Rev_12:4 : κ . ἡ οὐρὰ , κ . τ . λ ..
[3038] Cf. Rev_9:17 sqq.
[3039] Ebrard.
[3040] Joh_8:44.
[3041] Vict., N. de Lyra, C. a Lap., Aret., De Wette, Hengstenb., etc.
[3042] Cf. Rev_17:4; Rev_17:6.
[3043] Ebrard.
[3044] Cf. on Rev_6:4.
[3045] “The pride of the lion, the greed of the tiger, the luxury of the bear, the gluttony of the wolf, the enmity of the serpent, the wrath of the viper, the indolence of the ass.”
[3046] Cf. already Vict.
[3047] Cf. Dan_7:7.
[3048] Cf. Rev_13:1, Rev_17:9 sqq.
[3049] Cf. Grot., Wetst., Ew.
[3050] N. de Lyra: “Khosroo, the Persian king, hostile to Christianity, is the seventh head; the six others are vassal kings, the ten horns, divisions of the army.” Cf. also Coccej., Beng., etc.
[3051] Beda: “The devil armed with the power of the earthly kingdom. The seven heads = all his kings; the ten horns = the whole kingdom.”
[3052] “The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes; the dragon has seven heads as a sign that his power is not indivisible; but the number of the powers into which his kingdom is dispersed is that of divine possibility. But his horns, i.e., the instruments of his strength, are ten, according to the number of human possibility.” Weiss: U. Erf., ii. p. 349.
[3053] Cf. Rev_17:10, Rev_13:3.
[3054] 1. Kings. 2. Consuls. 3. Decemviri. 4. Military tribunes. 5. Dictators. 6. Cæsars. 7. Odoacer, or even the Roman pontiffs.
[3055] Rev_17:10.
[3056] The diadems are found, with the dragon, on the heads; with the beast, on the horns; corresponding in the one place to the number seven of actual emperors, and in the other to the number ten of all possessors of the government.
[3057] Cf. Sueton., Vesp., i.
[3058] Cf. Eichh., Ew.
[3059] Cf., e.g., Beda: “It indicates the strength and malice of the enemy, who by deceitful arts, as though with his tail, cast down an innumerable part of angels or men.” Aret.: “The tail is the end of time—the Papacy, for to this the Roman Empire at length degenerated.” Vitr.: “The devil, through the emperors of Rome, persecutors of the faith, caused the teachers of the gospel to be disturbed.” In like manner, Grot., who refers the οὑρά to Simon Magus, who led astray the third part, not only of Christian people, but also of the people. Calov., Beng., Stern, etc.: “The victory of earthly rulers.” Ebrard, etc.: “The seduction of the angels.” The best still, De Wette: “Violence perpetrated in the kingdom of light.”
[3060] “Dragons have their power, not in their teeth, but in their tails” (Solin, 30, in Wetst.).
[3061] Concerning the natural presupposition lying in the ἕστηκεν , cf. Plin., H. N., viii. Revelation 3 : “It propels its body, not by manifold bending, as do other serpents, but by walking high and erect, in the midst” (Wetst.).