From: Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab
The Sounding of the Seventh Trumpet
[19] Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his
covenant was seen within his temple.
The Woman Fleeing from the Dragon
[1] And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the
sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve
stars; [2] she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth,
in anguish for delivery [3] And another portent appeared in heaven;
behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven
diadems upon his heads. [4] His tail swept down a third of the stars of
heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the
woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child
when she brought it forth; [5] she brought forth a male child, one who
is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught
up to God and to his throne, [6] and the woman fled into the
wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God.
[10] And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and
the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ
have come.
Commentary:
19. The seer introduces the heavenly temple (the location par
excellence of God's presence), paralleling the earlier mention of the
temple of Jerusalem (cf. 11:1-2). The opening of the temple and the
sight of the Ark of the Covenant show that the messianic era has come
to an end and God's work of salvation has been completed. The ark was
the symbol of Israel's election and salvation and of God's presence in
the midst of his people. According to a Jewish tradition, reported in 2
Maccabees 2:4-8, Jeremiah placed the ark in a secret hiding place prior
to the destruction of Jerusalem, and it would be seen again when the
Messiah carne. The author of the Apocalypse uses this to assure us that
God has not forgotten his covenant: he has sealed it definitively in
heaven, where the ark is located.
Many early commentators interpreted the ark as a reference to Christ's
sacred humanity, and St Bede explains that just as the manna was kept
in the original ark, so Christ's divinity lies hidden in his sacred
body (cf. "Explanatio Apocalypsis", 11, 19).
The heavenly covenant is the new and eternal one made by Jesus Christ
(cf. Mt 26:26-29 and par.) which will be revealed to all at his second
coming when the Church will triumph, as the Apocalypse goes on to
describe. The presence of the ark in the heavenly temple symbolizes the
sublimity of the messianic kingdom, which exceeds anything man could
create. "The vigilant and active expectation of the coming of the
Kingdom is also the expectation of a finally perfect justice for the
living and the dead, for people of all times and places, a justice
which Jesus Christ, installed as supreme Judge, will establish (cf. Mt
24:29-44, 46; Acts 10:42; 2 Cor 5: 10). This promise, which surpasses
all human possibilities, directly concerns our life in this world. For
true justice must include everyone; it must explain the immense load of
suffering borne by all generations. In fact, without the resurrection
of the dead and the Lord's judgment, there is no justice in the full
sense of the term. The promise of the resurrection is freely made to
meet the desire for true justice dwelling in the human heart" (SCDF,
"Libertatis Conscientia", 60).
The thunder and lightning which accompany the appearance of the ark are
reminiscent of the way God made his presence felt on Sinai; they reveal
God's mighty intervention (cf. Rev 4:5; 8:5) which is now accompanied
by the chastisement of the wicked, symbolized by the earthquake and
hailstones (cf. Ex 9: 13-35).
1-17. We are now introduced to the contenders in the eschatological
battles which mark the final confrontation between God and his
adversary, the devil. The author uses three portents to describe the
leading figures involved, and the war itself. The first is the woman
and her offspring, including the Messiah (12:1-2); the second is the
dragon, who will later transfer his power to the beasts (12:3); the
third, the seven angels with the seven bowls (15:1).
Three successive confrontations with the dragon are described--1) that
of the Messiah to whom the woman gives birth (12:1-6); 2) that of St
Michael and his angels (12:7-12); and 3) that of the woman and the rest
of her offspring (12:13-17) These confrontations should not be seen as
being in chronological order. They are more like three distinct
pictures placed side by side because they are closely connected: in
each the same enemy, the devil, does battle with God's plans and with
those whom God uses to carry them out.
1-2. The mysterious figure of the woman has been interpreted ever since
the time of the Fathers of the Church as referring to the ancient
people of Israel, or the Church of Jesus Christ, or the Blessed Virgin.
The text supports all of these interpretations but in none do all the
details fit. The woman can stand for the people of Israel, for it is
from that people that the Messiah comes, and Isaiah compares Israel to
"a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is
near her time" (Is 26:17).
She can also stand for the Church, whose children strive to overcome
evil and to bear witness to Jesus Christ (cf. v. 17). Following this
interpretation St Gregory wrote: "The sun stands for the light of
truth, and the moon for the transitoriness of temporal things; the holy
Church is clothed like the sun because she is protected by the splendor
of supernatural truth, and she has the moon under her feet because she
is above all earthly things" ("Moralia", 34, 12).
The passage can also refer to the Virgin Mary because it was she who
truly and historically gave birth to the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord
(cf. v. 5). St Bernard comments: "The sun contains permanent color and
splendor; whereas the moon's brightness is unpredictable and
changeable, for it never stays the same. It is quite right, then, for
Mary to be depicted as clothed with the sun, for she entered the
profundity of divine wisdom much further than one can possibly
conceive" ("De B. Virgine", 2).
In his account of the Annunciation, St Luke sees Mary as representing
the faithful remnant of Israel; the angel greets her with the greeting
given in Zephaniah 3:15 to the daughter of Zion (cf. notes on Lk 1:26-
31). St Paul in Galatians 4:4 sees a woman as the symbol of the Church,
our mother; and non-canonical Jewish literature contemporary with the
Book of Revelation quite often personifies the community as a woman.
So, the inspired text of the Apocalypse is open to interpreting this
woman as a direct reference to the Blessed Virgin who, as mother,
shares in the pain of Calvary (cf. Lk 2:35) and who was earlier
prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 as a "sign" (cf. Mt 1:22-23). At the same
time the woman can be interpreted as standing for the people of God,
the Church, whom the figure of Mary represents.
The Second Vatican Council has solemnly taught that Mary is a "type" or
symbol of the Church, for "in the mystery of the Church, which is
itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out
in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother.
Through her faith and obedience she gave birth on earth to the very Son
of the Father, not through the knowledge of man but by the
overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, in the manner of a new Eve who placed
her faith, not in the serpent of old but in God's messenger, without
wavering in doubt. The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed
as the first-born among many brethren (cf. Rom 8:29), that is, the
faithful, in whose generation and formation she cooperates with a
mother's love" (Vatican II, "Lumen Gentium", 63).
The description of the woman indicates her heavenly glory, and the
twelve stars of her victorious crown symbolize the people of God--the
twelve patriarchs (cf. Gen 37:9) and the twelve apostles. And so,
independently of the chronological aspects of the text, the Church sees
in this heavenly woman the Blessed Virgin, "taken up body and soul into
heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord
as Queen over all things, that she might be the more fully conformed to
her Son, the Lord of lords (cf. Rev 19:16) and conqueror of sin and
death" ("Lumen Gentium", 59). The Blessed Virgin is indeed the great
sign, for, as St Bonaventure says, "God could have made none greater.
He could have made a greater world and a greater heaven; but not a
woman greater than his own mother" ("Speculum", 8).
3-4. In his description of the devil (cf. v. 9), St John uses symbols
taken from the Old Testament. The dragon or serpent comes from Genesis
3:1-24, a passage which underlies all the latter half of this book. Its
red color and seven heads with seven diadems show that it is bringing
its full force to bear to wage this war. The ten horns in Daniel 7:7
stand for the kings who are Israel's enemies; in Daniel a horn is also
mentioned to refer to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, of whom Daniel also says
(to emphasize the greatness of Antiochus' victories) that it cast stars
down from heaven onto the earth (cf. Dan 8:10). Satan drags other
angels along with him, as the text later recounts (Rev 12:9). All these
symbols, then, are designed to convey the enormous power of Satan. "The
devil is described as a serpent", St Cyprian writes, "because he moves
silently and seems peaceable and comes by easy ways and is so astute
and so deceptive [...] that he tries to have night taken for day,
poison taken for medicine. So, by deceptions of this kind, he tries to
destroy truth by cunning. That is why he passes himself off as an angel
of light" ("De Unitate Ecclesiae", I-III).
After the fall of our first parents war broke out between the serpent
and his seed and the woman and hers: "I will put enmity between you and
the woman, between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel" (Gen 3:15). Jesus Christ is the woman's
descendant who will obtain victory over the devil (cf. Mk 1:23-26; Lk
4:31-37; etc.). That is why the power of evil concentrates all his
energy on destroying Christ (cf. Mt 2:13-18) or to deflecting him from
his mission (cf. Mt 4:1-11 and par.). By relating this enmity to the
beginnings of the human race St. John paints a very vivid picture.
5. The birth of Jesus Christ brings into operation the divine plan
announced by the prophets (cf. Is 66:7) and by the Psalms (cf. Ps 2:9),
and marks the first step in ultimate victory over the devil. Jesus'
life on earth, culminating in his passion, resurrection and ascension
into heaven, was the key factor in achieving this victory. St John
emphasizes the triumph of Christ as victor, who, as the Church
confesses, "sits at the right hand of the Father" ("Nicene-
Constantinopolitan Creed").
6. The figure of the woman reminds us of the Church, the people of God.
Israel took refuge in the wilderness to escape from Pharaoh, and the
Church does the same after the victory of Christ. The wilderness stands
for solitude and intimate union with God. In the wilderness God took
personal care of his people, setting them free from their enemies (cf.
Ex 17:8-16) and nourishing them with quail and manna (cf. Ex 16:1-36).
The Church is given similar protection against the powers of hell (cf.
Mt 16:18) and Christ nourishes it with his body and his word all the
while it makes its pilgrimage through the ages; it has a hard time
(like Israel in the wilderness) but there will be an end to it: it will
take one thousand two hundred and sixty days (cf. notes on 11:3).
Although the woman, in this verse, seems to refer directly to the
Church, she also in some way stands for the particular woman who gave
birth to the Messiah, the Blessed Virgin. As no other creature has
done, Mary has enjoyed a very unique type of union with God and very
special protection from the powers of evil, death included. Thus, as
the Second Vatican Council teaches, "in the meantime [while the Church
makes its pilgrim way on earth], the Mother of Jesus in the glory which
she possesses in body and soul in heaven is the image and beginning of
the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise she
shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come (cf. 2 Pet
3:10), a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim people of God"
("Lumen Gentium", 68).
10-12. With the ascension of Christ into heaven the Kingdom of God is
established and so all those who dwell in heaven break out into a song
of joy. The devil has been deprived of his power over man in the sense
that the redemptive action of Christ and man's faith enable man to
escape from the world of sin. The text expresses this joyful truth by
saying that there is now no place for the accuser, Satan whose name
means and whom the Old Testament teaches to be the accuser of men
before God: cf. Job 1:6-12; 2:1-10). Given what God meant creation to
be, Satan could claim as his victory anyone who, through sinning,
disfigured the image and likeness of God that was in him. However, once
the Redemption has taken place, Satan no longer has power to do this,
for, as St John writes, "if any one does sin, we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our
sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world"
(Jn 2:1-2). Also, on ascending into heaven, Christ sent us the Holy
Spirit as "Intercessor and Advocate, especially when man, that is,
mankind, find themselves before the judgment of condemnation by that
'accuser' about whom the Book of Revelation says that 'he accuses them
day and night before our God"' (John Paul II, "Dominum Et
Vivificantem", 67).
Although Satan has lost this power to act in the world, he still has
time left, between the resurrection of our Lord and the end of history,
to put obstacles in man's way and frustrate Christ's action. And so he
works ever more frenetically, as he sees time run out, in his effort to
distance everyone and society itself from the plans and commandments of
God.
The author of the Book of Revelation uses this celestial chant to warn
the Church of the onset of danger as the End approaches.
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.