And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
And to make it more shocking, a cartoon.
It does help to try to get the sense from the passage. Now maybe I am biased towards symbolism, but this is a book with a lot of symbols anyhow, and it would be in keeping with the general theme.
Hand suggests actions; head suggests thoughts. Buying and selling suggests the give and take of general social intercourse. 666 suggests a vain imitation of God, or maybe even specifically the Trinity.
In a society that worships this beast, if you won’t worship him, you just won’t get along with anyone.
We see little microcosms on earth even now that look like this.
And he’s even wagging his evil finger at us (OK, that’s the cartoon not the scripture, but it seems characteristic.)
I view this with some pain because I had to live through a microcosm of this when I was young... eventually I did learn some of it which then put me behind a different kind of eight ball.
That began to change again when God rebuked Satan in my salvation. I wasn’t really able to know what it was to use this power to become whole, though, till He taught me to rebuke Satan, too. It isn’t railing at that evil but still majestic angel... it isn’t trying to argue with him... it’s just a short, sharp, telling NO which Jesus backs up in His grace to me.
Well anyhow, at some point apparently almost the whole world is going to become like this. It will be a difficult challenge to be a saint in it.