[af_vet_1981]

**and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.**

So where is the second witness, to Mary spending 3 1/2 years in the wilderness, after Jesus ascended to heaven? I thought she was in the upper room when the Holy Ghost fell on Pentecost.

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Deuteronomy, Catholic chapter twenty nine, Protestant verse twenty nine,
Genesis, Catholic chapter thirty seven, Protestant verses nine to eleven
Matthew, Catholic chapter twenty three, Protestant verses thirty seven to thirty none,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James

The nation of Israel, and Jerusalem, are addressed in the feminine quite a lot in the scriptures. Rev. 12 is simply another one of those cases.

Jerusalem does not fit well at all, having no child and rejecting the Messiah in his generation. Messiah was not born to, nor in, Jerusalem. Furthermore, it is clear from Joseph's dream that the twelve stars adorning the woman are the twelve tribes of Israel. Therefore the woman herself cannot be Israel or Jerusalem. Miriam, however, did give birth to the Messiah, and it is altogether fitting that she should wear a crown of twelve stars, the twelve tribes of Israel, and be clothed in honor with the Jewish Patriarchs (sun) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the Jewish Matriarchs (moon) Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel.

[Zuriel]

That’s a lot of interpretting right there.

Oh, Israel is the woman, all right. “He came”..(born)..”to his own, and his own received him not”.

**Joseph’s dream** has Joseph (not Judah) as the center of attention. Mary was of Judah, and therefore was one of the “twelve stars” of the nation of Israel.

After she died, was Mary in purgatory for 3 1/2 years befored the ‘assumption’? Or am I making a poor assumption?

What a tangled web we weave......

Thanks for replying though!