Revelation — Chapter 13

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: Chapter 12 pulled back the curtain on the war behind history: a woman gives birth to a male child who is caught up to God's throne, and a great red dragon, "that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan" (12:9), is thrown down from heaven. Unable to destroy the child or the woman, the dragon "went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus" (12:17). Then "he stood on the sand of the sea" (12:17), and chapter 13 shows how he wages that war. He doesn't fight alone. He calls up two helpers, a beast from the sea and a beast from the land. Together the three make a dark copy of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. John wrote to churches in the Roman province of Asia, where cities competed to build temples to the emperor, and where refusing to honor Caesar could cost a Christian his trade, his freedom or his life.

Few chapters have been read in more ways. The main questions are who the two beasts are, what the healed wound means, what the mark is, and who is behind 666:

• Futurists (Guzik) see the first beast as the Antichrist, a real man who will rule a revived Roman empire for three and a half years before Christ returns. The second beast is his false prophet, and the mark is a literal mark needed to trade.
• Historicists like Henry read the first beast as Rome, pagan and then papal, and the second as the religious power of the medieval church that enforced worship of it. Many of them read 666 as Lateinos, "the Latin one."
• Preterists see the first beast as imperial Rome, often Nero in particular, and the second as the priesthood of the emperor cult in Asia, which pressed people to worship Caesar's image.
• Idealists see the first beast as any state power that claims what belongs to God, and the second as the religion, propaganda and culture that serve it, in every age.

All agree on the heart of it: the devil works through political power and false religion, the beast's time is short and set by God, and God's people are called to endure, not to give in.

The First Beast (vv1–10)

• "He stood on the sand of the sea" (12:17). In the ESV this sentence ends chapter 12. Some editions number it 13:1 or 12:18. There is also a small manuscript difference. Most early manuscripts read "he stood," meaning the dragon takes his stand on the shore to summon his ally. Others read "I stood," meaning John is standing on the shore when he sees the beast (the King James follows this). Either way, the scene is set at the edge of the sea.
• "I saw a beast rising out of the sea" (v1). "Beast" is thērion, a wild animal, a dangerous creature, the opposite of the "Lamb" (arnion) of chapter 5. To Israel the sea stood for chaos and the restless nations, the home of sea monsters opposed to God (Ps 74:13–14; Isa 17:12; 57:20). The picture comes straight from Daniel 7, where "four great beasts came up out of the sea" (Dan 7:3). Later the angel explains that "the waters… are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages" (17:15). Some scholars add a plainer echo for John's readers: the Roman governor of Asia arrived each year by ship, landing at Ephesus from across the sea.
• "Ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads" (v1). The beast looks like the dragon (12:3). It is his creature and reflects him. Horns stand for power, and diadems for royal rule. Daniel's fourth beast had ten horns, which "are ten kings" (Dan 7:24), and chapter 17 later says the seven heads are "seven mountains" and "seven kings" (17:9–10). Rome was the city on seven hills. The "blasphemous names" fit what John's readers saw on coins and temples: emperors called divus (divine), "son of god," and "savior." Domitian, according to the Roman writer Suetonius, liked to be addressed as "our lord and god."
• "Like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth" (v2). In Daniel 7, the first beast was like a lion, the second like a bear, the third like a leopard, and the fourth was too terrible to compare to anything. John's beast combines all four in reverse order, as seen looking back from his own day. It is every world empire rolled into one. Most see Rome here, the heir of Babylon, Persia and Greece. The deeper point is that the beast sums up all human power that sets itself against God.
• "To it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority" (v2). In the wilderness, Satan offered Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world" if he would bow down (Luke 4:5–7). Jesus refused. The beast accepts.
• "One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed" (v3). "Seemed to have a mortal wound" is literally "as slaughtered to death." The verb sphazō, to slaughter, is the very word used of the Lamb who "had been slain" (5:6). Even the phrasing "as if" matches. The beast copies Christ's death and resurrection. Verse 14 adds that it "was wounded by the sword and yet lived." Readings differ: - A real person who is wounded or killed and seems to rise. Guzik thinks this is the most natural reading. - The Roman empire reviving after a near-fatal blow, such as the chaos of AD 68–69 when Nero died and three emperors fell in a year before Vespasian restored order. - The "Nero returns" legend. After Nero's suicide in AD 68, rumors spread that he had not really died, or would come back. Several impostors claimed to be him. Many scholars think John draws on this fear: the persecutor seems dead, but his evil returns in another (the Tyndale notes suggest Domitian). - Pagan Rome "wounded" by the conversion of the empire and "healed" in a corrupt church, the historicist reading of Henry. - Evil's habit of reviving after God strikes it down, the idealist reading.
• "The whole earth marveled as they followed the beast" (v3). Its apparent resurrection wins the world's awe. It is a counterfeit gospel: a death and rising that leads people away from God.
• "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" (v4). This twists Israel's praise at the Red Sea: "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?" (Exod 15:11; Ps 89:6–8). It also mocks the name of Michael, which means "Who is like God?" and who has just fought and won (12:7). The world worships power. Behind the beast they are really worshiping the dragon.
• "A mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words" (v5). This is the little horn of Daniel 7:8, 20, which had "a mouth speaking great things" and spoke "words against the Most High" (Dan 7:25).
• "It was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months" (v5). The phrase "it was given" or "it was allowed" appears again and again in this chapter (vv5, 7, 14, 15). The beast has no authority of its own. God sets the limit. Forty-two months is three and a half years, the same period as the trampling of the city and the witnesses' prophecy (11:2–3) and the woman's time in the wilderness (12:6, 14), taken from Daniel's "time, times, and half a time" (Dan 7:25). As in chapter 11, futurists read a literal three and a half years, historicists 1,260 years, some preterists the years of Nero's persecution, and idealists the whole time between Christ's first and second coming.
• "Blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven" (v6). "Dwelling" is the word for tabernacle or tent. God's dwelling is defined as a people, those who "tabernacle" in heaven. Believers persecuted on earth already have their true home with God (Eph 2:6; Col 3:3).
• "Allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them" (v7). This is Daniel 7:21, where the horn "made war with the saints and prevailed over them," and Revelation 11:7, where the beast kills the two witnesses. The beast "conquers" them by killing them. Yet in 12:11 the saints "conquered" the dragon "by the blood of the Lamb… for they loved not their lives even unto death." What looks like defeat on earth is victory in heaven.
• "Everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain" (v8). The Greek word order allows two readings. "From the foundation of the world" can go with "written," so names were written in the book before creation (as in 17:8, which clearly says this). Or it can go with "slain," so the Lamb was slain, in God's plan, before the world began (1 Pet 1:19–20). The ESV takes the first, and older versions such as the King James the second. Both are true elsewhere in Scripture (Eph 1:4). Either way, the people who belong to the Lamb don't worship the beast, and their safety rests on his choice and his sacrifice, not on their own strength.
• "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain" (v10). This echoes Jeremiah 15:2 and 43:11. There is a manuscript difference in the second line. Some copies read "if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed," which would echo Jesus' words to Peter (Matt 26:52) and warn the persecutors. The ESV follows the reading that speaks to believers: some will be imprisoned and some killed, and they must accept it without taking up the sword themselves. Either way, the response is "the endurance and faith of the saints". The church does not fight the beast with its own weapons.
• Commentators: Henry reads the sea beast as a "worldly, oppressing dominion," the "fourth beast of Daniel, (the Roman empire,)" which "was set up by the devil, and supported by him." As a historicist, he takes the healed head as pagan idolatry abolished and then "popish idolatry" brought in, "the same in substance, only in a new dress." He comforts readers that the beast cannot conquer the souls of true believers. JFB sees the sea as "the troubled waves of peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues," and the seven heads as "the seven world monarchies." It hears in "Who is like unto the beast?" a parody of Michael's name, and notes that "more than one wound seems to me to be meant." Guzik takes the beast as a single future man, the Antichrist, a counterfeit Christ who will look attractive, not obviously evil. He points out that "anti" in Greek can mean "instead of" as well as "against." The Tyndale notes connect the wound with the Nero legend and the beast with Roman power.

The Second Beast (vv11–18)

• "Another beast rising out of the earth" (v11). Daniel's beasts came from the sea, but Daniel 7:17 also says "four kings shall arise out of the earth." The first beast comes from the sea, and the second rises from the land, close to home. For John's readers it may have suggested the local leaders in Asia who ran the emperor cult. Later this beast is called "the false prophet" (16:13; 19:20; 20:10).
• "It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon" (v11). It looks gentle and harmless, even like the Lamb, but its voice gives it away. Jesus warned of "false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves" (Matt 7:15). Here is the third member of the evil trinity: the dragon as a false father, the sea beast as a false christ, and the land beast as a false spirit who points people to the false christ, as the Holy Spirit glorifies the true one (John 16:14).
• "It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast" (v12). The second beast has no message of its own. Its job is to promote the first. In Asia, wealthy local priests and councils ran emperor worship, building temples, holding festivals and pressing citizens and trade guilds to join in.
• "It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven" (v13). This mimics Elijah (1 Kings 18:38) and the two witnesses (11:5). Jesus warned that "false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect" (Matt 24:24). Paul says the same of "the man of lawlessness," whose coming is "with all power and false signs and wonders" (2 Thess 2:9). Moses had already taught that a sign alone does not prove a prophet is from God (Deut 13:1–3).
• "Telling them to make an image for the beast" (v14). This recalls Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue on the plain of Dura, and his command that all "peoples, nations, and languages" fall down and worship it or be thrown into the furnace (Dan 3:1–6). Daniel's three friends refused (Dan 3:16–18). In John's world, statues of the emperor stood in temples and public squares, and offering incense before one was a test of loyalty. Around AD 112, Pliny the Younger, governor of the nearby province of Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan that he tested accused Christians by having them offer wine and incense to the emperor's image and curse Christ. Those who refused were executed.
• "Allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image… might even speak" (v15). "Breath" is pneuma, the same word as spirit. It mimics God giving breath to Adam (Gen 2:7) and to the two witnesses (11:11). Futurists like Guzik connect this with the "abomination of desolation" set up in a future temple (Dan 9:27; Matt 24:15; 2 Thess 2:4). Others take it as the power of propaganda and false religion to make an idol seem alive.
• "Small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead" (v16). No class escapes. "Mark" is charagma, from a verb meaning to engrave. The lexicon gives "a stamp, impress, mark." In the papyri, it was used for the official stamp on documents and the emperor's image and name on coins. Slaves, soldiers and devotees of some gods could be branded or tattooed to show who owned them. This mark is the beast's answer to God's seal on the foreheads of his servants (7:3; 14:1). The forehead and hand may stand for what a person thinks and what a person does, recalling God's words "bound… as a sign on your hand" and "between your eyes" (Deut 6:8).
• "So that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark" (v17). Refusing the beast costs a living. In Asian cities, trade guilds held feasts in honor of their patron gods and the emperor. A Christian who would not join could lose business and standing. Compare the "food sacrificed to idols" in 2:14, 20. Readings of the mark: - A literal, visible mark, perhaps tied to technology, required for trade in the last days. Guzik thinks this is quite possible, though he also notes that some take it as symbolic. - A symbol of allegiance, shown in what people believe and do. The mark is as invisible as God's seal on believers. The Tyndale notes say the text does not say what the mark looks like. - Historically, the coin bearing Caesar's image, or certificates of sacrifice like those Rome later issued in the persecution under Decius (AD 250).
• "The name of the beast or the number of its name" (v17). In Hebrew and Greek, letters doubled as numbers: alpha was 1, beta 2, and so on. Every name had a number. A graffito at Pompeii (buried AD 79) reads "I love her whose number is 545."
• "This calls for wisdom… calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666" (v18). "The number of a man" can mean the number of a particular man, or a human number, the number of humanity. Major readings: - Nero. "Nero Caesar" written in Hebrew letters adds up to 666. The Latin spelling "Nero," without the final n, gives 616. A few manuscripts, including a papyrus from about AD 300 found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt and the fifth-century Codex Ephraemi, actually read 616. Many scholars think the two numbers fit the Nero reading. The Tyndale notes favor this. - The number of falling short. Seven is the number of completeness in Revelation, so six is one short of it, and 666 is failure on failure, a counterfeit that always falls short of God. In Greek, the name "Jesus" adds up to 888. Guzik and JFB both mention this. - A future Antichrist whose name will be clear when he comes. This is the futurist view. Irenaeus, writing about AD 180, already warned against guessing too quickly. - The papacy or the Roman church, from Lateinos, "the Latin one," which adds up to 666 in Greek. Irenaeus first suggested it as one possibility, and many Reformers and historicists adopted it.

Irenaeus also knew of copies reading 616 and called them a scribe's error, preferring 666 from "all the most approved and ancient copies." That is still the judgment of modern editors. The number has since been fitted to popes, Luther, Napoleon, Hitler and many more, itself a warning against confident guessing.

• Commentators: Henry reads the second beast as "a spiritual dominion, professing to be derived from Christ," which looks like a lamb but "soon spake like the dragon," working by "lying wonders" and "pretended miracles." He says the mark "is made a qualification for buying and selling." On 666 he is modest: "What or who is intended by this, remains a mystery." JFB calls the false prophet "the power of knowledge, ideas," worldly culture and learning in the service of the beast. It compares the image to Nebuchadnezzar's statue at Dura, and notes that "The number six is the world number." Guzik calls the trio an unholy trinity and warns that miracles alone are no proof of God's work. He surveys the many guesses at 666 and counsels Christians not to be afraid of the number or treat it with superstition. He also mentions, as one suggestion, that Solomon's yearly income was 666 talents of gold (1 Kings 10:14), the king whose wealth and power led him astray. The Tyndale notes see John concealing the name, as he uses "Babylon" for Rome, perhaps to protect his readers.

Pointing to Christ

Everything in this chapter is a copy of Christ, and a bad one. The beast has a wound that is healed, but the Lamb was truly slain and truly rose. The beast rules every nation by force, but the Lamb ransomed people from every nation by his blood. The false prophet looks like a lamb, but Jesus is the Lamb. The beast marks its people to own them, but God seals his people to keep them. The world asks, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" The rest of the book answers. The beast had to be "allowed" every step of the way, its time was counted in months, and its name was written in human numbers that always fall short. The names that last are written "in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain."

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik covers both beasts, the unholy trinity, the mark, 666, and the call to patient endurance.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Revelation -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

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Reflection

• A Spiritual Power Behind Worldly Evil (v.2) — The beast's authority comes directly from the dragon — human evil has a spiritual source behind it. Do you recognize the spiritual forces at work behind systems and cultures that oppose God?
• Names Written in the Book (v.8) — Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life refuse to worship the beast. What gives you confidence that your name is written there?
• Patience and Faith, Not Panic (v.10) — In the face of overwhelming evil, the saints are called to patient endurance rather than fear or retaliation. How do you typically respond when it feels like evil is winning?
• Counterfeit Spirituality (v.11) — The second beast looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon — deception wrapped in a religious disguise. How do you discern between what's genuinely of God and what only looks spiritual?
• The Cost of Belonging (vv.16-17) — The mark represents total allegiance to a system opposed to God, without which no one can buy or sell. What smaller compromises are you tempted to make for access to the world's approval or systems at the cost of faithfulness?