Revelation 13:1–10: Edit history

Context

This passage is part of the vision that John, the author of the Book of Revelation, received on the island of Patmos. In chapter 12 the dragon, cast out of heaven, goes to make war with the remnant of the woman's seed. In 12:9 this dragon is called "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan." Chapter 13 introduces two beasts that receive authority from the dragon. Verses 1–10 describe the first beast, which rises out of the sea, while verses 11–18 describe the second beast, which comes up out of the earth, along with "the mark of the beast."

The beast's appearance combines features of the four beasts in Daniel 7:1–8 (the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the beast with ten horns). The "forty and two months" granted to the beast are generally understood as the same period as the 1,260 days of 11:2 and 12:6 and as Daniel's "time and times and the dividing of time." Many commentators regard the healing of the beast's wounded head, and the worship expressed in the words "Who is like unto the beast?", as parodies of Christ's death and resurrection and of the praise offered to God. The passage closes with verse 10, which calls persecuted readers to patience and faith.

Interpretation

How one identifies the beast depends on how one reads the Book of Revelation as a whole, and many scholars combine elements of several approaches.

• Preterist reading: The beast is understood as the first-century Roman Empire and its imperial cult. Some link the healed head to the legend, current at the time, that the dead emperor Nero would return.
• Historicist reading: The chapter is viewed as prophecy unfolding across the entire history of the church. During the Reformation, an interpretation identifying the beast with the papacy became widespread among Protestants. The Catholic Church rejects this interpretation, and support for it has also declined within Protestantism today.
• Futurist reading: The beast is understood as the Antichrist and his forces, who will appear shortly before the Second Coming. Dispensationalism often reads the forty-two months as the second half of a seven-year Great Tribulation.
• Symbolic reading: Rather than referring to a specific person or nation, the beast is read as a portrait of the state powers and systems that in every age seek to usurp the place of God.

Debates and Issues

• Manuscripts and translation: Manuscripts differ on whether the one standing on the seashore at the end of chapter 12 is the dragon or John; among Korean Bible translations, those in the Korean Revised Version tradition identify this figure as the dragon. Manuscript variants also affect the meaning of verse 10. The reading "he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword," followed by the Korean Revised Version, is understood as a warning of judgment on persecutors, whereas the reading followed by the New Korean Revised Version, "whoever is to be killed with the sword must be killed with the sword," is understood as describing suffering that the saints must accept. Opinions also differ on whether "from the foundation of the world" in verse 8 refers to the slaying of the Lamb or to the writing of names in the book of life. On the basis of the similar expression in 17:8, many translations adopt the latter reading.
• State power: Romans 13:3–4 describes the state as an order established by God. Set alongside that passage, one interpretive tradition finds in this chapter grounds for the church to resist when the state deifies itself.
• Citation out of context: Claims directly linking the beast and its mark to specific technologies such as barcodes, microchips, or vaccines have at times circulated both inside and outside the church. Many pastors and theologians have criticized such claims as interpretations that disregard the context of the text.

Related Passages

• Daniel 7:1–8
• Revelation 17:8
• 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4
• Romans 13:3–4
• Revelation 14:9–11