Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 12:1,2

ἐν τ. οὐ. almost = “in the sky” (cf. Revelation 12:4.). A Greek touch: cf. Hom. Iliad, ii. 308, ἔνθʼ ἐφάνη μέγα σῆμα · δράκων ἐπὶ νῶτα δαφοινός (i.e. fiery-red). Here as elsewhere mythological traits of the original source are left as impressive and decorative details. The nearest analogy is the Babylonian Damkina, mother of the young god Marduk and “queen of the heavenly tiara” (i.e., the stars, cf. Schrader, pp. 360, 361). For Hebrew applications of the symbolism cf. Genesis 37:9-10 and Test. Naph. v. (καὶ Ἰούδας ἦν λαμπρὸς ὡς ἡσελήνη καὶ ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ ἦσαν ιβʹ ἀκτῖνες). The Egyptian Osiris was also wrapt in a flame-coloured robe the sun being the “body” of deity (Plut. de Iside. 51). The original figure was that of Israel personified as a pregnant goddess-mother, but it probably represented to the prophet the true Israel or Zion of God (Wernle, 276 288) in which his Christ had been born (cf. John 16:21, with John 14:30, also En. xc. 37). The idealisation was favoured by the current conceptions of Zion as pre-existent in heaven (cf. Revelation 19:8; Revelation 21:8, and Apoc. Bar. iv. = widow) and as a mother (4 Esd. 9:38 10:59). The prophet views the national history of Israel as a long preparation for the anguish and woe out of which the messiah was to come. “Tantae molis erat Christianam condere gentem” (Grotius). The idea is echoed in Ep. Lugd., where the church is “the virgin mother”. The virgin-birth falls into the background here as in the Fourth Gospel, though for different reasons. The messiah of Revelation 12 is not the son of Mary but simply born in the messianic community, and the description is no more than a transcendental version of what Paul notes in Romans 9:4-5. The editor's interest lies not in the birth of messiah so much as in the consequences of it in heaven and earth. At the same time the analogies discovered between Cerinthus and this passage (by Völter and others) are wholly imaginary (Kohlhofer, 53 f.).

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Revelation 12:1,2

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