Revelation 12:15,16

Revelation 12:15-16. The imagery employed in these verses is difficult. It is in all probability taken from the passage of Israel across the Red Sea and the river Jordan into the Promised Land. This reference is the more probable when we remember the language of David in Psalms 18, when at Revelation 12:4 he first declares that ‘the floods of ungodly men' (emissaries of Satan, persecutors) made him afraid, and then at Revelation 12:15-17 compares his deliverance to the passage of Israel through the Red Sea. With this may be mixed the thought of the history of Korah and his companions, when men who had envied Moses and risen against him in a formidable insurrection were destroyed by the earth's opening her mouth (Numbers 16:32). The symbol is of God's protecting care of His people. In the day of their trial He will provide for them a way of escape.