Revelation 17:11

Revelation 17:11. And the beast that was and is not is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goeth into perdition. What is here said is said not of a new ‘head' but of ‘the beast,' and this beast is to be identified with that of Revelation 17:8. With a slight exception the description of the beast given in the two passages is precisely the same, and that exception is easily explained. It consists in the omission from the latter of the two of the words, ‘and is about to come up out of the abyss.' But these words are parallel to that part of the designation of our Lord in this book which speaks of Him as ‘to come,' and which was omitted in chap. Revelation 11:17, because at that point it was no longer suitable: the Lord was come. The omission of the clause in the present instance is to be similarly explained. The previous and preparatory manifestations of the beast are over. It now comes itself, that it may be ready for destruction when the Lord appears. The ‘beast' here is, therefore, identical with that of Revelation 17:8; that is, with the beast as it was thought of at a time prior to any mention, in Revelation 17:9, of the successive forms of its manifestation. It is thus distinct from any one of its seven heads. No single head may fully represent it. Thus also we see why it is described in the apparently contradictory language of this verse. First, it is ‘an eighth.' Not that it is numerically an eighth in the same line with the seven. Then it would be an eighth head; but we are dealing with the beast itself, not with its heads, and it is spoken of as an eighth simply because it follows the seven, and because in its final condition all the malice and evil of its previous conditions are concentrated. At the same time it is possible that the Seer desires to bring out this fact in connection with the beast, that he may identify it with the ‘Little Horn' of Daniel 7:8. That Little Horn takes the place of three out of ten horns which are plucked up by the roots, that is of the eighth, ninth, and tenth horns. It thus comes after seven, is numbered eight, and represents the ungodly world-power in its highest manifestation. We have already seen that, according to Jewish methods of conception, the number eight was peculiarly fitted to express such a thought (comp. on chap. Revelation 13:18). Secondly, the beast is said to be ‘of the seven.' The meaning is not that it is one of the seven, when it had just been said that it was distinct from them. The preposition ‘of' is to be understood in its common acceptation in St. John's writings, as denoting origin, and, with origin, identity of nature. The beast is the essence, the concentrated expression, of the seven, the embodiment of their spirit; and it was necessary to mention this, lest we should think that it belongs to a wholly different category. The ‘Little Horn' in Daniel was still a horn, and the great antichristian power is of the same nature and essence as the seven antichristian powers that go before it. This ‘eighth' world-power is not then wholly new. It is the old world-power concentrating in itself all the rage of the seven. Thirdly, the beast ‘goeth into perdition' (comp. chap. Revelation 19:20). Nothing is said of its continuing either a longer or a shorter space. Enough that to go into perdition is at once its nature and its fate. Finally, it may be remarked that we seem to have nothing here of a personal antichrist, still less of a human king who has died and risen from the dead. We have simply the last and worst manifestation of the ungodly power of the world.