Revelation 12:11

By] RV 'because of' (twice). Word of, etc.] i.e. the word of Christ to which they testify.

13-17. The devil is not able to hurt a section of the Church, perhaps the Palestinian Church at Pella is meant, for God protects her. God's protection is described in terms of the deliverance of the exodus, when Israel was borne by God on eagles' wings, cp. Exodus 19:4; (Revelation 12:14), and escaped from Pharaoh into the wilderness, passing safely through the Red Sea ('water as a river,' Revelation 12:15.). This being so, Satan turns against the Church in Gentile lands (Revelation 12:17).

In this chapter St. John used figures which were frequently employed in Jewish apocalypses. These may have been derived originally from the ancient myth of the fight between the sun and darkness. Whatever was their original meaning, here they are symbolical of Christian truth: cp. note, Revelation 6, on St. John's use of the prophecy in Matthew 24.