A brief notice of some leading features will throw light upon the scope and meaning of the book.
First, The nature of the connection between the th and izth chapters is difficult to discover. The Toth chapter forms a transition to the Second part of the work, and the iith intervenes. Hence the little book mentioned in x. 1 is the same as the book in v. t. It is open in x. 1, because the seals had been loosed before. It is a little book, because its contents are concentrated, as it were, in a focus. What had hitherto been idea and vision to the prophet, now becomes historical and actual. The scene shifts from heaven to earth. Hence the seer says in xii. 18 (xiii. i), `I stood upon the sand of the sea' (larcIO-riv, not irrrciOn) ; whereas he had been taken up to heaven at the commencement of the first part (iv. 1). The preparations for the impending event take place in heaven ; but when it is on the eve of being carried into effect, earth must be the theatre.
Secondly, The beast with seven heads and ten horns rising up out of the sea symbolises the Ro man power. The seven heads are identical with the ten kings or emperors ; and the ten horns are the ten proconsuls, the imperial vicegerents in the thirty provinces. The head, slain as it were, yet having its deadly wound healed, represents Nero. The dragon which gave power to the beast is Satan (xiii. t, etc.) The same beast is depicted in xvii. 3 as scarlet-coloured, full of names of blasphemy. The woman on the beast is the great city Babylon or Rome, the metropolis of spiritual harlotry. The second beast, or the false prophet, which helps the first beast, is a personification of false heathen prophecy, including magic, auguries, omens, etc., supporting idolatrous paganism con centrated in the Roman power.
Thirdly, The number of the beast is said to be the number of a man 666 (xiii. IS). This is made up of the numeral letters 111 lop, Casar Nero (p= too, 0=60, i= 200 ; )= 50, = 200, 1= 6, )=50, making 666). The shorter form of in), viz. rJ, would make 616, which is a very ancient reading for 666, as we learn from Irenmus. Ob jection has been made to this explanation that the author writes in Greek not Hebrew ; but his style of thought is Hebrew.
Fourthly, After the fourth angel sounded his trumpet, a threefold woe is announced in viii. 13. In ix. 12, it is said that the first woe, correspond ing to the fifth trumpet-sound, is past, and that two more are to come. In X1. 14, the second woe
is past, and behold the third woe cometh quickly.' Yet the third woe is not mentioned afterwards. When or where did it come ? or did it take place at all? Hengstenberg affirms that the third woe and seventh trumpet-sound are in xi. 15-19, and explains the point arbitrarily. With Baur we discover the third woe in xvi. 15,. Be hold, I come as a thief.' Thus, the Lord's sudden coming is identical with the third woe.
Fifthly, Some have thought that the tith chap ter describes a catastrophe befalling Jerusalem similar to that which afterwards happens to Rome. In this view the fall of Judaism and the fall of heathenism are leading phenomena in the book. Accordingly Eichhorn, Heinrichs, and others sup pose the general theme to be Christianity triumph ing over Judaism and paganism. But this is in correct. What befals Jerusalem is not a cata strophe or total destruction, but a partial judgment or purifying process ; and the scene in which this is described is only a subordinate one in the drama of preparatory phenomena. Jerusalem is not de stroyed but preserved. The theocratic seed is spared. Believing Judaism is still an object of the divine favour. The author, himself a Jew, and having patriotic feelings which Christianity did not quench, supposes that the city and outer court of the temple would be trodden down by the heathen for three years and a half—a number taken from the book of Daniel—but that the sanctum of the temple would be spared, and the worshippers in it, during that period. James the Just was there, and other Jewish Christians, praying for the sal vation of the nation. This is very different from the fate predicted for Rome, the persecuting and implacable enemy of the Christians. Total destruction awaits the new Babylon. Jerusalem would only suffer in part, and for a season. The holy city would be spared and the faithful inhabi tants protected by Jehovah ; while the unbelieving Jews would be destroyed. A comparatively small portion (the tenth) of the city falls, and but 7000 of the inhabitants ; the majority being saved by penitence. If the event did not correspond to the hopes of the prophet, we ought not to be surprised. Inspiration did not enable the Jewish seer to pre dict definite events in the future ; though his sym pathies were right and true. The lrth chapter should not be resolved into mere symbol, as it is by Eichhorn and Stuart.