Tuesday, 29 January 2013

The dragon and the child- Revelation 12:4


Core text: 

Then the dragon turned toward the woman, because it wanted to eat her child as soon as it was born. (Revelation 12:4 CEV)

In the core text for this post John, the author of the book of Revelation, gives us a glimpse of what happened back in the time when Jesus Christ was born. This part of Revelation is thus not about the future but about the past.

In our core text the dragon is a symbol for the evil one or the devil, perhaps even Satan. In the core verse the dragon is about to eat the child right after birth. This reminds me of at least one passage in the Bible:

…because Herod is looking for the child and wants to kill him. (Matthew 2:13 CEV)

The child in Matthew 2:13 is Jesus. King Herod was evil and wanted to kill the Messiah on birth because he felt threatened by the power of the Messiah. Now that fits into the picture of Revelation 12:4. The dragon is in this verse King Herod who was doing evil and chose to murder his opponents. In Revelation 12:4 the woman is thus the mother of Jesus and “ to eat” ment to kill.

Thus Herod wanted to kill Jesus as soon as Mary gave birth to Him. John communicated the birth of Jesus in a mythological way.

Give us your thoughts on the text

Till next time!


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