Verse 3. ‘And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads.’
There is no difficulty in identifying this second sign. We are told in verse 9 that the dragon is Satan. We must remind ourselves that this is a sign; the devil doesn’t necessarily look like this, but his great size indicates his might and his redness his anger and malevolence. Seven is the number of perfection and ten the number of fullness. His heads, horns and crowns symbolize his great might and his complete conquest of the world as it lies outside of Christ. That is why he is called ‘the prince of this world’ (John 14:30; cf. Luke 4:6). The whole picture is one of great power and we are reminded of 1 John 5:19; ‘We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.’ Satan rules the kingdoms of this world. There are two interesting contrasts between the woman and the dragon. Firstly, the adjective ‘great’ describes the woman’s sign, but not the woman herself, whereas it is the dragon who is called ‘great’ and not his sign. God’s people may appear weak and insignificant in this world and Satan appear extremely powerful, but in God’s eyes, His people have far more significance than does the devil. Secondly, the crowns on the dragon’s heads are diademoi or crowns of royalty- “The symbols of arrogated dominion” (Lenski), whereas the crown or garland on the woman’s head is a crown of victory. We are ‘more than conquerors through Him who loved us’ (Rom. 8:37) and so it shall be proved at the Last Day.
Verse 4. ‘His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.’
It might just about be possible to interpret the first half of this verse literally in the light of 8:12. However, the one third of the stars which are swept out of heaven are surely the fallen angels who joined in Satan’s rebellion. Jude speaks of ‘the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their first abode.’ The dragon stands in front of the woman, to destroy her Child, and we should think of the enmity between Satan and the woman’s Seed foretold back in Gen. 3:15. Satan is filled with hatred against our Lord and all down the ages has sought to bring about the end of the Messianic Line. For example:
Gen 6:2. ‘….The sons of God saw the children of men, that they were beautiful.’ Satan incited the seed of Seth to mingle with that of Cain, with the result that, ‘The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth’ (v.5). So God sends the Flood- will the messianic seed be destroyed? No! God saves Noah and his sons.
Gen 16. Abraham has no son and Satan incites him to doubt God’s promise and seek a child after the flesh by Hagar. But when there seems no hope, Isaac, the child of promise, is born (cf. Gal. 4:29).
1 Sam. 19:10. David plays the harp before Saul, who flings a spear at him to kill him, but David escapes.
2 Kings 11. The wicked queen Athaliah slays all the royal children. Will the messianic line be lost? No! Jehosheba saves the baby Joash and the Line is safe.
2 Kings 25:7. Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem and the children of King Zedekiah are put to death along with ‘All the princes of Judah’ (Jer. 52:10). Is the line of David finished? No! Isaiah 11:1 says, ‘There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.’ The Line might seem to be finished, but it was still continuing in secret until that day more than 500 years later when three foreigners came to the court of King Herod and asked, “Where is He that has been born King of the Jews?” (Matt. 2:2). Then Satan stirred up Herod to slay all the little children in Bethlehem, but, ‘Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise and take the young child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word”’ (Matt 2:13). As we read these accounts, it seems almost like a cosmic chess match, with Satan constantly attacking, but God successfully counter-moving every time and steadily moving towards victory.
