Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Wow, my friends, we have made it. This is the last book in the Bible that mentions 'desert'...of course, it also happens to be the last book in the Bible, period. Revelation, the prophetic visions given to John on the island of Patmos after he survived Nero's attempt to kill him by cooking him alive in a vat of oil. It is full of imagery and allegory and John's best attempts to describe things he had no vocabulary for. (Could 'two wings of a great eagle' be his best attempt to describe an airplane? We just don't know.) His poetic language does make it difficult for us to interpret what he is trying to say, because we want to make it fit familiar places and known technology (like airplanes). And, he writes of 'what was, what is, and what is to come'...but he doesn't identify which is which, and it is not in chronological order. I kinda think, though, when we get to the kingdom and see what it was he was trying to say, we will all agree that he was correct, even though we gave it wrong meanings. Because we'll see what he saw and see how it makes sense. But in the meantime, we do the best we can, knowing full well that we might be way off base.
I always remind myself, when I see all the folks who have charts and things describing end times, that the best Bible scholars of the first century were looking just as avidly for his coming...and, because they had already made up their minds what it would be like, they missed it, because the reality didn't match their reasoning. When trying to work through prophetic writings, there is always the grain of salt that human thinking...is limited.
So, that being said, there are three verses in Revelation that mention 'desert':
A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.... She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. -- Rev. 12:1, 5-6
As a kid, Revelation 12 was a fantastical story to me...the pregnant woman, the baby, and the dragon, who is mentioned in the verses I skipped just because I didn't want to type out the whole chapter. But verses 3-4 describe the enormous red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns, a tail that pulled 1/3 of the stars from heaven to earth, who stood in front of the woman giving birth so he could devour her child the moment it was born.
Creepy and graphic stuff for a pre-teen. But it doesn't end there... the woman and her child were both snatched away at once and the dragon ("and his angels") fought against the armies of heaven ("Michael and his angels"), lost the battle and was flung to earth out of the heavenly realm, along with the angels who fought with him. Verse nine specifically states that the dragon is "that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray." Most commentators hold that this is all allegory and the woman is figuratively the nation of Israel, and her son is Jesus. Which makes sense, and could very well be right.
Then we have a bit of poetic declaration, warning the inhabitants of the earth about the fury of the dragon, and the narrative picks up again in verse 13:
When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time, out of the serpent's reach....Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring -- those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. -- Rev. 13-14, 17
This seems to me to be repetitive; the woman fleeing to the desert is described twice. The first time it just says she fled there, the second says she was given wings to fly there. In any case it is a place prepared for her, and it is for 1,260 days...or, a time, times and half a time. Again, Bible commentators refer to this as half of the Great Tribulation...that 7 year time when the whole world goes absolutely bonkers at the end of the age.
The other reference to 'desert' also is a wild and creepy reference to a different woman all together...who is referred to in 17: 1 as 'The Great Prostitute':
Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: "MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. -- Rev. 17:3-6
It's interesting; because I have pulled those two references out owing to the mention of 'desert', I see something I have never seen before. The description of the beast is almost identical to the description of the dragon in chapter three. Yet the angel who is explaining this thing to John in the rest of the chapter makes it pretty clear that the beast is not the dragon...the beast seems to represent kingdoms of the earth, while the woman represents some other kind of power associated with Babylon. I have heard different religious systems interpreted as the woman; I'm not sure if one particular religious system fits the bill or if it applies to all false religious alliances with political kingdoms. Or if it represents the demonic power that drives those kinds of power grabs, putting men in places that only God should inhabit. I can kind of see that, too. In any case, the beast will eventually turn on her and humiliate and destroy her, for all that they appear to be allies in the onset.
So...the first two references to desert refer to a place of protection; the last was the trysting place of the beast and the drunken woman. An attempt by the beast to pawn off the prostitute as the woman who fled to the desert? That's an idea I have not heard of before...the prostitute proclaimed to be the woman in the desert, the true mother of the followers of God? That would definitely sound like she represents some kind of religious entity...the beast brought her out of the desert, where the first woman had been known to be in hiding...it does make a sort of weird sense.
Revelation is a fascinating and mysterious word; I really am looking forward to the day when we see it from the other side and all say, "Oh, so THAT'S what that was! Yes, I see that now!" When we no longer see through a glass, darkly, so to speak...
I will be out of pocket for the next two Fridays, but I'll be back on Good Friday with a look back over the last 18 months in the desert. What a trip it's been...
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