The Mystery of the woman of Revelation 12 and her child revealed - who is she and her child and why does the dragon persecute her?

      The Book of Revelation is by far the most exciting prophetic book in the Bible and it is not just the last book of the New Testament but the last book of the Bible. It is my personal favourite and yet many Christians shy away from it because of a variety of reasons, since it evokes fear of future events including the imminent return of Jesus Christ whence the need for Christians to be ready to be taken up into God's kingdom but aside from fear, most people in Christendom avoid it also because of their inability to make sense of the imagery of various creatures in it because they lack prophetic understanding of how to interpret dreams and visions especially if the elements of the dream/vision given to them are abstract. Sure enough, the book of Revelation otherwise called Apocalypse of John the apostle of Jesus was written by John when he was really old. We need to understand that at the time when the book of Revelation was written at the end of AD 1, Pagan Rome's persecution of Christians was at its zenith. The situation was not very different with Jesus' most beloved apostle John in whose name a couple of other books of the New Testament are written to whom those writings are also attributed.

         After Jesus' resurrection, the persecution of Christians was widespread from Jerusalem and Israel by the Orthodox Jewish religious leaders to countries which were a part of the Roman empire where Christians were also persecuted by pagan Romans because Christianity claims exclusivity of salvation as a gift that can only be availed by anyone if they yield their hearts and lives in obedience to Jesus by accepting Him as their Lord and Personal Saviour in faith, Christianity's exclusive claims are that Jesus is the One and only living God and doorway to heaven, did not bode well with the pagans. As for John himself, he was thrown into a pot of boiling oil by the Romans just before this book was written but miraculously, the hot oil did not hurt John's skin or body. So finally, the Romans exiled John the apostle of Jesus to work in the Island of Patmos off the coast of Greece where John is believed to have spent the rest of his life in hard labour under the Romans as per some accounts, while another account by an Indian Christian saint named Sadhu Sundhar Singh traces him to a person named "Kailash Maharishi" who claimed that John was the same as Kailash Maharishi and that John is still in prayer with a really long beard indicating his age (well over 2000 years) till Jesus returns to take his bride the church to heaven and the justification verses for this is John 21:22 where Jesus tells Peter "If I will that he (John) tarry till I come, what is that to thee, follow thou me". Either way, we will know what happened to the apostle John on the other side of eternity.

i) The woman of Revelation 12:

             The woman of Revelation 12 is described in very specific terms by God to the apostle John in his vision. She is depicted as one that is clothed with the sun. The Sun indicates the idea that she was chosen by God and is therefore representative of the glory of God wherewith she is clothed indicating her being chosen of God for great things. Her head bears a crown of 12 stars, the 12 stars indicate the 12 tribes of Israel while she has the moon under her feet. If we see all the ideologies and religious systems in the world in our day and age, there is only one religion which is also a political system that has the moon albeit in crescent form as its symbol - that would be Islam, also those who have done research on Islam would know that Muhammad the prophet of Islam exhorts Muslims to hate Jews in the Islamic sources wherein the Jews are depicted in the worst possible terms as "monkeys" alongside Christians as "pigs". Not so surprisingly, nearly every other Islamic country in the Middle East sees Israel's existence as an aberration beyond just the Palestinian Arabs and only maintain superficial ties with Israel for the very same reason because Jews are vilified in the Islamic sources and Muslims are even told that the Islamic last day would not come till the rock behind which a Jew hides would say "O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me come and kill him" in the authentic Hadith Sahih Muslim 2926, book 56, Hadith 139. Despite their hatred, it is Israel that has the upper hand over its Islamic Middle Eastern enemies whose symbol is the moon albeit in its crescent form and this imagery fits in perfectly with the woman standing with the moon beneath her feet showing the woman's dominance over the ideology whose symbol is the moon in John's vision centuries before Islam was even born as a religio-political system. 

    The woman is depicted to be in labour and brings forth a man child who is caught up to God and His throne and this is obviously Yeshua Hamashiach being at the right hand of God indicating power and authority who is pursued by the dragon. The Bible's prophetic imagery from the beginning till the end depicts Satan or the devil as a serpent or more specifically a dragon. In Genesis, Satan is the serpent and in the book of Revelation, he is the dragon, an analogy that implies any reptilian depiction in Biblical prophetic imagery as an evil spirit or a demon but in this case, the serpent in Genesis and the dragon in the book of Revelation are both representative of Satan himself beside just any of the other angels of minor rank that rebelled against God and fell with Satan to the Earth only to become the demons of Hell who are Satan's minions.In John's vision, we see that since the dragon who is Satan himself is unable to war with the woman's son who is caught up to the throne of God the Father, i.e., Yeshua Hamashiach (Jesus Christ). The dragon instead chooses to wage war on the woman who brought forth the man child into this world. From the explanation written earlier, it becomes clear that the woman of Revelation is none other than the Jewish people because if we were to make the mistake of assuming that it was Mary, Jesus' mother who was persecuted by Satan, we lack Biblical evidence for such passages wherein Mary is depicted as someone who suffers grievously in the hands of Satan throughout her life even to the point of Satan endangering her life. Moreover, it becomes even clearer that Mary who is of the tribe of Judah cannot possibly represent all of the 12 tribes as represented by the crown of 12 stars on the woman's head and verse 6 of Revelation 12 makes it all the more obvious that the woman is the nation of Israel because she is taken to a wilderness and is fed for 1260 days, since a day with God is a thousand years and vice versa as per Biblical prophetic timelines as per 2 Peter 3:8 and Mary did not live that long on Earth, hence the persecuted pregnant woman of Revelation 12 represents the nation of Israel. Ultimately, the dragon persecuting the woman and later the remnant of the seed of the woman (Christians and Jews in Christ), is defeated and is cast into Hell, hence both the mother and the remnants of her seed are saved by God.

ii) Comparing the status of the nation of Israel as well as the church in this Revelation 12 with the suffering of the children of Israel currently in the world:

           Here, I need to pause and make it clear that God's original intent for mankind is for all to be saved through Jesus' work of Redemption on the cross and this applies to Jews and Gentiles alike. The first church was initially composed almost entirely of Jews who believed in Yeshua as their Messiah, all the men and women who saw Jesus' crucifixion at the hands of the Romans were Jews before Paul and Silas followed by Peter and the apostles were eventually led by God to take the Gospel message to the Non-Jews. It is therefore understandable and reasonable to believe that the church in the last days will be composed both of Jewish and Gentile believers in Yeshua as is further testified by the apostle Paul in Romans 10. In Israel, the move of God has already begun even as countless Orthodox Jews are coming to faith in Yeshua Hamashiach (Jesus Christ) as their long-awaited Messiah. In verse 17 of Revelation 12, we see that the dragon goes after the remnant of the woman's seed who follow Yeshua and keep His Words in order to war with them seeking to destroy them and this remnant of the woman's seed, is clearly the church or the body of Jewish and Gentile believers who believe that Yeshua is indeed the Messiah.

     In verse 13 of Revelation 12, we see that the dragon or Satan and his angels, once they are cast down to the Earth, go to torment the woman who brought forth the man child, especially Satan. Not so surprisingly, we see all the hatred for the Jewish people in the world as well as for the Gospel message and those Christians who hold to the Gospel of Yeshua. This does not come as a great surprise because Yeshua Himself said in the Gospel of John 14:30 that the Prince of this World has come with whom Yeshua has nothing to do, this Prince of the World is none other than Satan himself who is influencing  the non-Christian masses in the world to cause them to hate not just those Christians who hold onto the testimony of Jesus Christ but also the Jewish people who were instrumental in the birth of the Messiah. Most Jewish people are unaware of why the world hates them with a fervour and they have been vilified throughout history by so many groups and still are while the Jews themselves seek to alleviate any hatred the world may have for them by providing for needs of the world through their numerous scientific and technological discoveries. Despite all this, I have seen many Jew haters commenting that they wish to see Israel destroyed and the Jews wiped out as a people. However, it is quite illogical that the same people are the ones who believe in odd conspiracy theories that the people who moved back to the Holy Land from Europe who are fair-skinned like the Askenazi and Sephardic Jews from Germany and Spain for instance, are really not Jews. Yet it is these same people who seek the destruction of those who moved back to Israel and are currently living in Israel who call themselves Jews and are universally known by all as Jews. Herein do we see that these people who moved back to Israel from Europe and other places who are mostly fair-skinned truly are Jews because if these people were not, why would they be hated by all for no rime or reason? . Moreover, all such reasons attributed or propounded by Jew-haters to justify anti-Jewish hatred are based on false premises and baseless conspiracy theories.   

     
iii) My exhortation to Christians: 

         To those reading this as Christians, remember that without the Jewish people, we would not have our Bibles because the Bible is a Jewish book. Jesus and his family as well as the apostles and prophets of the Bible were all Jews. God stands on the side of the Jewish people in Bible prophecies throughout the Old and New Testaments against their enemies who are inspired by Satan to hate the Jews and seek their destruction which proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that anti-Jewish hatred is of Satan, not of God. I am very careful not to use the term "Antisemitism" because even Arabs and other descendants of Abraham can at least claim to be Semites themselves partly, if not fully like the Jews. This is why I chose to use "Anti-Jewish hatred" instead. As for me, my family and friends, we will stand for the Jewish people because God said to Abraham that He would bless those who bless Him and curse those who curse Him, a blessing that was passed onto Abraham's descendants through Sarah - the Jewish people when God in the Bible has the title "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob".

     King David further exhorts the readers of the Bible who follow the God of the Bible to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (and by extension the Jews) and that those who do so will be prosperous in Psalm 122:6. Sure we are to pray for peace everywhere in the world but especially for the Jewish people because scripture shows us that when we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, Israel and the Jewish people, we will prosper not only because God inspired David to say so but also God's blessing to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to bless those who bless him and his children through Sarah his wife, will be transferred to us as we do so.  Also, keep your eyes on Israel and the Jewish people just as you keep your eyes on our Messiah Yeshua because the course of history in line with Bible prophecy is dependent on Israel and the Jewish people. So observing Israel besides praying for the peace of Jerusalem and the salvation of the Jewish people through Messiah Yeshua, helps us understand where we stand in Bible prophecy at least based on prophetic timelines.


iv) My message to any Jew reading this: 

     It is quite unfortunate that lots of bad things have happened to you even because of people who claimed to be Christians in the past especially with respect to the Inquisition of the RC church but also the Lutheran church under Hitler in Germany and some branches of Christians like Presbyterians, some Angelicans and most Orthodox Christians who lack the kind of deep scriptural understanding that Born-again Evangelicals like myself have, and hence those who belong to those denominations sadly believe in the heretical teaching that the Gentile church is the New Israel which is false because we are the wild olives who have been grafted to the real olive tree of Israel through Yeshua as per Romans 10. I apologise to you for all the harm caused to your ancestors at the hands of so-called Christians who did all those bad things to you mentioning the name of Jesus. Rest assured that the New Testament is NOT a book on how to harm or kill Jews as you may have heard from some circles, nor does Jesus order Christians to harm you anywhere in the New Testament.


   I would like to exhort you to read the Berit Chadashah (New Testament) yourself starting with the 4 canonical Gospels and you will see that Jesus' message is a message of love, forgiveness, healing, deliverance, Salvation and service to others. In fact, Yeshua as you might know means "Salvation" in Hebrew and in the proto-Hebrew alphabet, the tetragrammaton YHWH spells out the message "Behold the hand, behold the nail" pointing to the identity of the Messiah in God's name. Moreover, I have also written another article on the identity of the Messiah in my blog entitled "Identity of the Messiah based on the symbols of the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel" and I pray that God speaks to you through that so that you would give your heart and life to Yeshua Ha'Mashiach who is God's salvation to the Jews first but also to Gentiles like myself, Shalom!