Read Revelation 12:13–17
You may have heard that the book of Revelation uses numbers symbolically, but maybe you have not been sure what to do with that information. If the numbers are symbolic and not literal, why bother with them at all? Can they mean anything if they do not mean something specific? Or maybe, if you are being really honest, you are skeptical about the whole recursive and kaleidoscopic thing we talked about a few days ago, where Revelation revisits the same events over and over from different perspectives. It sounds far-fetched, doesn’t it? How much evidence is there that the numbers are symbolic and the events are the same? Today’s passage is an example of both.
Consider that the woman once again flees from the serpent to be nourished in the wilderness. Did that not already happen in verse six? And what is this about a “time, times, and half a time” (12:14)? What does John expect us to get out of this if he does not even tell us what a “time” is? Let’s try some symbolic math for a second. A “time, times, and half a time” adds up to three and a half times. When the woman fled in verse six, she stayed there for 1,260 days, which is a roundabout way of saying three and a half years. Sounds a lot like three and a half times, does it not? As we see here, one way John uses symbolic numbers in Revelation is by expressing the same number in different ways. When he returns to the same number, he draws a connection between those events, possibly even indicating that they are the same thing from two different perspectives.
But what is the point of all this? Why bother? Hopefully, you see how carefully written Revelation is and how worthy it is of close consideration. It is not a haphazard recording of crazy visions or a series of headlines connected by a red string of conspiracy. It is a well-crafted literary masterpiece that creatively, beautifully, and forcefully encourages God’s people to persevere in persecution. It is written for the benefit of “those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus” (12:17).
