The Beast That Was, and Is Not
7 The angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. 8 The beast that you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into destruction. Those who dwell on the earth and whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see that the beast was, and is not, and shall be present. 9 Here is the mind that has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. 10 They are seven kings. Five have fallen, the one is, and the other has not yet come. When he comes, he must continue a little while. 11 The beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goes to destruction.
The angel decodes the beast by its career — was, is not, will be present — a history of persecuting power parodying the divine name, riding toward destruction.
The beast that you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into destruction.
The angel's decoding begins with the mount, and its formula is a parody of the highest name in the book. God is who is and who was and who is to come Revelation 1:4; the beast was, and is not, and shall be present Revelation 17:8 — a counterfeit of eternity assembled from a broken career. The formula is also the healed wound told as history Revelation 13:3: the persecuting power was — its long era of dominion Revelation 13:5; is not — the deadly stroke, the era-ending captivity the vision's own rule decreed Revelation 13:10; and is about to come up out of the abyss — the revival, the wound healing, the world marveling again: those who dwell on the earth... will marvel when they see that the beast was, and is not, and shall be present. The wonder is confined to one register: those whose names have not been written in the book of life — the enrolled are proofed against the marvel by knowing the story's end: he goes to destruction, stated twice in four verses.
Here is the mind that has wisdom Revelation 17:9 — the book's summons to careful reading Revelation 13:18 — the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. They are seven kings.
The decoding is doubled — mountains and kings at once, and in the prophets both are powers: kingdoms as mountains Jeremiah 51:25 Daniel 2:35, kingdoms as kings Daniel 7:17 Daniel 7:23. The woman — the mystery-Babylon system — sits on the whole succession of world powers: the same anatomy the dragon wore Revelation 12:3, because the dragon has worked through every one of them. Five have fallen, the one is, and the other has not yet come — from the vision's vantage, the greater number of the persecuting succession lie behind, one holds the stage, a short one follows: history counted from inside the vision, with the accent on how little remains.
The beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goes to destruction.
The revived beast — the healed-wound power in its final form — is an eighth: a fresh appearance on the world stage; and of the seven: nothing new, the old persecuting essence returned, the same head under a new number. The book's counsel against every marveling generation is in the arithmetic: however many heads the succession grows, the trajectory is one — and he goes to destruction. The career that parodies is to come ends where every parody ends; the reader who knows that walks unamazed Revelation 17:8 through the last act.
held with reason What this mark means