And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Comment: One can read commentaries and be given a multitude of aspects of this passage. You may like to read some of them but I am here just giving ‘my as I read it’ initial thoughts. The woman represents Israel, who gave birth in the past to a son (the Messiah, Jesus) whom the beast (Satan) sought to destroy when He, Jesus, was on earth – even to extent of trying to get the victory when Jesus was slain on the Cross. But Jesus had the victory when He burst from the tomb and was taken into heaven to sit, as God the Son, at the right hand of God the Father. This is in the past. Israel, although still in a covenant with God is at the moment in the wilderness because they will not accept the Messiah!
Then we have described an angelic fight between the good (followers of Michael) and the bad (followers of Satan). There is a double picture here because Satan is also represented as a dragon on earth. A dragon with seven heads each with a crown (I fancy representing power groups eg such as the British Empire) and ten horns, horns standing for powerful ideas or groups of lesser than world powers. I fancy that the dragon sweeping way a third of the stars might mean that he managed to get a third of the angels to desert God and become part of his kingdom of evil with power on the earth. This, of course, is recognizing the two worlds which as Christians we already accept – one which is very real because we live in it. The other ‘invisible’ to us but ‘Oh so real’, where God, angels, heaven is!
Prayer: Help me to realize the reality of the powers with which we wrestle. Powers which we cannot see!
As I read it! 