by Jerry Huerta
copyright 2023
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. (Revelation 17:9-11)
Revelation 17:9-11 is a
conundrum, which is why it takes wisdom to discern the passage. Only the eighth king or beast is revived. The sixth king “is” or reigns from John’s
perspective: five kings are fallen from power. Again, the eighth king “was” or
existed before the sixth, making it one of the past five. The said account is
wisdom, the proper syntax of the passages. The king or scarlet beast that “was”
before the sixth revives fully as the eighth. Allowing the Bible to translate
itself here, John follows Daniel’s renaming kings as beasts or kingdoms.
These
great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the
earth… The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth. (Daniel 7:17, 23)
John uses the literary device of
appositives in Revelation 17:9-11 that affirms that the seven heads are seven
mountains and are seven beasts and kings that symbolize seven kingdoms. John
uses the literary device here as he does in 12:9 and 20:2. There are no
contradictions in the seven mountains, as mountains also depict kingdoms in
scripture (Psalms 2:6; 48:1; Isaiah 66:20; Jeremiah 51:25; and Joel 3:17). This
literary device is also maintained by Revelation 13:3.
And I
saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was
healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. (Revelation 13:3)
The seven heads are renamed beasts
in chapter 13. Moreover, one head or beast is “wounded” and rises again and developed
as the scarlet beast in Revelation 17.
The
beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder,
whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the
world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. (Revelation
17:8)
The scarlet beast “was” and “is
not” but is anticipated a rise in power again as the eighth king, which
promotes “wonder” on the earth. This promotion on earth identifies the scarlet
beast as the wounded head in Revelation 13:3. The beast with seven heads and
ten horns rises in chapter 13 and in chapter 17 it “is not.” Chapter 17 also
anticipates its rise as the eighth and final kingdom. The evidence that both
have “seven heads and ten horns” corroborates this identity (Revelation 13:1,
17:3). Allowing the Bible to translate itself vindicates that the beast rises
from the sea and falls from power between the reigns of the sixth and seventh
kings to regain as the eighth.
John irrefutably renames Daniel’s
beasts with the literary device of appositives in Revelation 17:9-11. He
renames Daniel’s beasts, heads, and mountains and adds criteria that make the
identity cryptic, hidden from those lacking sagacity. Rendering the seven kings
as individuals ignores this correspondence and exemplifies ignorance of the
literary device. A scholarly approach yields that the seven kings are also
identified as the seven heads and represent successive kingdoms commencing with
Babylon. A scholarly approach yields that Daniel’s beasts are successive
dominant world powers, renamed heads by John. The Revelation complements
Daniel, revealing the seven kings as seven consecutive malevolent world powers.
The literary device challenges the preterist and futurist guidelines that assert
the seven kings in Revelation 17 as individuals or one as an individual.
Again, Revelation 17:9-11 affirms
that the scarlet beast precedes the sixth king and
regains power as the eighth. This same eighth king is the scarlet beast
that is “cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone” in Revelation
19:20. The scarlet beast suffers the same fate as the little horn in Daniel,
which links their identity.
I
beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I
beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning
flame. (Daniel 7:11)
Again, John uses the literary
device of renaming the little horn in Daniel as the beast in chapters 13 and
17. John also reiterates the exploits of the little horn (his blasphemy,
etcetera) in the rise of the sea beast, linking their identity. Identifying Daniel’s
little horn as the beast that rises from the sea in Revelation 13 affirms that
the succeeding beasts (the beast that rises from the earth and the image)
become the sixth and seventh heads or kings in the conundrum of Revelation
17:9-11. This identity accounts for all seven heads, mountains, or beasts.
John’s Revelation merely adds that two more powerful kingdoms rise while the
little horn is fallen or receives a deadly wound.
The conundrum of Revelation
17:9-11 confounds futurists and preterists. Futurists such as John F. Walvoord asserts
chapter 17 represents the future event of Daniel’s seventieth week and ineptly
attempts to interpret the sixth king that “is” as pagan Rome. Commenting on
Revelation 17:3-4, Walvoord writes,
The
situation here described is apparently prior in time to that described in
Revelation 13, where the beast has already assumed all power and has demanded
that the world should worship its ruler as God. The situation, therefore,
seemingly is in the first half of Daniel’s seventieth week before the time of
the great tribulation which is the second half. While such a relationship has
many parallels in the past history of the Roman church in relation to political
power, the inference is that this is a future situation which will take place
in the end time. The significance of the seven heads and the ten horns is
revealed subsequently in this chapter, the seven heads apparently referring to
forms of government which are successive, and the ten horns to kings who reign
simultaneously in the end time. The fact that the woman, representing the
apostate church, is in such close association with the beast, which is guilty
of utter blasphemy, indicates the depth to which apostasy will ultimately
descend. The only form of a world church recognized in the Bible is this
apostate world church destined to come into power after the true church has
been raptured.[1]
Walvoord’s futurism affirms that
chapter 17 refers to our time, not John’s, just before Christ’s return, yet, he
promotes the fallacy that the seven kings or mountains represent world powers
commencing with Egypt.
The
seven heads of the beast, however, are said to be symbolic of seven kings
described in verse 10. Five of these are said to have fallen, one is in
contemporary existence, that is, in John’s lifetime, the seventh is yet to come
and will be followed by another described as the eighth, which is the beast
itself. In the Greek there is no word for “there,” thus translated literally,
the phrase is “and are seven kings.” The seven heads are best explained as
referring to seven kings who represent seven successive forms of the kingdom… Seiss
marshals a convincing array of evidence that the seven mountains of 17:9 refer
not to the seven hills of Rome but rather to successive imperial governments.
An extensive quotation of Seiss on this important point is necessary…
Of
these seven regal mountains, John was told “the five are fallen,” dead, passed
away, their day over; “the one is,” that is, was standing, at that moment, was
then in sway and power; “the other is not yet come, and when he shall come, he
must continue a little time.” What regal mountain, then, was in power at the
time John wrote? There can be no question on that point; it was the Roman
empire… Preceding Rome the world had but five great names or nationalities
answering to imperial Rome, and those scarce a schoolboy ought to miss. They
are Greece, Persia, Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt; no more, and no less.[2]
Walvoord and futurists, in
general, fail to comprehend the conundrum that the scarlet beast is said to
precede the sixth king and regain power only as the eighth. If the sixth
kingdom or head represents pagan Rome, then the scarlet beast has to precede
pagan Rome. Futurists have a massive hurdle in interpreting that the sixth kingdom
is pagan Rome and the eighth king as a person because the scarlet beast must
precede pagan Rome and revive as the eighth king that makes war at Christ’s
return to be cast in the lake of fire. How can an individual, a person, precede
pagan Rome and confront Christ upon his return? The conundrum is solved by
grasping the heads, kings, mountains, and beasts as national and impersonal and
commencing them with Babylon, taking the perspective of chapter 17 fully into
the future or our present.
The five fallen kings are
Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and for some 200 years, the papacy or the little
horn. Its power was broken when Protestantism had intercourse with the kings of
the earth to secularize society. Grasping that the Spirit took John into the
future to witness the judgment of the harlot Babylon is the only way to conform
to the narration that the scarlet beast precedes the sixth king and revives as
the eighth. The fallen five commence with ancient Babylon, making the little
horn the fifth beast with two more beasts occurring, the beast from the earth
and its image before it revives as the eighth. It is not inconsistent with
scripture that the beast that comes out of the earth as the sixth king or head
is the entity of our time, speaking as a dragon. What power rises as a “lamb”
in modern times and speaks as a dragon today?
And I
beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a
lamb, and he spake as a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)
Furthermore, it cannot be
dismissed that the reformation and Protestantism have significance in these
prophecies. Protestantism led in secularizing of the West, which had an
apostatizing effect on the church.
As to the preterists’
interpretation of the seven kings, it cannot rationally be held that one emperor
preceded a sixth one and ends up being the eighth. It is outrageous to even
suggest such circumstance can be found in the past history of Rome’s emperors
at the time of Christ.
Finally, taking the perspective
of chapter 17 fully into the future or modern times supports that the harlot
Babylon is the apostate Church in agreement with Walvoord’s interpretation of
the Woman. History confirms that the Protestants had intercourse with the kings
of the earth to secularize society, and we are witnessing the destructive
fruits of their works today.
And
there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with
me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth
have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication. (Revelation 17:1-2)
