Revelation 13 Study Notes

13:11 A second beast (another of the same kind, Gk allos) that arises is apparently a religious leader because it is called “the false prophet” in 16:13; 19:20; 20:10. Outwardly, it seems gentle like Christ (like a lamb), but its prophecies are the voice of Satan (like a dragon).

13:12-13 The second beast has full, delegated authority from the first beast to complete its mission—worldwide worship of the first beast. Causing fire to come down from heaven sounds like a mimicking of one of the miracles performed by the two witnesses (11:5).

13:14-15 The second beast shows its likeness to Satan as it deceives (12:9) the “earth dwellers” through the spectacular signs it can perform (see 2Th 2:9). It persuades the “earth dwellers” to erect an image of the first beast to worship. This sort of thing was common to John’s original readers, who had been exposed to images of the Greco-Roman gods and Roman emperors, but this image comes to life.

No biblical number has received as much attention as 666. Much that is said about this mysterious number in popular literature is misleading, but reasonable explanations exist. One explanation applies Gematria. This practice of representing words by numerical equivalents was found in extra-biblical religious sources and was based upon the fact that Hebrew and Greek attached a numerical value to each alphabetical letter. Thus every word could be assigned a numerical value by summing the values of its letters. Thus the beast’s name could be deduced from his number (Rv 13:18; 15:2). Others believe 666 is one example of John’s normal figurative use of numbers (cp. Rv 5:11; 7:4,9; 9:15; 20:8), none of which were ever intended to be calculated. In this view, the number six indicates incompleteness and serves as a contrastive counterpart to the occurrences of seven (signifying completeness) in the book of Revelation. Triple repetition of six would indicate the absolute sinful imperfection of the beast.

13:16-18 The mark of the beast, apparently a sort of tattoo or brand of the beast’s name or its numerical equivalent, is required for anyone to conduct business in that day. The mark is clearly contrasted with the seal (7:3-4) and the name of the Lamb and the Father (14:1) on the foreheads of the 144,000. The number (666) reflects the fact that the number six is just short of the number of perfection, which is seven. See word study on this page.