Revelation 13:2

Take up this proverb against the king of Babylon . . . How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms?’ (Isa. Isa. 14:4, Isa. 14:12-16)

Notes

¹ “Because the leopard, lion, and bear in Revelation Rev. 13:2+ are also used in Daniel Dan. 7:1 to depict nations, the interpreter is alerted to the fact that John is employing symbolic language. Thus, the leopard, lion, and bear also represent nations in Revelation Rev. 13:1+ just as they did in Daniel Dan. 7:1.”—Andy Woods, What is the Identity of Babylon In Revelation 17-18?.

² Merrill C. Tenney, Interpreting Revelation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1957), 188.

³ John MacArthur, Revelation 12-22 : The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 2000), Rev. 13:1.

⁴ “We are at a loss to understand how this can be the Roman Empire revived! For the Beast itself is like a leopard (Greece) (Dan. Dan. 7:6). Its feet are those of the bear (Medo-Persia); and its mouth is like a lion’s mouth (Babylon). Where is the Roman Empire here in any form? If the Beast be the Roman Empire, does he have himself, intact, for one of his own heads? The notion is only a venerable, but vain, imagination. Rome cannot be at the same time one of the heads, and yet the whole Beast himself. ‘One is’ (Rev. Rev. 17:10+). That is said to be the Roman Empire. But it is added, ‘the other is not.’ Is this the Roman Empire too? Clearly not! What we have here is the embodiment and personification of the sovereignty of the world under Satanic power.”—E. W. Bullinger, Commentary On Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1984, 1935), Rev. 13:2.

⁵ Merrill F. Unger, Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2002), Hos. 13:8.

⁶ Frederick William Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 265.

⁷ Arthur Walkington Pink, The Antichrist (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1999, 1923), s.v. “The Genius and Character of the Antichrist.”

⁸ Ibid., s.v. “The Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition.”

⁹ Ibid., s.v. “The Antichrist in Revelation 13.”