A great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars, and she was pregnant and was crying out with birth pains and she was tormented to give birth.

And another sign was seen in heaven: a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and upon his head seven crowns. His tail dragged the third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman…so that when she gave birth he might devour the child.

She gave birth to a son…who is about to shepherd all the nations with the rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where there she had a place prepared by God, so that they might nourish her for 1,260 days. Revelation 12: 1-6

This chapter outlines the general conflict (some call it the Great Controversy) between Jesus and Satan.

The woman is a classic symbol of God’s people. Both the Old and New Testaments characterize believers as being in the feminine gender, such as the wife of God (Isaiah 54: 5) and the bride of Christ. The crown the woman wears is called, in Greek, stephanos. It is a victor’s crown; the same type of garland crown promised to overcomers in Rev. 2: 10 and 3: 11.

The sun, moon, and twelve stars are an allusion to Genesis 37: 9, 10, by which Israel’s patriarchs are represented (Joseph would be the 12th star). As such, some commentators see the stars as symbolizing the twelve patriarchs; others see them as representing the twelve apostles. I see them as representing both, for a transition from the old to the new is seen in the sign of the woman.

Ancient Israel is often portrayed as a woman in pain giving birth (e.g. Isaiah 66: 7-9; Jeremiah 4: 31; Micah 4: 10). This heavenly woman, representing OT Israel, delivers the Messiah (the transition), who, of course brings into being, the Christian church. The totality of God’s people (Old and New Testament church) is recognized by virtue of the woman standing on the moon (Old Testament Israel) which reflects the light of the sun (the New Testament church’s spiritual Israel).

The woman – God’s faithful church, covered in the purity of light – stands in contrast to Satan’s apostate church, represented by the symbolic female prostitute, clothed in flashy colors and gaudy jewelry that attracts (Rev. 17: 3, 4).

Satan is represented in this vision as the great red dragon who being cast out of heaven, drew a third of heaven’s angels with him. The dragon’s seven heads represent kingdoms (Rev. 17: 9, 10) that Satan has used throughout the ages to oppress God’s people. Some commentators opine that there aren’t precisely seven nations through which Satan’s worked. There have been many more. Instead, they say the  number “seven” is symbolically used to denote the completeness of how many there are of those nations.

The number is used in the same way for the dragon’s head-wear. The seven kingly crowns on the dragon’s head are Satan’s counterfeit claim of complete authority and power. It’s Satan’s way of mimicking the “King of kings and Lord of lords” who wears many crowns (Rev. 19: 12, 13, 16).

Biblically, horns on a beast represent political power. The dragon’s ten horns symbolize Satan’s work among the ten kingdoms that caused the breakup of the pagan Roman Empire.

The woman’s (Israel) birth pangs were the torment of persecution, trials, and punishment, all brought on as the dragon attempted to destroy the covenant people and prevent the birth of the Messiah. Should the birth take place, though, the dragon stood ready to kill the child. But of course the child was born and grew to have an earthly ministry; after which He rose to heaven.

Persecution of God’s people, now the Christian church, gravely intensified. So much so, that the woman (the church) fled into a wilderness exile and stayed there for 1,260 days (actually 1,260 years, using the prophetic day-for-a year principle).

This 1,260 year period, from A.D. 538 to 1798, is the same period in which the two witnesses (Old and New Testaments) prophesied and in which the little horn power (papal Rome) persecuted God’s remnant people: the Waldenses, Lollards, Albagenes, and many others who had to flee to the mountains and other remote places in order to pursue the true gospel.