Revelation 17:9-11

Generally, wisdom is the application of knowledge. The seven heads are both seven mountains and seven kings. Some have said the seven mountains are obviously those on which Rome was built and the seven kings are seven of her emperors. Of course, there is a great division over which emperors to count. Coffman suggest the seven heads, mountains, and kings are all representations of the same thing. He believes they stand for empires, since literal kings would not be described as fallen, but dead. He says Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece would be the five that had fallen. Rome would be the sixth and the apostate church persecuting true believers the seventh. Certainly, kingdoms are described as mountains elsewhere in scripture. (Isaiah 2:2; Jeremiah 51:25) Also, Daniel uses the words king and kingdom interchangably. (Daniel 7:17; Daniel 7:23) This would make the eighth either some power not known to us yet, one of the seven described as the eighth or a revival of one of the seven.