Revelation 17:12

Revelation 17:12. The ‘heads' have been explained: we come next to the horns. These horns are all connected with the seventh head; they are gathered together upon it, and are a substitute for it (see on chap. Revelation 13:1). They are now explained to be ten kings, i.e not personal kings, but kingdoms, authorities, or powers of the world. They had not as yet received their kingdom, for the Seer has seen only the sixth head actually manifested. The historical applications of these ‘ten kings' may be passed over without remark. The number is as usual symbolical, denoting all the antichristian powers of earth which were to arise after the sixth head had fallen or the great Roman Empire been broken up.

They receive authority as kings one hour with the beast. The expression ‘one hour' can hardly occasion difficulty, corresponding, as it obviously does, to the ‘short while' of Revelation 17:10. It is more difficult to see the meaning of the words ‘with the beast.' These words appear to imply that the ten kings shall have their authority at the same time as the beast, while it would seem from Revelation 17:11 that the manifestation of the latter follows the appearance of the seventh head. The difficulty is to be resolved by remembering that each of the six powers that had been spoken of before the seventh arose has, no less than the seventh, really ruled ‘with' the beast. Each of them had been a special manifestation of the beast. The preposition ‘with' may imply more than contemporaneousness. On this point its use in chap. Revelation 19:20, to say nothing of other passages, seems to be decisive. We there read not, ‘and with him the false prophet' but ‘and the with-him-false-prophet' or, more idiomatically, ‘the false-prophet-with-him;' while we learn from chap. Revelation 13:12 that the relation of the false prophet to the beast is that of subordination. Here, therefore, as well as there, such subordination, such ministering to the purpose of another, is implied in the preposition ‘with.' But, although the first six heads ruled with the beast and the beast ruled in them, the beast survived them; and, when they have fallen, it makes yet another effort to accomplish its purpose previous to its own total overthrow. This it does by means of the ten horns (or the seventh head) which thus rule ‘with' it. These, however, are the last through which the beast shall exercise its power. They complete the cycle of seven; and, when the Lord has borne with them till the hour of judgment strikes, He will ‘slay them with the breath of His mouth, and bring them to nought by the manifestation of His coming' (2 Thessalonians 2:8). The meaning of Revelation 17:11-12 of this chapter, then, is simply this, that, after the fall of the Roman power, there shall arise a number of powers, symbolically ten, exhibiting the same ungodly spirit as that which had marked Rome and the powers of the world that had preceded Rome. In them the beast shall concentrate all its rage: they shall be the last and readiest instruments of its will. But it shall be in vain. The beast and they have their ‘hour.' They continue their ‘short while,' and then they perish.