Revelation 12:15-17

12:15 Then ¹  the serpent spouted water like a river out of his mouth after the woman in an attempt to ²  sweep her away by a flood, 12:16 but ³  the earth came to her rescue; ⁴  the ground opened up ⁵  and swallowed the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth. 12:17 So ⁶  the dragon became enraged at the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, ⁷  those who keep ⁸  God’s commandments and hold to ⁹  the testimony about Jesus. ¹⁰  (12:18) And the dragon ¹¹  stood ¹²  on the sand ¹³  of the seashore. ¹⁴ 

¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

² tn Grk “so that he might make her swept away.”

³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present here.

⁴ tn Grk “the earth helped the woman.”

⁵ tn Grk “the earth opened its mouth” (a metaphor for the ground splitting open).

⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the woman’s escape.

⁶ tn Grk “her seed” (an idiom for offspring, children, or descendants).

⁷ tn Or “who obey.”

⁸ tn Grk “and having.”

⁹ tn Grk “the testimony of Jesus,” which may involve a subjective genitive (“Jesus’ testimony”) or, more likely, an objective genitive (“testimony about Jesus”).

¹⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the dragon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ tc Grk ἐστάθη (estaqh, “he stood”). The reading followed by the translation is attested by the better mss (Ì⁴⁷ א A C 1854 2344 2351 pc lat sy^h) while the majority of mss (051 Ï vg^mss sy^ph co) have the reading ἐστάθην (estaqhn, “I stood”). Thus, the majority of mss make the narrator, rather than the dragon of 12:17, the subject of the verb. The first person reading is most likely an assimilation to the following verb in 13:1, “I saw.” The reading “I stood” was introduced either by accident or to produce a smoother flow, giving the narrator a vantage point on the sea’s edge from which to observe the beast rising out of the sea in 13:1. But almost everywhere else in the book, the phrase καὶ εἶδον (kai eidon, “and I saw”) marks a transition to a new vision, without reference to the narrator’s activity. On both external and internal grounds, it is best to adopt the third person reading, “he stood.”

¹² tn Or “sandy beach” (L&N 1.64).

¹³ sn The standard critical texts of the Greek NT, NA²⁷ and UBS⁴, both include this sentence as 12:18, as do the RSV and NRSV. Other modern translations like the NASB and NIV include the sentence at the beginning of 13:1; in these versions chap. 12 has only 17 verses.