From the Sea

From the Sea October 24, 2014

At the beginning of Revelation 13, the dragon – Satan – goes to the seashore. He places himself in the same position as the Spirit at the beginning of creation, who hovered over the water and called up the land from the sea and the many other things from the land, including human beings. The beast is imitating God.

The scene is obviously taken also from Daniel 7, but again the imagery is inverted. In Daniel 7, the wind goes over the water, and the beasts that are stirred up by the wind are bestial guardians of Israel. Here, the dragon stirs up the sea, and what emerges are not guardians of the church but attacking beasts, beasts that are like the dragon himself, a beast that turns against human, attacking and seducing them. This vision shows the corruption of the guardian beasts of Daniel 7.

The reference to sand takes us to the promise to Abraham, that Abraham’s seed would be like the stars of heaven for ruling, and like the sand on the sea for multitude. The dragon started out in the sky, in heaven, among the stars. He fell to the land, and that land is now the sand-land of Israel. If the dragon is standing on the sea to call up the beasts, that means that he is standing on the land of Israel that is beside the sea. The call goes out to the sea, and the beasts emerge from the Gentile sea, but the dragon calls them from Israel.

This fits with what we have already seen in Revelation. A star named wormwood falls from heaven into the springs and rivers, and poisons them. Then a star whose name is Apollyon and Abaddon falls into the abyss and releases a cloud of locorpions that torment the men of the land but do not kill them. The dragon, in other words, has already been shown to be an inhabitant of Israel. And now from Israel he calls up the beast that will attack and kill the saints. It is from the smoking mountain, which is Sinai and Zion, that the dragon turns the Gentile sea bloody.

Political powers come from the sea, but they are always summoned by other powers. If the four winds blow over the sea, the sea will yield guardian beasts; when the church is like the wind of the Spirit to the four corners, the beasts are protective. When the dragon poisons the springs of God’s temple, the sea will give up oppressive beasts that overcome the saints. 


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