Revelation 12: Who Is the Woman Clothed with the Sun?

Michie said:

Is the Woman the Blessed Virgin Mary? Or is she Israel or the Church?


The book of Revelation contains a passage in which St. John sees a great sign in the sky. He wrote:

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne [Revelation 12:1, 5].

This is part of a very intriguging passage of the Book of Revelation.


Who is this mysterious Woman clothed in the sun?

In the following video, we explore that question and look at different theories that have been proposed. There have been a number proposed, and they each point to different evidence in their favor.

Continued below.
Revelation 12: Who Is the Woman Clothed with the Sun?

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I believe the woman of Revelation 12 is both the Ever Virgin Mother & the church.

Good question. I've been wondering about this myself...

[Gal 4:23-26 NKJV] 23 But he [who was] of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar-- 25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children-- 26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.

[Heb 12:22-24 NKJV] 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn [who are] registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than [that of] Abel.

[Rev 3:12 NKJV] 12 "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And [I will write on him] My new name.

[Rev 21:2 NKJV] 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

There is clearly a city of God, a heavenly Jerusalem alluded to as a woman, her descent to earth apparently being something of epic proportions, but is she the woman clothed with the sun, alluded to in Revelation 12? I'm not certain that's necessarily the case, although it seems plausible as she is said to have more than one offspring in vs 17. But, still, this doesn't seem to quite satisfy given the story that's presented -- it would seem she's a little too personified to represent a city.

To judge by the description

• either Israel (meaning all 12 traditional tribes);
• or the southern kingdom of Judah (which regarded itself as all Israel)
• or Jerusalem.

is meant.

Since, AFAICS, Rev 12 echoes Ezekiel 16, I think the Woman is Judah, and thus, in that qualified sense, all Israel.

It is remarkable that the Woman of 12 is described as peribeblēmenē ton hēlion, "clothed with the sun". The same word peribeblēmenē is used of Babylon the Great in Rev 17: gunē ēn peribeblēmenē porphuroun, "a woman was clothed in purple". What is especially striking is that the verb periballō, of which peribeblēmenē is a present participle form, means both "I invest (with clothing)" and "I invest (by besieging)". IMHO the Woman of 12 and the Woman of 17 are the same Woman, either Judah, or Jerusalem as the capital city (and thus, representative) of Judah. If this is correct, periballō in Rev 17 is a grim pun upon the use of the same verb in Rev 12: in Rev 12, Judah/Jerusalem is clothed, in Rev 17 she is both clothed and besieged.

I think that the Woman of Rev 17 is Jerusalem, at least primarily; and Imperial Rome secondarily, if at all. Equally, the language of the book as a whole is at times sufficiently indefinite for both Rome and Jerusalem to be meant.

If the Woman of Rev 12 & 17 are the same, that means that the historical Jerusalem, which apocalyptically is seen to be Babylon the Great, is contrasted with “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…”, of which the historical Jerusalem was an imperfect copy & manifestation.

In an applied, non-proper sense, Rev 17 can be applied to any large community notorious for its tyranny, cruelty, impiety, prosperity & pride: whether past, present, or future.

Ezekiel 16 appears to be the background for much of the description of the Woman of Rev 12, and Ezekiel 27 appears to be the background for the catalogue of the riches of the Woman of Rev 17. Both chapters of Ezekiel are about wicked cities.

Part of Rev 12 is applied in the Catholic liturgy to the Feast of the Assumption, in the same way as, in Acts 8, Isaiah 53 can be applied to the Passion of Christ: for though neither passage is intended by its author to refer to the Assumption or the Passion, the two passages, from the POV of the Church worshipping & believing, can be applied to those two subjects. Exegetically & historically, of course, from the POV of the human authors, Isaiah 53 is no more about the Passion of Christ than Rev 12 is about the Assumption. This is why one speaks of the "application" of passage Y to entity X, rather than of the "meaning" of passage X.

I think she's Mary.

My old Protestant pastor said of Marian apparitions "They line up with Scripture...", "There's been a lot of them!" and "I think they're a judgement on a divided church...".

There's been a lot of them but because we're divided, we're not taking as much notice as we should.

From Mary at Fatima in 1917 - "The war (WWI) is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI (WWII). When you see a night illumined by an unknown light (Aurora Borealis in 1938 - extremely powerful), know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father."

January 25, 1938 The Fatima Storm

January 25, 1938 The Fatima Storm

www.solarstorms.org

The warnings from Mary at Akita (1973) were even more dire.

"In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind. With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father's anger. I desire this also from your community...that it love poverty, that it sanctify itself and pray in reparation for the ingratitude and outrages of so many men."

I'll take the simplest and most logical explanation - Mary has been turning up in apparitions, pointing us to her Son and the Father.

It's not an either/or. The image is polyvalent.

The most literal interpretation of the woman giving birth to Christ is Mary, and that is the primary image of the symbol. After all, the rest of the images point us to literal figures -- to Christ and Satan. The woman is Mary.

But the image, like Mary, is also a representation of Israel. It is from the nation of Israel Christ comes, and specifically from the Jewish woman Mary.

The image, like Mary is also a representation of the Church -- the twelve apostles and those who bear witness to Christ are her children. She was the first to bear witness to Christ.

No need to choose.....

narnia59 said:

It's not an either/or. The image is polyvalent.

The most literal interpretation of the woman giving birth to Christ is Mary, and that is the primary image of the symbol. After all, the rest of the images point us to literal figures -- to Christ and Satan. The woman is Mary.

But the image, like Mary, is also a representation of Israel. It is from the nation of Israel Christ comes, and specifically from the Jewish woman Mary.

The image, like Mary is also a representation of the Church -- the twelve apostles and those who bear witness to Christ are her children. She was the first to bear witness to Christ.

No need to choose.....

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Exactly. God exhibits His eternal truth in His Creation in many, many ways. We naturally think and reason and conclude in a kind of prison - the "closed" universe of created things. We live in boxes, think in boxes, reason in boxes, die in boxes. He sets us free with and in and through supernatural reality, if and when - surprise! - He gives us HIs Gifts.

Mary, of course, knows all this, far better than "theology" - and in her supernatural maternity loves, with holy love, all her children. We can never, never give her the fullness of devotion she deserves by Gods' grace and intention and will.

My only issue with this passage is the last verse of Chapter 11 should be the first verse of Chapter 12. That verse only makes sense in light of what is discussed in Chapter 12. Whoever added the chapters and verse numbers in Scripture in many areas did not think things through very well. But they are what we are stuck with I guess or are we?