And there was given to it a mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given to it authority to pursue its career forty-two months.
This verse hands a ruler both a voice and a clock. He may boast and blaspheme, but only for a fixed span of forty-two months — and the fact that both are handed to him is where commentators find the verse's horror and its comfort.
The beast does not generate his own authority. Earlier verses in the chapter show where it comes from.
Notice the repeated phrase "given to him" (vv. 5, 7). Verses 2 and 4 explain it. They remind us that the beast's power is not only handed to him — it is handed to him by Satan.
The same wording also comforts. Satan is not the last link in the chain.
This dark account of satanic wickedness and human arrogance has a ray of comfort woven into its very fabric. God's beloved saints, then and now, find it in how often the words "given him" occur. Behind the Beast lies the hidden yet almighty power of Jehovah. Satan has no power in himself. All power is of God.
This verse describes speech, not action.
First the beast was given an extraordinary, overbearing sense of his own importance: "he spoke great things." It is not doing here but speaking in pride. It is his character, not his acts. Next come insulting words against others, flowing out of that pride — blasphemies.
That pride is aimed upward. Another writer notes that the boaster cannot escape the God he mocks.
He will be a boaster, puffed up, like his god Satan, with the sense of his own merits and excellencies... He cannot rid himself of God, of heaven, or of the heavenly saints, but in the helplessness of his rage, glorying in his earthly supremacy, he pours out his wicked heart in insolent blasphemies.
John's beast and the little horn of Daniel's vision match point for point.
The little horn "speaks great words against the Most High" (Dan. 7:25). The beast "opens his mouth in blasphemy against God" (Rev. 13:6). The little horn's power lasts "a time, and times, and the dividing of time" (Dan. 7:25). The beast's power continues "forty-two months" (Rev. 13:5), which is only another way of saying the same period.
These months land at one precise point in prophecy.
The forty-two months of Revelation 13:5, or three and a half years, show when the events foretold in this chapter will happen. They fall in the last half week of Daniel's seventy weeks — the period just before the appearing and reign of Christ.
The months measure a crisis, not the whole life of the empire.
Notice what our text states. It is not the existence of the Beast or the empire as such. It is that great crisis in its history when Satan takes possession of it — forty-two months, or three and a half years before its final destruction.
The limit itself is mercy. God does the measuring, not the persecutor.
He who sits on the throne will never let the enemy seize the reins of government. His controlling hand measures everything that must fall on His own people, and the enemy cannot go beyond that measure. So the sufferings of the elect during the great tribulation last 1260 days (Rev. 12:6). Satan could not make it 1261, however much he wanted to.
- Given — the beast owns nothing. Someone hands him his mouth and his time, and that word is the reader's comfort.
- Given by Satan — the immediate source of his power is the dragon of verses 2 and 4, not any merit of his own.
- Given under God — behind the giver stands the almighty power of God, who checks Satan's authority and its length at His pleasure.
- Given a mouth — speech marks him first: proud boasting that spills over into blasphemy, just as Daniel saw in the little horn.
- Given a clock — forty-two months, three and a half years, the last half of Daniel's seventieth week — and not one day more.
And it opened its mouth for blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and those who have their tabernacle in the heaven.
The beast's forty-two months of power begin with an open mouth, not a raised sword. He aims his words at three targets: God's name, His dwelling, and those who dwell in heaven. Why does a ruler with the whole earth at his feet waste his breath on a place he cannot touch?
(Note: where the ESV says "his dwelling," older translations say "his tabernacle." The quotes below use that older word.)
The verse before gives the beast a mouth "speaking great things and blasphemies." One writer shows how the second grows out of the first:
First the beast was given an extraordinary, overbearing claim for himself — "he spoke great things." This is not doing but speaking in pride. It is his character, not his acts. Next come injurious words against others, flowing from that pride — blasphemies... He blasphemed the "name" of God, instead of owning its authority in the place of power he held.
His power was handed to him, and that hand-over decides where loyalty ends:
We must acknowledge "the powers that be." But when Satan has given the beast his authority, that is another thing altogether: we owe no allegiance to Satan. In fact, Satan is the one who leads the beast on into all his own depths and heights of sin.
The dwelling he curses is not a building on earth:
As well as blaspheming God and His name, he adds the blasphemy of God's tabernacle and "those who dwell in heaven" (v. 6). It seems the tabernacle refers to God's heavenly dwelling, so this involves the Beast's bold defiance of all heavenly authority.
So who are these people in heaven? One writer names them:
This is violent and injurious speaking against God Himself and against His heavenly saints. Those that dwell in heaven are the glorified saints. They are caught up to be with the Lord forever when Christ comes for His own, before the beast comes to power.
Satan has just been thrown out of heaven. That explains the shape of verse 6:
The heavenly saints now have their dwelling-place in heaven. The devil has been cast down to the earth, so he is powerless to reach them. He can only open his mouth and include them in the blasphemies he utters against God.
One writer calls such cursing an honour, and offers believers the same safety now:
Satan can blaspheme the saints in heaven, but he cannot hurt them... Satan can never get back to heaven once he is cast out... He will make war with those on the earth, but he cannot touch those in heaven. We belong with Christ there. We can sit in calm and peace above the devil's blasphemy, because we are with God... It is a blessed thing to be so identified with God as to be the objects of Satan's blasphemies.
Blocked above, the beast looks down:
The beast may blaspheme the tabernacle above, and Satan may insult those who dwell there, but he can no longer even accuse them before God. So he turns to violent persecution on the earth. "And it was given him to make war with the saints" — and these saints are plainly not in heaven.
This hatred is not only for the future:
It displays its anger towards those who dwell in heaven. It is already like this in principle. If a Christian will walk as an inhabitant of heaven, the world cannot bear him. That will be still more dreadful then.
- Pride first. His great words about himself come before his blasphemies against God. Pride is the root; injurious speech is the fruit.
- Three targets. God's name, God's dwelling, and those who live there. The blasphemy reaches for God, for heaven, and for everyone at home in heaven.
- Out of reach. The saints in heaven are beyond his hand. All he can do is open his mouth, because Satan, once cast out, never returns to heaven.
- So earth suffers. Unable to touch heaven, he turns downward, and verse 7 gives him war with the saints still below.
- Already in principle. Anyone who walks now as a citizen of heaven meets the same hatred in smaller measure. They also share the same safety, seated with Christ above the noise.
And there was given to it to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and there was given to it authority over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation;
This verse says two things about the beast. God lets him fight His people and beat them, and God gives him authority over every nation on earth. That raises two hard questions: how can God allow His saints to lose, and who are these saints?
The phrase "it was given" repeats through this whole passage. One writer finds real comfort in that.
This dark account of satanic wickedness and human arrogance has a ray of comfort woven into its very fabric for God's beloved saints, both now and then. It lies in how often the words "given him" appear. Behind the Beast lies the hidden yet almighty power of Jehovah. Satan has no power in himself. All power is of God… A storm once lashed the Sea of Galilee into fury to sink the boat that carried the most precious cargo that ever sailed: Christ and His disciples. That power had its source in the divine Sleeper resting in the back of the ship. For the moment Satan was granted authority over the elements of nature. This was to show us that his power, and how long it lasts, is controlled and checked by God at His will and pleasure (Matthew 8:23-27).
One writer points out what is new here.
"Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them." Some are killed — for example, the two witnesses. This could never have happened before. God never allowed the saints to be overcome. All who dwell on the earth are swayed by this power except those chosen before the foundation of the world. These do not worship the beast, the vessel of Satan's authority.
To "conquer them" does not mean the beast kills every believer. God has a purpose in the defeat itself.
The saints the beast will wage war against are the ones named in the previous chapter (Revelation 12:17). In this, as in everything else, he is only Satan's instrument. God allows them to be overcome (compare Matthew 24:9-10). Not all of them, as we learn later, but many. He does it to test their faith and to purify His people in the furnace of affliction.
One writer marks off who they are, and who they are not.
This man will not make war with Israel, but "with the saints" — those in the Tribulation Period who will be awakened to take a stand for the living God (v. 7).
Another writer describes their witness.
The saints in these times are not like the seven thousand silent witnesses in the prophet's day. They are all Elijahs, bold and uncompromising in their testimony.
Commentators differ on how far this authority reaches. Some read it as worldwide:
The empire may cover any amount of territory in the future. Even so, the authority of the Beast seems unlimited in its range and reach, since it takes in "every tribe and people and language and nation" — the four divisions of the human race. Countries and peoples outside the Roman empire will yet be found under its powerful influence and authority.
Others read it more narrowly. Grant says the authority "speaks particularly of the Western nations which willingly submit to him." Russia and Assyria, the king of the north, will not join that coalition.
The next verses give the practical instruction. One writer explains why the saints needed it.
This warning is meant above all to guide the saints. From the wickedness of the beast and his alliance with the dragon, they might well conclude that they were free to resist him… Their place was not to take the sword in their own defence. If they did, what would the result be? Whatever their character, and whatever the beast's, God would still hold to His principles. They must expect what they tried to inflict.
Later in the book the same people appear again — and the scoreboard reads the opposite way.
These conquerors have "gotten the victory over the beast." What a change! Seen from man's side, the beast had made war with them "and overcome them." Seen from God's side, they have "gotten the victory over the beast." On earth the cry is, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" In heaven the song is, "Who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name?" God is always victorious in the end, and so are those who trust Him.
- Given — God hands the beast every power he holds. Behind the visible tyrant stands the almighty God. That repeated word "given" is the comfort buried in the verse.
- Allowed — God permits His saints to be beaten. He had never allowed that before. He does it to test their faith and purify them.
- Awakened — these saints turn to God during that time. They take an open stand, bold as Elijah rather than silent.
- Restrained — their calling is not armed resistance. Those who take the sword must expect the sword; their place is patience and faith.
- Reversed — heaven reads the beast's conquest as the saints' victory. God wins in the end, and so do all who trust Him.