Who is the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation 12:1?

248 In this chapter of Revelation which we have read, you have it positively revealed that it is finished with the saints, as regards all their trials and all their accusations, before the time that the trial of the Jewish people begins in the last half-week of Daniel. In the first six verses of the chapter, you have the statement of those who are concerned in these last days. First, you have the "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." This, I have no doubt, is the Jewish people, nothing else; because Christ is not born of the church, but looked at as reigning and glorious in the world, was born of the Jews, "of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." There is no kind of sense in the idea of Christ's being born of the church. Being "clothed with the sun" is being clothed with supreme authority. She has the moon - all her previous reflected state - under her feet: "and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Twelve is the number always used to indicate power - the power of God's administration among men. You have the twelve apostles sitting on twelve thrones - the city built on twelve foundations, and having twelve gates, etc., the number being used to express administrative power - God's administrative power over man. Well, Christ was to be born. "And she being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." And so the Jews say, in Isaiah 9, "To us a son is born." The church cannot say that at all. We can say that we believe He is the Son of God; but we do not say He is born to us. As concerning the flesh, He was born into Israel.

— “A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” There are four representative women in the Apocalypse, each of whom is the expression of a corporate body of persons or a system. (1) Jezebel (Rev. 2:20), or the papal system. (2) The woman invested with the fulness of governmental authority (Rev. 12:1), or Israel. (3) The great harlot (Rev. 17:1), or the future, corrupt and apostate professing Church. (4) The Bride, the Lamb’s wife (Rev. 19:7), the Church glorified in Heaven. The celestial luminaries sun, moon, and stars are seen in their assembled glory. A complete system of government is thus presented. All authority supreme as the sun, derived and subordinate as the moon, and lesser lights and rulers as the stars, centre in the woman. She has, too, royal dignity, as the crown on her head signifies. But why twelve stars? The undoubted reference is to Joseph’s dream (Gen. 37:9), in which the future glory of Israel, of the twelve tribes, is symbolised. The woman is invested with the splendour and fulness of governmental authority on earth, for although the sign is in Heaven the reality is to be witnessed here.

Rev. 12:2. — “Being with child she cried (being) in travail, and in pain to bring forth.” The woman has been before us as a queen, now we witness her as a mother. Her glory and majesty in the former relation, her suffering and pain under the latter designation (Jer. 4:31). Who is the woman? and who is the child? The woman is ISRAEL. The child is CHRIST. The larger number of expositors apply the vision of the woman to the Church. Now both Israel and the Church stand closely related to Christ — Israel as the mother, the Church as the wife. If it is only seen that verse five applies to Christ, and in fact must and only refer to Him personally, all controversy is at an end. Israel, and not the Church, was the mother of the Messiah (Isa. 9:8; Micah 5:2; Rom. 9:5; Matt. 1, etc.).

It may be difficult to reconcile the maternal anguish as applicable to Israel with the facts of the case when Christ was born. But however put together these things are in the wisdom of God, and seemingly contradictory (for when was the crying, the travail, and pain when the Messiah came into the world?), yet there is no real difficulty. The solution of the matter is contained in Isaiah 66: “Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child” (v. 7). The travailing and pain refer to Israel’s coming hour of trial, the Great Tribulation. But before that great event the Messiah, the Man-Child, is born. The prophet Micah confirms this in a clear and unmistakable passage. After referring to the birth of the Messiah (Micah 5:2), he adds, “Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth; then the remnant shall return unto the children of Israel” (Micah 5:3). The travail of the woman is at least two thousand years subsequent to the birth of the Messiah, and refers to her sorrow in the coming Tribulation. “Before she travailed she brought forth; before her pain came she was delivered of a Man-Child.” It only remains to inquire: Why then is the travail of the woman put in juxtaposition to the birth of the Messiah? First, notice that the present lengthened period of Israel’s rejection, coming in as it does between the birth and the travail, is passed over in silence in the chapter before us; it is a parenthesis, the history of which is not given in prophecy, but found elsewhere of course. Second, it shows the deep interest which the Messiah takes in His people. He thought of the Tribulation, and made certain conditional provisions so as to lighten it many centuries ago (Matt. 24:15-28). Third, at the time in which our chapter has its place the nation is about to pass into its awful sorrow, and the object of going back in the history to the birth of Christ is to connect Him with them in it.

(Revelation 12:1-2) In accord with the vision of the temple and the ark, Israel at once comes before us under the figure of a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars upon her head. This vision is symbolic, not of the nation of Israel in its failure, as seen in history, but Israel according to the purpose of God, as seen by heaven. Thus, the woman is spoken of as a great wonder in heaven. It is heaven's view of Israel. Being clothed with the sun would surely set forth the supremacy of Israel over the nations. The moon under her feet would imply that all other authority among the nations will be derived from, and subordinate to, Israel. The crown of twelve stars may speak of the administration of the twelve tribes.

first, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars upon her head, travailing in birth; and then, a great red Dragon standing before her, ready to devour her child as soon as it should be born. The woman thus seen invested with all the symbols of authority is neither the Church nor Mary, but Israel, viewed from the standpoint of Divine counsels; for the proper calling of the nation is to govern and lead the peoples of the earth.

First a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars, is seen. In symbolic language Israel is here presented.

Who is represented by the sun-clothed woman? Romanists have made out of her the Virgin Mary. Many expositors claim it is the Church which is represented by this woman. Some claim the woman is the professing Church and the man-child represents, according to their view, a class of overcomers who will escape the tribulation. This is a favored interpretation of some of the so-called "holiness people."

In the light of the scope of this book the woman cannot possibly have anything to do with the Church. Again, Christian Science has made the most absurd claim that this woman represents that instrument of Satan, the deluded woman, whom they worship as the founder of their cult. A hundred years ago another sect existed in England under the leadership of a woman, who also claimed to be the one of this vision. We do not need to seek long for the true meaning of the woman seen by John. She represents Israel. Everything in the symbolical statements bears this out, especially the crown with the twelve stars (Gen. 37:9).

"Thus she is seen clothed with the glory of the sun--that is, of Christ Himself as He will presently appear in supreme power as Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:2); for the sun is the ruler of the day. As a consequence, her glory of old, before the day-dawn, the reflected light of her typical system, is like the moon under her feet. Upon her head the crown of twelve stars speaks naturally of her twelve tribes, planets now around the central sun."

REVELATION 12:1 reads, “And there appeared a great sign in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” Explain these symbols.

THE WOMAN is Israel, for she brings forth the man Child-Christ, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron.

The last verse of the previous chapter intimates that Israel comes on the prophetic scene, but not as viewed on earth, although actually there. The sign is in Heaven, the first instance of the word in the Apocalypse (Rev. 12:1). The woman is not the Church, but Israel. The Church is the bride of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7). Israel is the mother of the Lord according to the flesh (Rom. 9:5). The Male Son — a singular expression — is Christ, so called as He alone is the sum of human excellence, and by birth steps into the rights and dignities of Psalm 2. Who but He could shepherd the nations with a rod of iron? Others through grace are associated with Him in the exercise of universal dominion (Rev. 2:26-27). But the Male Son can only refer to One, the embodiment of all masculine virtue.

The woman is represented as the possessor of all supreme earthly authority — the sun. The pale and silvery moon, the queen of the night, is under her feet. She is royal in rank, too, for on her head reposes a crown in which is gathered up in grand display the fulness in earthly administration of all lesser powers — twelve stars. This is Israel as God sees her; not what she is now, nor even what she has been, but it is “a great sign” of what awaits her in millennial times.

In the first place, "There appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." (vv. 1. 2.) There is no difficulty whatever in identifying the woman with Israel, but with Israel as it appears in the purpose of God. It must be remembered also that Jerusalem is often taken in Scripture as the expression of the people, and hence it is that she is continually regarded as the earthly bride. But when so viewed, it is always as standing for the whole nation. (See Gal. 4:25; Isaiah 49:13-26.) Three things mark her. First, she is clothed with the sun. The sun, as has been seen before, is an emblem of the fount of supreme authority, in accordance with the place assigned to it in creation. It is the "greater light to rule the day." (Gen. 1) Israel therefore is here seen as invested with supreme earthly authority. Even in the days of the kingdom, God dwelt between the cherubim; it was there in the temple that He had His earthly throne; and in the days yet to come Messiah's throne will be in Jerusalem, and from thence He will govern the nations upon earth. (Isaiah 60) Secondly, the moon is under her feet. Two things characterize the moon; she is the lesser light to rule the night, and her light is derived and reflected from the sun. We are therefore plainly pointed back, by this symbol, to the glory possessed by Israel under the first covenant. All the light she had in former days, and there was no light elsewhere upon earth, was derived from the presence of Jehovah in her midst, and from the sacred oracles committed to her care. The moon thus fittingly symbolizes this her past glory, and is now seen, in the presence of the splendours of the sun (compare Isaiah 60:20), as under her feet. Finally, she is crowned with twelve stars; that is, she has also the glory of perfect administration in man, which is the symbolic significance of the number twelve, Our Lord thus said to His disciples, "Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt. 19:28.) It is needless to add that Israel has never yet corresponded on earth to this divine portraiture; but "in heaven" God has always seen her arrayed in this perfect beauty. So in the wilderness of old, whatever the state of things in the camp, the seven lights of the golden candlestick were ever burning in their perfection, and the twelve loaves of the continual showbread, covered with their pure frankincense, were at all times duly ordered in the holy place before the Lord. It is an immense encouragement to turn away from the actual state of things, whether in Israel or in the church, and to contemplate both the one and the other as they are seen in all their perfection in the purposes of God. (Compare Numbers 23, 24)

And now a "great sign" appears in heaven, "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and in pain to be delivered."

The sign appears in heaven, not because the woman is actually there, — plainly she is not, — but because she is seen according to the mind of God toward her. Who the woman is should be quite plain, as the child she brings forth is One who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron. That is Christ assuredly; and the mother of Christ here is not the virgin, as we see clearly by what follows, although His virgin-birth, in its recall of the first prophecy, gives form to what we have in the vision now. Still less is she the Church, of which in no sense is Christ born, but Israel, "of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came," says the apostle (Rom. 9:5). Thus she is seen clothed with the glory of the sun — that is, of Christ Himself as He will presently appear in supreme power as Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:2); for the sun is the ruler of the day. As a consequence, her glory of old, before the day-dawn, the reflected light of her typical system, is like the moon under her feet. Upon her head the crown of twelve stars speaks naturally of her twelve tribes, planets now around the central sun.