Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 12:6

"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days." — Revelation 12:6 (ASV)

And the woman fled.—Translate: And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has there a place prepared by God, that they may nourish her there for a thousand two hundred and sixty days. The flight of the woman into the wilderness, and her fortunes there, are more fully described in Revelation 12:13.

This verse simply tells us that the woman fled; we read afterwards that it was persecution which drove her into the wilderness. As long as the evil one can be called the prince of this world—that is, as long as the world refuses to recognize her true Prince and pays homage to worldliness, baseness, and falseness in heart, mind, or life—so long must the Church, insofar as she is faithful to Him who is true, dwell as an exile in the wilderness.

It was this feeling—not any hostility to life as life, or to life’s duties—which led the Apostle to speak of Christians as strangers and pilgrims, and of the Church as another Israel, whom a greater than Moses or Joshua was conducting to a land of better promise (Hebrews 4:8–9). The woman, the representative of the Church, has a place prepared by God for her in the wilderness; she is not altogether uncared for; she has a place prepared, and nourishment. God provides her with a tabernacle of safety (Psalms 90:1), and with the true Bread which came down from heaven (Exodus 16:15; Psalms 78:24–25; John 6:49–50), and with the living water from the Rock (John 4:14; John 7:37–39; 1 Corinthians 10:3–4).

The time of the sojourn in the wilderness is twelve hundred and sixty days, a period corresponding in length to the forty-two months during which the witnesses prophesied; it is the period of the Church’s witness against predominant evil. Driven forth, her voice, though only like the voice of one crying in the wilderness, is lifted up on behalf of righteousness and truth.