Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Revelation 17:10

"and they are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a little while." — Revelation 17:10 (ASV)

If the seven heads symbolically represent the full source of evil power and blasphemy, why, then, does John talk about five fallen heads or kings, one existing head or king, and one yet to come? Does this not fit the view of dynastic successions to the imperial throne? To be sure, there have been many attempts to fit the date of Revelation (the then contemporary king would be he who “is”) into the emperor lists of the first century. But immediately there are admitted problems. Where do we begin—with Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus? Are we to count all emperors or just those who fostered emperor worship? Are we to exclude Galba, Otho, and Vitellius who had short, rival reigns? If so, how can they be excluded except on an arbitrary basis? A careful examination of the historic materials yields no satisfactory solution. If Revelation were written under Nero, there would be too few emperors; if under Domitian, too many. The original readers would have had no more information on these emperor successions than we do. Furthermore, how could the eighth emperor who is identified as the beast also be one of the seven (v.11)? Recognizing these problems, others have sought different solutions to John’s five-one-one succession of kings. Since the word “king” (GK 995) may also represent kingdoms, some have suggested an interpretation that takes the fiveone-one to refer to successive world kingdoms that have oppressed the people of God: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece (five fallen), Rome (one is), and a future world kingdom. While this solves some of the emperor succession problems, it too must admit arbitrary omissions, such as the devastating persecution of the people of God under the Seleucids of Syria, especially Antiochus IV Epiphanes. This view also suffers in not respecting the symbolic significance of John’s use of seven throughout the book. Also, how can these kings (kingdoms) survive the destruction of the harlot and be pictured as mourning over her demise (18:9)? And what sense can be made of the fact that the seventh king (kingdom), usually identified with Antichrist, is separate from the eighth one, which is clearly identified with the beast (vv.10b–11)? A convincing interpretation of the seven kings must do justice to three considerations: (1) Since the heads belong to the beast, the interpretation must relate their significance to this beast, not to Babylon. (2) Since the primary imagery of kingship in Revelation is a feature of the power conflict between the Lamb and the beast and between those who share the rule of these two enemies (cf. 17:14; 19:19), the kind of sovereignty expressed in v.10 must be the true antithesis to the kind of sovereignty exercised by Christ and his followers. (3) Since the kings are closely related to the seven mountains and to the prostitute, the nature of the relationship between these must be clarified by the interpretation. If we can see that the seven heads do not represent a quantitative measure but show qualitatively the fullness of evil power residing in the beast, then the falling of five heads conveys the message of a significant victory over the beast. The image of a sovereignty falling is better related to God’s judgment on a power than to a succession of kings (kingdoms) (cf. Jeremiah 50:32; 51:8, 49; Revelation 14:8; Revelation 18:2). The imagery of the seven heads presented in 12:3 and 13:1 must be restudied. An ancient seal showing a seven-headed chaos monster being slain well illustrates John’s imagery here. In that ancient scene, the seven-headed monster is being slain by a progressive killing of its seven heads. Four of the heads are dead, killed apparently by the spear of a divine figure who is attacking the monster. His defeat seems imminent. Yet the chaos monster is still active because three heads still live. Similarly, John’s message is that five of the monster’s seven heads are already defeated by the power of the Lamb’s death and by the identification in that death of the martyrs of Jesus (12:11). One head is now active, thus showing the reality of the beast’s contemporary agents who afflict the saints; and one head remains, indicating that the battle will soon be over but not with the defeat of the contemporary evil agents. This last manifestation of the beast’s blasphemous power will be short—“he must remain for a little while.” This statement seems to go with the function of the ten horns (kings) who for “one hour” (v.12) will rule with the beast. The seventh king (head) represents the final short display of satanic evil before the divine blow falls on the beast (cf. 12:12c; 20:3c).