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supposes, is the conversion of Israel here signified ; for that nation does not bring forth, at its conversion, but is born : and the crown of twelve stars prefigures the conversion of the twelve tribes : comp. Gen. xxxvii. 9. The birth here described has already long ago taken place ; that conversion [of the twelve tribes] has not yet taken place. The woman brought forth, when in the ninth century, more nations than before, together with their princes, were, under the name of Slavonians , added to the assembly of the Christian name. Therefore almost the whole of this chapter has been fulfilled, al- though D. Lange refers it to the future, in the same place (see above), and in Epicr. p. 408. The very war of the dragon with the rest of the seed of the woman, ver. 17, precedes the rising of the beast out of the sea ; but this took place in the eleventh cen- tury, as will presently be shown. — v/ov cippsva) Learned men have brought together to this place passages in Aristophanes and Alci- phron, where a woman is said to have brought forth tfuidlov upp&v but the cases differ ; for <7 raidm is generic, viog specific. Nor, how- ever, does John write vibv appsva without reason. For thus also Jer. xx. 15, it is said “D1 p, where in the Greek it is viog aptyv, or simply apffriv as in this passage. Primasius omitting the word son , says male , as ver. 13 has it. — iv pa(3dw <ndr)pcji, with a rod of iron) The rod is for long continued obstinacy, until they submit them- selves to obedience.
6. E/g TYjv ipYifjiov) The wilderness is the western part of the world, Europe, or its districts in particular on this side of the Danube ; for on the other side of the Danube the countries were already before this more imbued with Christianity. nmy, the wilderness , and the west , are connected by derivation. D. Laurence Reinhard , in his chronological arrangement of the Apocalypse, p. 14, rightly thinks that this passage has reference to the state of the Church from the ninth century. — r^'spag ^iXlag diaxoc/ag s^novra, 1260 dags) The 1260 prophetic days are 657 ordinary years in full. And if you reckon these from A. 864 to 1521, you will certainly not be far from the truth. The woman obtained a firm place in the wilder- ness, in Europe, especially in Bohemia , and there, in particular, she wTas nourished ; until more free and abundant nourishment was vouchsafed to her by means of the Reformation. The close of the 1260 days is the Reformation.1 The close of the times, 1, 2, and J,
1 By a somewhat different method of computation , in der Erkl. Offencb. Ed. ii. p. 592, the commencement [terminus a quo] of the 1260 days (by which 677 ordinary years are there equally made up) is fxed not in the year 364, but 940,
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