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Revelation 12:1 describes “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” This description is part of an allegory featuring the woman, her child, and a dragon.
Revelation is apocalyptic literature, which relates important information about the devastation of the end times, and it sometimes features strange symbolism and bizarre imagery. We know that Revelation 12 involves figures and symbols because verse 1 refers to the woman as “a great sign.” In addition, the language describing her as “clothed with the sun” is figurative. She is not literally wearing the sun, nor is the literal moon “under her feet.” So, the woman of Revelation 12 is symbolic.
The details of the woman’s description in Revelation 12 are as follows:
• she is associated with the sun and moon, and she has “a crown of twelve stars on her head” (Revelation 12:1).
• she is pregnant (verse 2) and gives birth to a son who “will rule all the nations” (Revelation 12:5).
• she flees from an enormous red dragon “into the wilderness” where God protects her for 1,260 days (three and a half years) (verse 6).
• her flight into the wilderness is assisted by God who gives her “the two wings of a great eagle” (Revelation 12:14).
• the woman is helped by the earth, which absorbs the fury of the dragon (verse 16).
The initial description of the woman is similar to a dream Joseph had in Genesis 37 in which “the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down” to Joseph (Genesis 37:9). His family rightly understood that the sun was his father Jacob (known as “Israel”), and the moon was his mother. The eleven stars represented all of Joseph’s siblings (and Joseph would make twelve total). The twelve stars in the woman’s crown in Revelation 12, then, symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel.• she is pregnant (verse 2) and gives birth to a son who “will rule all the nations” (Revelation 12:5).
• she flees from an enormous red dragon “into the wilderness” where God protects her for 1,260 days (three and a half years) (verse 6).
• her flight into the wilderness is assisted by God who gives her “the two wings of a great eagle” (Revelation 12:14).
• the woman is helped by the earth, which absorbs the fury of the dragon (verse 16).
Additionally, the woman’s child is a son “who is going to rule all the nations”—he will be a worldwide king—“with a rod of iron”—he will reign in perfect justice (Revelation 12:5, NASB). The child, who is “snatched up to God and to his throne” (Revelation 12:5), is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ. Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9–11) and will one day establish His kingdom of justice and peace on earth (Revelation 20:4–6; Psalm 2:7–9).
We conclude, then, that the woman in Revelation 12 is the nation of Israel: she is linked to all twelve tribes, and she “gives birth” to the Messiah as the dragon (Satan) persecutes her through the ages. The woman’s flight into the wilderness refers to the future time called the great tribulation in which Israel will have to flee to the wilderness—possibly to Petra—for safety from the satanically inspired Antichrist (see Matthew 24:15–21; Daniel 9:27).
