ISB ~ Revelation 12 v1 - 6

The woman of Revelation 12 is both an individual person and a collective symbol. She is Mary, the Mother of the Messiah and the spiritual mother of his disciples (Jn 19:26-27). But she also represents the faithful of Israel, crying out for the Messiah (Rev 12:2), as well as the Church, attacked by the devil for witnessing to Jesus (12:17) (CCC 501, 507, 1138).

• The depiction of the woman is rich in biblical symbolism. (1) Antagonism between the woman and the dragon, the “ancient serpent” (12:9), recalls Gen 3:15, the first prophecy in Scripture to foretell the demise of the devil through the offspring (Messiah) of a woman (a new Eve). (2) Images of the sun, moon, and stars call to mind Gen 37:9-10, where they symbolize the family of Israel, namely, Jacob, his wife, and his twelve sons. (3) The pangs and anguish of childbirth recall Isaiah’s description of Daughter Zion, a maternal figure that represents the holy remnant of Israel groaning for redemption (Is 26:17; Mic 4:9-10). (4) Because the woman is a queen who wears a crown and a mother who bears a royal male child, she is also the Queen Mother of the Davidic kingdom reestablished by Jesus, the Davidic male child (1 Kings 2:19-20; Jer 13:18) (CCC 489). See essay:Queen Mother at 1 Kings 2.

• The woman is clearly the Church, endowed with the Word of the Father, whose brightness outshines the sun. Like the moon she is adorned with heavenly glory, and her crown of twelve stars points to the twelve apostles who founded the Church (St. Hippolytus, On the Antichrist 61). The vision speaks of the Mother of our Savior, depicting her in heaven, not on earth, as pure in body and soul, as equal to an angel, as one of heaven’s citizens, as one who brought about the Incarnation of God. She has nothing in common with this world and its evils but is exalted and worthy of heaven, despite her descent from our mortal nature (Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse 6, 19).