What Does Revelation 12:14 Mean in the King James?
And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The wilderness is not the opposite of provision: it is where nourishment keeps the woman beyond the serpent’s reach.
THE MEANING
A threat can be real without being the only force acting on you: care reaches you beyond its face, and you are nourished even where the landscape is bare. The wilderness remains, but the serpent is no longer the only presence there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“If I am in the wilderness, I have been abandoned.” Here, the woman is nourished in the wilderness and kept beyond the serpent’s reach.
THE ROOT
τρέφεται
trephetai
GROWS FROM
τρέφω
trephō
To feed, nourish, rear, or bring up.
“nourished” in this verse is trephetai. This word’s family holds food and nurture together: it names both what is supplied and the care that sustains. The woman is not merely kept alive; she is tended in the very place that looks empty.
ALSO GROWS
trophē: Food, nourishment
τροφή
It names what the woman receives while she is in the wilderness.
trophos: Nurse, one who rears or nurtures
τροφός
It shows that this root can describe not only food, but sustained care.
THE PATTERN
Shelter and sustenance can hold a life in exposed places, beyond a threat’s reach.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.THE THREAD
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.The Greek verb in both verses is τρέφω (trephō), to nourish or rear: 12:6 says they should feed her, and 12:14 says she is nourished. The repeated root makes the wilderness provision a continuing act of care, not a brief escape.
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