What Does Revelation 12:4 Mean?
And his tail sweeps down a third of the stars of heaven, and throws them to the earth. And the dragon stands before the woman who is ready to bring forth, so that he might devour her child as soon as it is born.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.THE KEY
The Greek word for “child,” τέκνον (téknon), grows from the same root as “give birth,” binding what the dragon targets to the very act it waits to consume.
THE MEANING
You see the woman poised to give birth while the dragon waits to devour her child at the first moment of life. The verse holds the imminence of birth and the violence aimed at the born child together, without softening either.
THE ROOT
τέκνον
téknon
GROWS FROM
τίκτω
To bear or bring forth.
“is ready to bring forth” in this verse is téknon. The nearby phrase “ready to be delivered” uses τεκεῖν (tekeîn), from the same verb τίκτω (tíktō), meaning “to give birth.” The child is named as what is brought forth, so the verse’s threat falls directly on the fruit of the birth it is watching.
ALSO GROWS
tekeîn: To give birth, to bear.
τεκεῖν
This infinitive appears in the phrase about the woman being ready to give birth, directly linking the act to the child named τέκνον (téknon).
tókos: Birth, offspring.
τόκος
This noun from the same word family keeps birth and what comes from it joined under the root of bringing forth.
THE PATTERN
A force that seeks to destroy vulnerable life positions itself at the moment that life is coming into the world.
And he said, When you help the Hebrew women bring forth, and see them upon the stools, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live.When they had withdrawn, look, a messenger of the LORD appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Rise, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to make him perish.THE THREAD
And she brought forth a male child, who was to shepherd all the nations with a staff of iron, and her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.“Brought forth” translates ἔτεκεν (éteken), from τίκτω (tíktō), the same root family as τέκνον (téknon), “child,” in this verse. The next verse shows the birth the dragon waits to devour, then carries the child beyond its reach.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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