The woman. No Christian acquainted with the Gospels can read this
story of the woman who labors to bring forth the child who shall rule the
nations without thinking of Mary, the mother of the Messiah, whose divine child
is saved from wicked Herod by divine intervention (Matt. 2:1–15). Yet to
interpret John’s evocative symbolic language in this limited fashion would
reduce it to a steno-symbol code. John the artist uses language more
creatively. The woman is not Mary, nor Israel, nor the church but less and more
than all of these. John’s imagery pulls together elements from the pagan myth
of the queen of heaven; from the Genesis story of Eve, mother of all living,
whose “seed” shall bruise the head of the primeval serpent (Gen. 3:1–16); from
Israel who escapes from the dragon/Pharaoh into the wilderness on wings of an
eagle (Exod. 19:4, cf. Ps. 74:12–15); and Zion, “mother” of the People of God
from whom the Messiah comes forth (Isa. 66:7–9; 2 Esdr. 13:32–38). She reflects
the historical experience of the People of God through the ages, Israel and the
church, and yet she is the cosmic woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon
under her feet, and crowned with twelve stars, who brings forth the Messiah. A
passage in the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QH 3:4) also pictures the elect community
Israel bringing forth the Messiah. Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut captures the
subtleties of this combination of a this-worldly mother and a transcendent
queen of heaven. (M.
Eugene Boring, Revelation [Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for
Teaching and Preaching; Louisville, Ky.: John Knox Press, 1989], 152-53)
