6 The woman flees into the wilderness to be
taken care of there by God for 1,260 days. The flight of the woman may in part
reflect the escape of the Palestinian church to Pella at the outbreak of the
Jewish war in a.d. 66. The intent of the verse, however, is not so much the
flight of the church as the provision of God for her sustenance. To the Jewish
people the wilderness spoke of divine provision and intimate fellowship. It was
in the wilderness that God had rained down bread from heaven (Exod 16:4ff.) and
nourished his people for forty years. Of Israel God said, “I am now going to
allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her” (Hos
2:14; cf. 1 Kgs 17:2–3; 19:3–4). For John’s readers the wilderness in this
context would not suggests a desert waste inhabited by evil spirits and unclean
beasts, but a place of spiritual refuge. The purpose of the vision is to assure
those facing martyrdom that God has prepared for them a place of spiritual
refuge and will enable them to stand fast against the devil. The duration of
divine nourishment (1,260 days) corresponds to the period of persecution (cf.
11:2; 13:5). The place is one set in readiness by God himself. (Robert
H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation [The New International Commentary on
the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997], 234)
