Revelation 17:12-17

Ten horns. Compare Dan. 7:24; Rev. 12:3; 13:1; see on Dan. 7:7; Rev. 12:3.

No kingdom as yet. According to some, the number “ten” specifies ten particular “kings,” or nations. Others consider “ten” to be a round number, and as such to refer to all the powers of the category spoken of as “horns,” irrespective of their precise arithmetical number. Such usage is common elsewhere in Scripture (see on ch. 12:3). Some take these ten horns to represent the same ten powers specified in Daniel and earlier in the Revelation. Others, on the basis that these ten “receive power as kings one hour with the beast,” consider that they cannot, therefore, be identified with the various nations that arose during the breakup of the Roman Empire.

Hour. Gr. hōra, “season,” “daytime” (in contrast with nighttime), “a day,” “an hour [a twelfth of the daylight hours],” and a definite point of “time.” In Matt. 14:15 hōra is translated “time,” meaning daytime. Other instances of such translation are Matt. 18:1; John 16:2, 4, 25; 1 John 2:18; Rev. 14:15. Hōra is translated “day” in Mark 6:35, “instant” in Luke 2:38, “season” in 2 Cor. 7:8 and Philemon 15, “short time” in 1 Thess. 2:17, “high time” in Rom. 13:11, and “eventide” in Mark 11:11. Obviously, the meaning of hōra in any particular instance must be determined by the context.

Some have taken the “one hour” of ch. 17:12 as prophetic time, according to which it would represent a period of about two weeks of literal time. However, the context seems to imply otherwise. It is generally recognized that ch. 18 gives a more detailed explanation of events described in ch. 17:12–17. But the period of time designated as “one day” in ch. 18:8 is also called “one hour” in vs. 10, 17, 19, the obvious intent of Inspiration being to indicate a brief period of time without specifying its exact length. Accordingly, it seems preferable to take the expression “one hour” in ch. 17:12 in the same sense, as indicating a brief but unspecified period of “time.”

Periods of time mentioned in prophetic passages of Scripture do not always designate what is commonly known as prophetic time. For instance, the 7 years of famine predicted by Joseph were literal years (Gen. 41:25–31), as is also true of the 40 years of wandering foretold in Num. 14:34. The same might be said of the 400 years of Gen. climax of satanic planning for the unification of the world through a compact between the apostate religious organizations of earth, as represented by the woman, and the political powers of earth, as represented by the beast (see on chs. 16:13, 14; 17:3). It was apparently during this brief “hour” that John saw the “woman” seated upon the “beast,” at the apex of her career, and “drunken” with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus (vs. 3–6).