13:1. “…a beast rise up out of the sea,…”
‘The region of the sea’ is distinguished from ‘Israel’ by the Talmudists. ‘And every foreign region is called the region of the sea, except Babylon.’ Another Rabbi comments that the ‘region of the sea’ may rather be the west coast of the land of Israel, which is described by the Mediterranean Sea, or perhaps those cities near the west coast that were occupied by the ‘heathen’. (See also 13:11, “Beast out of the earth“).
“Seven seas…and four rivers compass the land of Israel….I… The Great Sea, or the Mediterranean. II… The sea of Tiberias. III… The sea of Sodom. IV…The Sibbichaean. [Perhaps from the word ‘bush’ or ‘thorn.’] V…The lake of Samocho [perhaps ‘the sandy sea’]. VI…[perhaps signifying ‘rushy’ or ‘sedgy’ otherwise unknown]. VII…”The sea of Apamia” [or Chamatz].
However, the Talmudists used many and varied devices, or inventions for describing in imaginative terms what they could not explain literally. They said that “seven hundred kinds of clean fish and eight hundred kinds of clean locusts, and…birds an infinite number, travelled with Israel into Babylon, and returned when Israel returned…by the way of the deep, and by the deep they came back.” Lightfoot says: “Surely it requires a Jewish invention (which is able to frame any thing out of any thing), to trace a way, either by sea, or by any river, through which fish might swim out of Palestine into Babylon. By the same art they bring Jonah in the belly of the whale, out of the Phoenician sea, into the Red sea.”
This ‘beast’ was rising up out of the heathen nations in contrast to the ‘beast from ‘the earth/land’ of 13:11. [1:6-7, 9, 12-14.)
13:2. “…the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.”
Lightfoot, [2:86], believes ‘Satan’s seat’ was Rome, but see my commentary at 2:13.
13:8. “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (See 6:10 above).
Commenting on Matt. 24:12, “…the love of many shall wax cold,” Lightfoot says: “These words relate to that horrid apostasy which prevailed everywhere in the Jewish churches that had received the gospel. See 2 Thess. ii.3, &c.; Gal.iii.1; 1* Tim.i.15, &c.” [2:313] (*I believe this may be an error. The reference probably should be 2 Tim. 1.15.)
13:11. “…beast coming up out of the earth/(land)…”
See 3:10 for comments on ‘earth/[land]’. This ‘beast’ was rising up out of the land of Israel.
Leaders or rulers were often called by the name of an animal. (Jesus called Herod a ‘fox.’):
“…’This is what is commonly said amongst men…”Worship the fox in his time.” The Gloss is, ‘In the time of his prosperity.’…” [3:144]
“…The prince of this world cometh.] Seeing this kind of phrase, the prince of this world, was, in the common acceptation of the Jewish nation, expressive of the devil ruling among the Gentiles….” [3:401]
13:16. “…he causeth all…to receive a mark….”
This mark may have some relationship to the stamp put upon coinage to indicate what king was over the owner of the coin. “‘Wheresoever the money of any king is current, there the inhabitants acknowledge that king for their lord.'” [2:286]
13:18. “….the number of the beast…”
The Greek and Hebrew alphabets assigned a numerical value to each letter of the alphabet so that any word or name could also be given a numerical value. This interchange of numerals with letters is called gematry. There is an example of gematry where the Rabbis used the word ‘full’ as found in Isaiah 1:21, to determine the number of synagogues in Jerusalem. They figured the numerical value of the word ‘full’ variously at 460 or 480, and therefore declared that Jerusalem had 460/ 480 synagogues. (Lightfoot, [1:78-79]) This is an example of the method of interpretation called ‘cipher,’ in which secret meanings are derived by use of a system of codes, for example gematry.
This example points up the fact that there are many combinations of numbers which can add up to the number 666. Since these various combinations would be equivalent to various letters, there are many words which could be said to have the numerical value of 666. (See commentary on this verse and the WS.)
“…’R. Chaninah of Zippor saith, in the name of R. Abhu, …Aleph denotes one, …Lamed thirty, …he five, …Dabar one, …Debarim two. Hence are the forty works, save one, concerning which it is written in the law. The Rabbins of Caesarea say, Not any thing is wanting out of his place: …Aleph one, …Lamed thirty, …Cheth eight: …our profound doctors do not distinguish between …(He) and …(heth):’ that they may fit numbers to their case; for …these, they write …, and change …(He) and …(Cheth) at their pleasure….” [2:16]
Although the authors of the Talmud used such devious means of arriving at strange interpretations, we should not assume that the writer of the Book of Revelation used such uncertain methods. He used a well known system of an established alphabet.
Lightfoot, vol. 2, p. 40, discusses the differences between the scribes and the doctors. The scribes were public notaries and secretaries, besides being transcribers of the law. The Talmud says: “…that a scribe computes more briefly, a doctor more largely.” The Talmudic doctors were tanna, a word very similar to my suggested word for the 666 apellation of ‘the Beast’. It could well have been that the author of the Revelation, having seen and endured the fierce persecution perpetrated by the Jewish Tanna-im, was including them in the body of ‘the beast’.
Davies, [145]: “Carrington has suggested that early Christianity developed along the same lines as Rabbinic Judaism, which in the first century created a distinction between elders capable of handling Torah (the Tannaim) and those who were not…. there can be little evidence that he is justified in saying that ‘there is evidence that one element of great importance in the Christian ecclesia was the propagation of Torah by teachers who had received it in true succession’, and it is not leading us astray to think of Paul, in one aspect at least, as the great Tanna of the Gentiles.”