启示录 12:16

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

地卻幫助了那婦人，張開口，把從龍口中吐出來的河水吞了。

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
地 却 帮 助 妇 人 ， 开 口 吞 了 从 龙 口 吐 出 来 的 水 （ 原 文 作 河 ） 。

Contextual Overview

¹² So rejoice, you heavens and all who live there! But it will be terrible for the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you! He is filled with anger, because he knows he does not have much time." ¹³ When the dragon saw he had been thrown down to the earth, he hunted for the woman who had given birth to the son. ¹⁴ But the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle so she could fly to the place prepared for her in the desert. There she would be taken care of for three and one-half years, away from the snake. ¹⁵ Then the snake poured water out of its mouth like a river toward the woman so the flood would carry her away. ¹⁶ But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that came from the mouth of the dragon. ¹⁷ Then the dragon was very angry at the woman, and he went off to make war against all her other children—those who obey God's commands and who have the message Jesus taught.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Exodus 12:35, Exodus 12:36, 1 Kings 17:6, 2 Kings 8:9

Reciprocal: Genesis 4:11 - opened Numbers 16:32 - the earth 1 Samuel 23:27 - the Philistines 2 Samuel 22:5 - the floods Ezra 6:4 - the expenses Ezra 8:36 - they furthered Psalms 32:6 - in the floods Psalms 69:1 - the waters Psalms 69:15 - waterflood Psalms 124:4 - the waters Psalms 144:7 - deliver me Isaiah 8:7 - the Lord bringeth Jeremiah 26:24 - that Jeremiah 47:2 - waters Ezekiel 29:3 - the great Daniel 11:22 - with Acts 18:16 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 12:13
Tell them you are my sister so that things will go well with me and I may be allowed to live because of you."

Genesis 12:14
When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was very beautiful.

Genesis 12:15
The Egyptian officers saw her and told the king of Egypt how beautiful she was. They took her to the king's palace, and

Genesis 13:2
Abram was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold.

Genesis 20:14
Then Abimelech gave Abraham some sheep, cattle, and male and female slaves. He also gave Sarah, Abraham's wife, back to him

Genesis 24:35
The Lord has greatly blessed my master in everything, and he has become a rich man. The Lord has given him many flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels, and horses.

Genesis 26:14
He had so many slaves and flocks and herds that the Philistines envied him.

Genesis 32:5
I have cattle, donkeys, flocks, and male and female servants. I send this message to you and ask you to accept us.'"

Job 1:3
He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys. He also had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

Job 42:12
The Lord blessed the last part of Job's life even more than the first part. Job had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand teams of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the earth helped the woman,.... By opening itself, and taking in what the serpent cast out, so that it could not reach the woman, and annoy her, as follows:

and the earth opened her mouth; as it did when it swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Numbers 16:30; to which history this may have some respect:

and swallowed up the flood which the dragon east out of his mouth; if the flood refers to the Arian persecution, then the earth helping the woman, the church, and swallowing up this flood, may respect the Goths, who broke into the Roman provinces, under their king, Athanaricus, and fell upon the Arians, with great rage and cruelty, and infested the Roman provinces, which were nearer; they seized upon Thrace, which was the occasion of tranquillity to the orthodox; for Valens being moved by these things, desisted from persecuting them, and, leaving Antioch, he went to Constantinople to form measures for the carrying on of the war against the Goths a; and thus the earth helped the woman. But if, by the flood, the errors and heresies of those times are meant, then the councils may be intended by the earth; which, though they consisted of men that were earthly, and greatly apostatized in other things, yet opposed, refuted, and condemned these heresies and errors, and so were the means of preserving the church from them, as some think; though others are of opinion that the barbarous nations are in this also designed, who embracing Arianism, and the corrupt religion, where they came, by which they were, in, some measure, mollified and reconciled to the Christians, did not seek to root them out, and destroy them, as Satan hoped they would; but since they themselves, with the Mahometans, are meant by the flood, the earth must be interpreted of the corrupt and antichristian church, the idolaters which sustained the force of this inundation, and for some time repelled it, and so secured the true church; and when the western empire was overrun by it, as by the Goths, c. idolaters, earthly minded men, and carnal professors, were the sufferers, and bore the shock of it and when the eastern empire was overrun by the Saracens, the tormenting locusts, the green things, grass and trees, were not hurt by them; none of the sealed ones, only those who were not sealed, Revelation 9:4; and the Turkish inundation was a scourge upon the antichristian party: so that it was the earth, or earthly part of professors, the idolaters, that bore the fury and force of this flood, and broke it off from the church. And so sometimes wicked men are helpful to the saints, as the Philistines were serviceable to David, to screen him from the fury of Saul; and Lysias, the chief captain, and Felix and Festus, Roman governors, were instruments of preserving the Apostle Paul from falling into the hands of the Jews, his enemies; and the Christians that were scattered by the persecution at Jerusalem found refuge and safety among the Gentiles.

a Hist. Eccl. Magdeburg. cent. 4. c. 3. p. 80.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And the earth helped the woman - The earth seemed to sympathize with the woman in her persecutions, and to interpose to save her. The meaning is, that a state of things would exist in regard to the church thus driven into obscurity, which would be well represented by what is here said to occur. It was cut off from human aid. It was still in danger; still persecuted. In this state it was nourished from some unseen source. It was enabled to avoid the direct attacks of the enemy, and when he attacked it in a new form, a new mode of intervention in its behalf was granted, as if the earth should open and swallow up a flood of water. We are not, therefore, to look for any literal fulfillment of this, as if the earth interposed in some marvelous way to aid the church. The sense is, that, in that state of obscurity and solitude, the divine interposition was manifested, in an unexpected manner, as if, when an impetuous stream was rolling along that threatened to sweep everything away, a chasm should suddenly open in the earth and absorb it. During the dark ages many such interventions occurred, saving the church from utter destruction. Overflowing waters are often in the Scriptures an emblem of mighty enemies. Psalms 124:2-5, “if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: then the proud waters had gone over our soul.” Psalms 18:16, “he sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.” Jeremiah 47:2, “behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land,” etc. Compare Jeremiah 46:7-8, and notes on Isaiah 8:7-8.

And the earth opened her mouth - A chasm was made sufficient to absorb the waters. That is, John saw that the church was safe from this attack, and that, in order to preserve it, there was an interposition as marked and wonderful as if the earth should suddenly open and swallow up a mighty flood.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

NOTES ON CHAP. XII., BY J. E. C.

Verse Revelation 12:16. The earth helped the woman — "Nothing, and indeed," as Bishop Newton excellently observes, "was more likely to produce the ruin and utter subversion of the Christian Church than the irruptions of so many barbarous nations into the Roman empire. But the event proved contrary to human appearance and expectation: the earth swallowed up the flood; the barbarians were rather swallowed up by the Romans, than the Romans by the barbarians; the heathen conquerors, instead of imposing their own, submitted to the religion of the conquered Christians; and they not only embraced the religion, but affected even the laws, the manners, the customs, the language, and the very name, of Romans, so that the victors were in a manner absorbed and lost among the vanquished." See his Dissertations on the Prophecies, in loc.