Revelation 12:11

12:11 But ¹  they overcame him

by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony,

and they did not love their lives ²  so much that they were afraid to die.

Revelation 12:17

12:17 So ³  the dragon became enraged at the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, ⁴  those who keep ⁵  God’s commandments and hold to ⁶  the testimony about Jesus. ⁷  (12:18) And the dragon ⁸  stood ⁹  on the sand ¹⁰  of the seashore. ¹¹ 

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¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast.

² sn They did not love their lives. See Matt 16:25; Luke 17:33; John 12:25.

³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the woman’s escape.

⁴ tn Grk “her seed” (an idiom for offspring, children, or descendants).

⁵ tn Or “who obey.”

⁶ tn Grk “and having.”

⁷ tn Grk “the testimony of Jesus,” which may involve a subjective genitive (“Jesus’ testimony”) or, more likely, an objective genitive (“testimony about Jesus”).

⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the dragon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tc Grk ἐστάθη (estaqh, “he stood”). The reading followed by the translation is attested by the better mss (Ì⁴⁷ א A C 1854 2344 2351 pc lat sy^h) while the majority of mss (051 Ï vg^mss sy^ph co) have the reading ἐστάθην (estaqhn, “I stood”). Thus, the majority of mss make the narrator, rather than the dragon of 12:17, the subject of the verb. The first person reading is most likely an assimilation to the following verb in 13:1, “I saw.” The reading “I stood” was introduced either by accident or to produce a smoother flow, giving the narrator a vantage point on the sea’s edge from which to observe the beast rising out of the sea in 13:1. But almost everywhere else in the book, the phrase καὶ εἶδον (kai eidon, “and I saw”) marks a transition to a new vision, without reference to the narrator’s activity. On both external and internal grounds, it is best to adopt the third person reading, “he stood.”

¹⁰ tn Or “sandy beach” (L&N 1.64).

¹¹ sn The standard critical texts of the Greek NT, NA²⁷ and UBS⁴, both include this sentence as 12:18, as do the RSV and NRSV. Other modern translations like the NASB and NIV include the sentence at the beginning of 13:1; in these versions chap. 12 has only 17 verses.