Revelation 12:17

So ¹  the dragon became enraged at the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, ²  those who keep ³  God’s commandments and hold to ⁴  the testimony about Jesus. ⁵  (12:18) And the dragon ⁶  stood ⁷  on the sand ⁸  of the seashore. ⁹ 

Ge 3:15; Da 7:23-26; Da 11:36; Mt 28:20; Joh 8:44; 1Co 2:1; 1Pe 5:8; 1Jo 5:2; 1Jo 5:10; Re 1:2,9; Re 6:9; Re 11:7; Re 12:11; Re 12:12; Re 13:7; Re 14:12; Re 17:6,14; Re 18:20; Re 19:19; Re 20:4; Re 20:8,9; Re 22:14

¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the woman’s escape.

² tn Grk “her seed” (an idiom for offspring, children, or descendants).

³ tn Or “who obey.”

⁴ tn Grk “and having.”

⁵ tn Grk “the testimony of Jesus,” which may involve a subjective genitive (“Jesus’ testimony”) or, more likely, an objective genitive (“testimony about Jesus”).

⁶ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the dragon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ 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.”

⁸ tn Or “sandy beach” (L&N 1.64).

⁹ 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.