Original Meaning

MANY INTERPRET THIS second beast as the imperial priesthood, dedicated to promoting the worship of the first beast.1 Some argue that its derivation from “the earth” (13:11) as opposed to “the sea” (13:1) refers to native, provincial authority, hence local priests of the imperial cult.2 Others view it as the personification of all pagan cults that participated in emperor worship (see comment on 13:4).3

That the beast had two horns “like a lamb” (13:11) reflects its imitation of the seven-horned Lamb of God (5:6), though the two horns may come from the ram of Daniel 8:3. But this “lamb” speaks like the dragon; “whereas the Lamb of God is and speaks the Word of God (19:13 …), the beast from the land is the ‘Lamb’ of Satan, and it is and speaks the word of Satan.”4 Its message gives it away. The real Lamb died in weakness, raised by God’s power; the fake lamb promotes one who pretends to have recovered no less significantly (Rev. 13:12). Some take the parody so far that they view the second beast as part of a “satanic trinity” of the two beasts and the dragon (cf. 1:4; 16:13), though John never makes this point explicitly.5

The act of worshiping an image (13:14–15) would be familiar to John’s audience. Not many years after Revelation was written, we have evidence of a legal tradition of executing Christians for refusing to worship the emperor’s statue (Pliny, Ep. 10.96). Revelation was written perhaps five years after Domitian dedicated an imperial statue nearly eight meters high in the imperial temple in Ephesus.6 But John’s audience would also think of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, which was to be worshiped by all peoples. The heroes of ancient Jewish piety had determined to resist such worship even if it ultimately cost their lives (Dan. 3:12–18). Yet whereas Daniel’s friends were divinely rescued (3:23–27), Revelation warns that many faithful Christians of the current time will die (Rev. 13:7, 15). This text indicates power and intention to kill, not that literally no Christians would survive (cf. 1 Cor. 15:51; 1 Thess. 4:15; cf. Mark 13:20). But certainly no Christian may count on surviving!7

Sorcerers and magical practices in pagan religion were pervasive in the Mediterranean world. The association of signs and sorcery with the imperial cult may have been less obvious to John’s audience, though some can be adduced. Various sources confirm the claim that priests of some cults staged wonders like moving or speaking statues and thunder or fire, often using machines. For example, Lucian explains how the false prophet Alexander made a fake god speak (Alexander 26), while some church fathers commented that demons could make statues appear to speak (Athenagoras, 26–27). Some emperors also reportedly employed machines like these to achieve such effects and link themselves with Zeus as hurlers of thunder.8

Babylonian and Greco-Roman magic included rituals to seek to animate images; an entire branch of magic, called theurgy, specialized in animating statues so they could give oracles.9 The most important function of these signs is that they continued the parody on God and his agents (cf. 13:13 with 11:5). As Christ died and lived again (2:8), so the second beast claimed for the first beast (13:14); the coming of the breath of life to the sea beast’s image (13:15) parodies the breath of life experienced by resurrected saints (11:11). No image of Christ needs to be revived, however; the worship of images was a purely pagan practice.

Such activities do not surprise Jesus’ followers. Jesus warned that false prophets would perform signs in the end time (Matt. 24:24), and Paul recognized that the man of lawlessness (whether as an individual or a composite line) would perform such signs (2 Thess. 2:9). Even ancient Israelite law recognized that false prophets could exercise wonders (Ex. 7:11) or predict signs (Deut. 13:1–2).10

The beast enforces a unity that cuts across all social lines (Rev. 13:16), though the attentive reader will remember that God’s judgment also cuts across just such distinctions (6:15; 11:18). The use of a mark to enforce national or empire-wide unity already had a long history known to John’s audience. Ptolemy IV Philopator, ruler of Egypt, required Jewish people in his realm to be enrolled in a census and to be branded with an ivy leaf, the symbol of Dionysus (3 Macc. 2:28–29).11 Deissmann cites the imperial seal or mark (charagma, same word as used in Rev. 13:16–17) stamped on commercial documents.12 One could do little in commerce (13:17) without handling such a “mark,” because allusions to the emperor’s divinity appeared on many coins and even shipping bills and other documents.13

This mark stands in direct contrast to the seal of 7:3–4, which alludes to a “mark” on the righteous in Ezekiel 9:4–6. Whereas the mark on the righteous was to protect them in Ezekiel (cf. also Gen. 4:15; Ps. Sol. 15:6–7), the idea of a mark of destruction on the forehead of the wicked also predates Revelation (Ps. Sol. 15:8–9, where the mark is literally a “sign”). Both Ezekiel’s mark on the righteous and the mark on the wicked in the Psalms of Solomon are symbolic marks visible only to God and his angels, not to people.

Whereas the symbolic mark of protection or judgment was normally on the forehead (Ezek. 9:4; Ps. Sol. 15:9), John adds here the “right hand.” This may imply a pagan parody on the Jewish practice of wearing boxes of Scripture (called tefillin or phylacteries) on the forehead and left hand as a sign of loyalty to God’s covenant.14 Perhaps more important is the idea of a slave brand, though branding on the forehead was a sign of disgrace rather than loyalty; similar is the idea of branding soldiers on the hands as a sign of loyalty.15 Enslavement to the system of the beast cuts across all class distinctions (Rev. 13:16), as will judgment (6:15).

A mid-third-century emperor demanded certificates of sacrifice to the emperor to participate in commerce and escape prosecution; he likely sought to eradicate Christians. Many Christians compromised by bribing officials or by using other practices; some preferred death and were accordingly executed.16 Even in John’s day, however, one could not handle money without involvement in the imperial system.17 To withdraw from an economic system permeated with imperial worship—even to withdraw from trade guilds, whose meetings included meat offered to idols—was in many cities economic suicide. Well-to-do Jewish communities in cities like Sardis had much to lose by boycotting the system, and Christian merchants as a smaller minority would lose even more.18 Under other circumstances, a blockade preventing some from buying and selling could lead to their starvation (1 Macc. 13:49).

But God would supply his people’s needs, miraculously if need be (Rev. 12:6, 14). Meanwhile, whereas many accept the mark to be able to engage in commerce (13:17), every following mention of the “mark” in Revelation implies the judgments its recipients merit (14:9–11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4). Those with faith to believe God’s warnings recognize that despite the world’s perspective, the saints are really better off in the long run.

What is the number of the beast’s name? Some scholars understandably think that the meaning made sense to the first audience but is now forever lost.19 Enigmatic riddles were common in prophecies (e.g., Sib. Or. 3.812; Mark 13:14), and the meanings of some riddles clear to the original audience are now lost (e.g., Phaedrus, 3.1.7). But in most cases we should not give up so quickly. That 13:18 invites the hearer to interpret the riddle implies that the answer was not inaccessible at least to believers in the seven churches, even if the answer proves somewhat less obvious than in the parallel invitation of 17:9.20

Ancients were adept at the use of symbolic numbers, of which Revelation includes several (e.g., 7:4–8). The number 666 is a triangular number, with the root 36; 36 is also a triangular number with the root 8. Since the root of triangular numbers provide their significance, “8” may prepare the reader for the eighth ruler of 17:11, generally agreed to be a new Nero.21 The number 666 is one of only four doubly triangular numbers between 100 and 1000; perhaps less relevant, numbers that are both squares and triangles (as is 36) are also rare (the first three are 1, 36, and 1225). Those interested in ancient numeric speculation would be familiar with 666.22

Probably more important, six could also function as a parody of seven, hence 666 could imply evil (Irenaeus, Her. 5.28.2; 5.29.2).23 Interestingly, John’s audience may know that “Jesus,” the true Christ, yields 888. Although the coincidence would not have been as obvious in ancient Mediterranean numeric systems as it is today, ancients using base ten would not miss the significance of the threefold repetition of sixes (13:18 spells it out).24

But it is also possible that John wants us to look for a particular name; his invitation to the reader to “calculate” the name looks like a technical invitation to gematria.25 In this period many Jews and some early Christians practiced gematria, interpreting words according to the numerical value of their constituent Hebrew letters.26 At first glance, narrowing the list to a particular name seems impossible without knowing the key to the riddle; even in the late second century many names could fit 666 (Irenaeus, Her. 5.30), and suggestions have multiplied since then.27

But one need develop no special methods to arrive at the figure of 666; Greek and Hebrew both used letters as numerals, and that numeric system was well-established. Names often appear as numbers in graffiti recovered from the Roman empire, and it is said that a macabre play on the number of “Nero Caesar” in Greek letters circulated throughout the empire (Suetonius, Nero 39).28 Calculating names of rulers as numbers (based on first initials) was standard practice in one Jewish prophecy tradition (Sib. Or. 5.14–42; 11.29–30, 91–92, 114, 141–42, 190, 208, 256; Bk. 12 passim), which in this manner also surveyed all the emperors from Julius to Hadrian.29

The majority of commentators find an allusion to Nero Caesar’s name as written in Hebrew characters here.30 Other commentators object that John writes in Greek rather than in Hebrew; but this is not the only place where John employs a wordplay requiring some knowledge of Hebrew (9:11; 16:16). Further, some other documents calculate the numbers of Greek words in Hebrew letters (3 Bar. 4:3–7, 10, including “dragon”).31 Some commentators also doubt that the spelling of “Nero Caesar,” which comes out to “666,” was the most natural way to spell the name in Hebrew; but John had other reasons (noted above) to spell it so as to come up with “666,” and archaeologists have uncovered a document from the Judean desert that spells the name precisely this way.32 Interestingly, some copyists preferred for “666” the questionable reading “616,” which is another way that one could count “Nero Caesar” (omitting a debatable letter). This change suggests that the scribes knew the tradition of the name that the number should spell, and respelled it accordingly!33

When the people of the empire played on Nero’s name in Greek, they calculated not only the number of his name but linked his name with an appropriate phrase that yielded the same number (“he killed his mother”—Nero was a matricide). “Beast” (therion) can be transliterated into Hebrew as “TRYVN,” which also comes out to 666; the number “of the beast” is not surprisingly literally the “beast”! (Note again that the less original reading “616”—written in Hebrew letters as “TRYV”—can transliterate the Greek “theriou,” that is, the possessive form “of the beast.”)34 Many Jewish Christians moved to Asia after the fall of Judea in the war of A.D. 66–70, and many of them would have known some Hebrew. But undoubtedly John writes in a riddle the answer to which many would already have known.35

Bridging Contexts

FREQUENT ERRORS IN understanding this passage. One error in applying the text to today’s world is to ignore its broader message for the sake of a particular prophetic reading that requires one to read many apocalyptic-prophetic texts literally. Thus, for example, to harmonize his interpretations of various texts, Lindsey suggests two Antichrists in the end time: a European who rules from Rome and a Jewish religious prophet ruling in Israel.36

Another danger is to fixate on this text apart from its context in the rest of Revelation. Thus, some who rightly warn of end-time deception unfortunately issue a blanket condemnation of all signs and wonders. But this is an inconsistent application of the text; if we take seriously the false signs of the devil’s agents (13:13), we should also take seriously the true signs of Christ’s agents (11:5–6). Signs by themselves can be positive or negative; what enables us to discern true prophets from false ones is not to discard prophets altogether, but to evaluate them by their moral character. The point is that we know them by their message and their fruit, not by their gifts (Deut. 13:1–5; Matt. 7:15–23).

Some have associated restraint from buying and selling with a sophisticated banking system.37 Unfortunately as a young Bible college student I asked about these matters at my local bank, where the poor tellers not only knew nothing about it, but grew anxious that perhaps I knew something they didn’t! (They need not have worried.) Many prophecy teachers have speculated on how the Antichrist will install a literal mark, noting (correctly) that computer technology exists that can do so.38 That some future Antichrist may seek to use a mark is possible, especially if he or she acts in direct defiance of the book of Revelation. Thus, for example, members of a white supremacist group that planned to bomb every state capital and poison the water supplies of several American cities with fifty gallons of cyanide showed their loyalty to that group with a mark (an old Klan tattoo of an “N” with a drop of blood on it).39

But speculating on what some antichrist figure may do, especially in light of this text, is not the same as interpreting the meaning of this text. Such interpretations fail to interpret this passage in the context of the rest of Revelation, or Revelation in the context of symbolism that already existed in its day. Taken by itself, 13:16 can refer to a literal mark, a possibility that may have seemed plausible in John’s day no less than in our own.40 But the context of the rest of the book qualifies the likelihood of this reading. Note that we take the other names written on people in Revelation symbolically (3:12; 17:5; 19:16; 22:4), probably even with reference to the 144,000 (7:3–4; 14:1; for their symbolism, see comment on 7:1–8). If every other mark in Revelation is symbolic, should we take this one literally simply because that is the longstanding tradition of many prophecy teachers?

In translating the principles of the text as lessons for our own situations, we need to remember how concretely the text would have spoken in John’s day. The demand that inhabitants of the empire worship the emperor’s image (and other statues of deities) was a dramatic insult to the honor due God alone. Today the world often offers more subtle opportunities for allegiance to God’s competitors or ways to deny God’s supremacy in our lives. The early Christians were not called to tear down physical idols and insult their neighbors’ beliefs (which would have proved an ineffective witness in any case), but they could not share in their idolatry. If Christ is Lord of our lives, we must graciously part company with much of what our contemporaries value, not only morally but recreationally and in other respects—misfits in our culture though we may appear.

The number 666. Prophecy teachers have forced many names to come to 666. Naturally some sixteenth-century interpreters came up with either the Pope or Martin Luther, depending on which side of the Reformation debate they stood on.41 An academic commentator divides 2520 (which is double 1260) into four (for Daniel’s four empires), then adds 36 as the square of 6 to achieve 666.42 Of course Hitler could be made to arrive at 666.43 Among the more creative suggestions of the late twentieth century was the view that Ronald Reagan’s name implied this number (having six letters in his first, middle, and last names)!44

One current favorite is the allegation of 666 on some international product codes, which relates to buying and selling (though not yet on the hand and forehead).45 Others have suggested the nine-digit Social Security number or an eighteen-digit figure; thus one California resident fought in court to prevent his daughter receiving a Social Security number.46 But the Greek text does not allow us to read six plus six plus six (still less half that number), but six hundred sixty-six.

If we adapt the rules to make names conform (say, multiply by seven, add four, then divide by three) we can eventually make any name fit 666.47 Indeed, everything from biblical scholars (of course!), scientists, and labor unions to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has surfaced as candidates for the Antichrist.48 A friend downloaded from the Internet fresh speculation about Barney, the oft-loved dinosaur of children’s television. If one adds up the potential Roman numerals in “Cute Purple Dinosaur” (counting “U” as “V,” hence as 5), one ends up with 100 + 5 + 5 + 50 + 500 + 1 + 5, for a total of 666. We think that one was a joke.

But on a more serious note, Christians who have suffered intense persecution and martyrdom have often supposed that they were suffering the final Tribulation before Christ’s return.49 And why not? They may have been wrong that Christ would return in their generation, but each generation had a right to expect him. Many who now deny that the Lord’s coming could have been imminent before Israel’s return to the land taught differently before 1948; previously many held that Jesus would return Israel to the land only after his “secret” coming for the saints (i.e., the Rapture).50

From the standpoint of their own experience of martyrdom, many Christians have been engaged in their own final struggle with the forces of Antichrist (see Luke 12:4; 1 John 2:18). When Stalin, for instance, murdered ten to thirty million people in seventeen years, we would have undoubtedly thought him the final Antichrist had we lived in the Ukraine—and we could have been right, God willing. In a future holocaust we will probably think its perpetrator the final Antichrist—and we may be right. But if history surprises us once more, we will be reminded of how the mystery of lawlessness continues its hideous incarnations until the end (2 Thess. 2:7). Because neither we nor Satan know the time of the end, all such antichrists are experienced as antichrists, but what will finally indicate that we have witnessed the final Antichrist will be Jesus’ return to wipe him out.

Contemporary Significance

THE SUBTLE PRESENCE of the Antichrist. Billy Graham imagines a situation in which a Christian in the ancient world is offered freedom if he or she will simply engage in a ritual act of offering incense to Caesar. Who would be so stubborn as to choose suffering over such a simple act? But the act constituted “a symbol of a wider disobedience,” and Christ summons his true disciples to refuse the compromise as unacceptable.51

We do not need an emperor like Domitian to confront this sort of conflict. Some Christians who opposed Hitler and looked for transcultural significance in this text found in the second beast a clear symbol of the totalitarian state’s ministry of propaganda.52 And why not? Satan does not know when Jesus will return (Mark 13:30) and must always have an antichrist in waiting.53 In a broader sense, this temptation merely mirrors all temptations to assimilate the world’s values that deny the kingdom of God. Would the early Christians adopt their society’s values (Rev. 2:14, 20; 3:16–18)? Or would they “come out” (18:4)? It is a question that continues to challenge today’s church.

By the time Revelation was written, many arrogant rulers had already offered themselves for a portrait of the Antichrist by exalting themselves as gods, such as kings of Babylon (Isa. 14:12–14; Dan. 3:5), Tyre (Ezek. 28:2, 9), Pharaoh (29:3), Antiochus IV Epiphanes (perhaps Dan. 11:36–37), and other pagan rulers (Ps. 82:1, 6–7). In Rome itself, before Domitian came, Gaius Caligula and Nero had exalted themselves as gods. The spirit of the evil empire that exalts itself as god exists in oppressive, totalitarian regimes today. The predictions of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, failed to take hold in our society by its scheduled date, but other societies have experienced such horrors, and it is not impossible that some of us may confront similar horrors (Matt. 24:9).

But what should frighten us even more is that the same spirit of the self-deifying empire remains in every human heart that seeks to make itself the center of life while burying thoughts of its own mortality. From openings pried for it by earlier transcendentalism to the modern New Age movement, our consumer culture has democratized self-idolatry to include everyone’s divinity and freedom to seek self-fulfillment instead of answering to a higher authority.54

The real Lamb died in weakness and was raised by God’s power; the fake lamb promotes one who pretends to have recovered no less significantly (13:12). Satan’s counterfeits derive their false legitimacy from imitating God, so those who do not embrace the hard message of the cross and its suffering are susceptible to succumbing to counterfeits. This happened, for instance, in Germany in the 1930s; Hitler feigned friendliness to church leaders whose position in society had somewhat eroded, and when he came to power “few were more jubilant than Protestant church leaders.”55 But Bonhoeffer’s lectures on Christology daringly included “reflections on false messiahs … a direct challenge to Hitler,” who contrasted with “the humiliated and crucified Messiah.” Such challenges inevitably drew the ire of the Nazi state.56 Religion has become increasingly acceptable in recent years in many circles in secular America—but the necessity of the Lamb’s cross remains a scandal.

Because Satan’s counterfeits imitate God’s works, it is not surprising that false signs continue to lead many people astray today; some are fake, whereas others are demonic.57 One thinks, for example, of psychic healers and perhaps of some modern mind-science techniques.58 One Catholic scholar warns against false apparitions of Christ and Mary that exhibit signs, yet teach what is false.59 Although God can do anything, it should also be noted that statues that are purported to weep or sweat are not a specifically Christian phenomenon.60 But missiologists comment on power encounters, noting that, as in the Bible (Ex. 7:11–12; Acts 13:11), God’s power is stronger than Satan’s.61 The two witnesses prevailed with their signs until the appointed time of their martyrdom (11:7), and today’s church should be able to demonstrate God’s power more effectively than occult sources demonstrate theirs.62

Persecution for Christ today. We must pray for our brothers and sisters suffering persecution; where possible, we should also work for their protection.63 Some experts claim that over one hundred thousand people are martyred for Christ each year.64 Even if that statistic seems inflated in most regions of the world, many are dying for their faith; I have personally talked with some of the survivors, who saw colleagues murdered.

Examples of severe persecution today are numerous.65 Some have to do with the group from which the believer is converted, which responds with hostility to the conversion. In a small Asian country an assassin named Ranjit, who had gunned down many officers, was converted through the witness of a pastor. Through this new believer’s preaching and changed life many other people were converted, but the terrorist group of which he had been a part demanded that he continue to work with them. When he refused, they came to the pastor’s home and demanded that he come out. The pastor hid him and was about to be killed in his place, but rather than allow his pastor to die, he came out and handed himself over. Ranjit was beaten to death, his final message being, “Tell my pastor I died a believer.”66

More often, Christians are executed or tortured for their witness. Taken to prison for the fifth time, one witness who had been preaching Christ for twenty years was placed in a hot, eighteen-by-twenty-four-foot room, with no windows and twenty-five other prisoners, each fed two bowls of rice a day. Once his nine-hour daily interrogations began, he preached to his interrogators for half a year; meanwhile many of his cellmates were being converted after interrogation hours. His next prison station also brought many converts, so he was moved to a labor camp where 120 men shared two toilets in a cell one hundred meters square. Yet he was eventually released.

A man this witness led to Christ in prison was released shortly after his conversion and went back to evangelize his unreached tribal group, in one month winning five villages with over 750 people.67 Christians who are committed to suffer for their faith make bold witnesses! An American missionary was taken aback by the vibrant witness of an Iranian Christian who remarked to him, “It is a shame for a believer to die of natural causes.”68 The courage of our brothers and sisters should summon our attention to endure joyfully the much smaller opposition most of us currently face.

In some places believers are slaughtered simply because they are Christians. Reports abound of Christians crucified and enslaved in the Sudan; someone I know witnessed sales receipts openly marked, “Christian slaves.” Such suffering abounded throughout the past century; when the Japanese conquered Korea (1937–1940), they “ordered Christians to worship at their Shinto shrines. Many Christians refused and were imprisoned and tortured.”69

The church in China offers many examples of suffering. George Chen was forced to work all day deep in a cesspool filled with human waste, but he rejoiced because the odor kept others away, allowing him to pray and sing as he worked all day. While he was in prison, the churches he had planted grew from 300 to 5,000.70 “While the underground church does not want persecution, they are not afraid. It is a way of life for them.”71 One American observer, commenting on the bold and joyful witness of suffering Chinese Christians, remarked, “I have sat at the feet of believers in China who are being fitted even now for those white robes that will adorn the saints. Compared to their finery, I feel spiritually naked.”72

As a zealous young Christian sometimes beaten or threatened with weapons for my witness, I looked forward to a martyr’s crown by 1980. In his great mercy, God has spared my life for other work for the moment. But I dare never forget that as Christians, our lives in this world remain forfeit because we belong to another world (Mark 8:34–38). One of my gravest concerns is that, despite biblical teachings, most Western Christians remain unprepared to face martyrdom relatively joyfully—and perhaps to face it at all.

The temptation to compromise. The economic temptation in this passage (13:17) also remains relevant. Christians in Thyatira already could identify with the economic conspiracy between imperial religion and commerce (see comment on 2:18).73 Christians after Constantine still faced such pressures for compromise. For example, John Chrysostom regularly criticized wasteful use of wealth and scandalously continued to live simply even as bishop of Constantinople; he finally alienated some other powerful bishops and the sociopolitical elite, ultimately leading to his banishment and death.74 Likewise, the wealthy heir Olympias freely gave her money to the poor despite opposition; her continuing support of her bishop, John Chrysostom, finally led to her banishment and the seizure of the remainder of her wealth.75

Insightful Christians today might likewise recognize the links that appear in many professions (notably in the entertainment industry, politics, and education) between economic success and reflecting the values of the broader society. Economic compromises like those some of the churches in Asia Minor made (to “buy and sell”) are common in our society. One Christianity Today interview suggests that even though bankruptcy rates are 18.6 percent higher in counties with casinos than in other counties, and suicide rates average four times higher in heavy gambling areas, the government gets benefits “and the gambling industry even gives money to churches and charities. Their goal is to silence you by compromising you.”76

But is this different from any of us who tell people what they want to hear about themselves rather than telling them God’s message? Some ministers have been afraid of alienating their economic support base. One Baptist I led to Christ asked his pastor why he had never explained genuine conversion from the pulpit; the pastor expressed his happiness that the young man had found his way to Christ but noted that he had to be careful what he preached lest he offend the deacons. To be sure, we want to communicate truth in the most strategic and sensitive ways possible. But when we are more concerned about what people think about us, whether they continue supporting our church, and so forth, than whether we are helping them, we engage in the same kinds of compromise as some of our spiritual predecessors.

Even in our religious subculture we often confront the temptation to tell people what they want to hear rather than what we genuinely believe God is saying. Many ministers during the Civil Rights Movement failed to protest racial segregation because they might lose their job;77 many ministers today feel forced by other “politically correct” constraints on the right or the left. Job security has often mattered more than justice (John 19:12–16), and even religious professionals have made decisions based on professional advancement (Judg. 18:18–20). If status and materialism so entice us, how would we fare under persecution?78

Indeed, every time we buy something we don’t need because our neighbors have one, we compromise with the world system’s values. Can we be frivolous when we know that 40,000 people die every day of starvation, that fifty cents could provide food for a child for one day in some famine-stricken areas, that the extra hours worked for that squandered money could have been spent with our children or in witnessing to our neighbors?

If, as suggested above, the mark on the wicked (13:16–18) is symbolic like all the other marks in Revelation (3:12; 7:3; 14:1; 17:5; 19:16; 22:4), then John is telling us about it less to satisfy our end-time curiosity than to warn us about compromise. This mark may function like a slave brand, possibly like the seal in 7:3–4; whereas the 144,000 “servants of God” belong to God and Christ, those who take the mark of the beast are its servants. The beast settles for nothing less than a slave brand, “an imitation of the invisible seal of baptism recognizable only by faith.”79

Revelation allows for no divided allegiance: We must decide between God and the world and between what each side values. Yet we cannot read this passage’s warning properly without also grasping the rest of the book: Every Babylon of the past has fallen, and so will every empire that oppresses us (18:2; 19:2). The future belongs not to Babylon but to the faithful, whose home is the Jerusalem to come (21:2–8).