<p>17:8 <i>The beast you saw was and is not, and is about to come up</i>- The allusion is to the Yahweh Name, He who was, is and is to come. The Name of blasphemy on Babylon is therefore a take on His holy Name. Babylon will think: &quot;I am, and there is none else beside me&quot; (Is. 47:8). She appropriates to herself the Name &quot;I am&quot; and characteristics of Yahweh; this is her blasphemy.</p><p><i>Out of the abyss, and to go into destruction-</i> This beast which arises out of the bottomless pit is therefore connected with the same beast from the bottomless pit as in Rev. 11:7. The three beasts sea beast of 13:1, earth beast of 13:11 and now this scarlet beast are all in the spirit and power of the dragon of chapter 12. I suggest the visions may be revealing different aspects of the same entity; or we may have the idea that the beasts will each be judged by God, or damaged by Israeli or Western attacks upon them, but regroup and reform into another incarnation of the same Jihadist principles. This kind of thing is quite imaginable given the geopolitics of the earth / land promised to Abraham.</p><p><i>And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, they whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast, how that he was and is not, and shall come</i>- As noted on :7, those armed with the book of Revelation will not &quot;wonder&quot; at the beast as they will understand it. Perhaps only that generation will fully understand what we read here; because the purpose of prophecy is so that when it fulfils, then we perceive the meaning of the original prophecy. The idea is not that prophecy enables us to work out a timeline of events ahead of time. 13:3,12 explain that the world here called the earth dwellers, those within the earth / land shall wonder after the beast because it recovers from a deadly wound; a wound which led to death. Here we read that the beast was, is not the deadly wound, and yet has revived. That deadly wound is upon one of the heads (13:3), which is identified with the beast; just as the little horn of Daniel 7 and 8 is spoken of as the whole beast. That little horn takes a stand against the Prince of princes and then is destroyed &ldquo;but not by human power&rdquo; (Dan. 8:25), i.e. he will be destroyed by the stone Jesus cut out without human hands. So the deadly wound could refer to Western or Israeli victory against the beast, but it likely is the result of direct Divine intervention and judgment.</p><p>Like the Lamb, who was killed and then raised up (5:6), the Beast seems to disappear and then return to life. This passage may be a reference to some definite event, such as the murder of Caesar and the healing of the empire under Augustus, the legend of <i>Nero </i>redivivus, whereby Nero was believed to have returned from the dead. The marvellous cure of the Beast excites admiration and leads to the adoration of the dragon and the Beast (17:8). This is an allusion to the rapid progress of the emperor cult and to the ready acceptance of the immoral example of the emperors. Thus Caesar is set up as the very antithesis of the one true Lord and Master, Jesus. The latter day application is likewise to a specific individual, the equivalent of Nero in the very last days.</p>