<p>12:17 <em>And the dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed that keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus</em>- Revelation 12 begins with the dragon trying to kill the man child born of the woman, and now at the end of the vision he seeks to kill the rest of her children. I earlier interpreted the man child as the Jewish Christian converts who repent and who are miraculously taken away from persecution. &quot;The rest of her seed&quot; would refer to another group of her spiritual children. They hold the testimony of Jesus in that they too witness to their new faith, in the face of the most awful opposition and persecution. He persecutes &quot;the remnant&quot; of the seed of the woman, just as the fourth beast of Dan. 7:7,19 downtreads &ldquo;the remnant&rdquo;.</p><p>We need to note the parallels between Revelation 12 and 20. There we meet again &quot;the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and satan&quot; (12:9 = 20:2). The repetition of this exact phrase indicates we are being given another angle on events here in chapter 12. At the time of the establishment of God's Kingdom, the figurative &quot;thousand years&quot; (see notes on chapter 20), this entity persecutes the faithful; and then once the Kingdom has been established not at the end of some 1000 year Millennial reign, he is released from his prison and makes a futile attack upon the &quot;camp of the saints&quot; before being finally destroyed by fire (20:9). This event is therefore spoken of here in chapter 12 as 'making war' with 'the rest of the woman's seed'. This is the final stage of the ancient conflict envisaged in Gen. 3:15 between the seed of the woman and the serpent.</p><p>Rev. 12 indicates that the dragon is unsuccessful in totally destroying the woman, and therefore turns in a brief period of fury &quot;to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus&quot; (12:17). Here we have the same idea as in 11:7; three and a half years of witnessing amidst persecution, followed by a brief, intense period of horror, as Christ's three and a half year ministry was terminated by three and a half days of especial suffering. Notice that the dragon goes into the wilderness to persecute the woman's seed; 17:3,8 describes a beast from the wilderness, full of the blood of the saints. Thus the beast of Rev. 17 is also to be read in a latter day context.</p>