‘Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. And they are seven kings, five are fallen, the one is and the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must continue a little while, and the beast that was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is of the seven and goes into destruction.'
The seven heads of the Beast bear a dual significance. Firstly they are ‘seven mountains on which the woman sits', they are the foundation of ‘Babylon', and secondly they represent seven kings. (The Beast himself is the eighth king shortly to be mentioned). Rome was built on seven mountains, but so was Babylon. Indeed many cities boasted of being built on seven mountains for mountains had a divine significance and seven was the number of divine perfection, and where the ground is hilly it is not difficult to discern seven. Thus the seven mountains represent an idea, being seated on the mountains of the gods, while at the same time in context representing both Rome and Babylon. But the fact is that the woman was founded on the Beast, which itself represents the activity of Satan. She is the product of the evil and greed of past empires whose propensities are found in the Beast, who may well be the fourth Beast of Daniel 7:7.
Like the heads of the clone beast the heads of the scarlet beast represent the same seven emperors and in doing so represent the whole empirate, for the scarlet beast incorporates the clone beast, and both are dependent on the red monster (Revelation 12:3). Five are in the past and are dead (they are ‘fallen'), one is, and one must continue for a little while. If the ‘seven' is intended to cover the whole empirate, then the fact that the present emperor was the sixth (six being the number of man) may be a deliberate method of indicating that the sixth emperor was but a man. The ‘seventh' would then indicate the future empirate. But in the end this is only important because it relates the Beast to the Roman Empire, for the benefit of Christians living at that time. In the end it is the eighth Beast who is important..
Note On The Identification Of The Seven.
Attempts have been made to determine who the sixth emperor might be, for it would give us a date for the book. But different scholars come to different conclusions. If we work from Augustus, the first specifically named as emperor, then including Augustus the first emperors would be, Augustus, Tiberias, Gaius (Caligula), Claudius and Nero. This would then make the sixth emperor the little known Galba, or (if we ignore Galba, Othos and Vitellius on the grounds that they only reigned briefly in Rome and were never acknowledged by the eastern provinces), Vespasian. The seventh could then be either Titus, or Domitian, depending on whether we exclude Titus due to the shortness of his reign. We can, however, already see what shaky ground we are on, especially as nowhere is it said that the five include all emperors to that date. Furthermore, Augustus may have been represented by the Beast, with the horns being ensuing emperors. This would then make the sixth either Titus or Domitian.
But while no doubt the five were intended to be in some kind of sequence it does not necessarily mean that they were to be seen as directly consecutive. In many genealogies there is sequence, but with gaps between the persons named (e.g. in Matthew 1), and in the lists of the ten patriarchs (Genesis 5:11) there were undoubtedly names missed out. In these last two ten important names were selected in order to represent the whole. So it may have been with the seven. So while the verse does definitely indicate that the Empirate had a future represented by the seventh king, who ‘has not yet come', and who thus represents the future line of kingship, identification is difficult. The seventh is to continue for a little while. ‘A little while' in Revelation is a period of uncertain duration.
But if John was seeing the ‘seven' as including all emperors, then the five may simply be the figure needed to make the present emperor the sixth, six being the number of man, underlining the fact that the current emperor was not divine. The seventh would then be an ‘ideal' emperor, indicating the future empirate.
End of note.