And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
One of - `from among.'
Wounded ... healed. Thrice emphatically (Revelation 13:12; Revelation 13:14): cf. Revelation 17:8; Revelation 17:11, "the beast that was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit" (Revelation 13:11 below): the Germanic empire, the seventh head (revived in Antichrist the eighth), future in John's time (Revelation 17:10). Contrast Nebuchadnezzar, humbled from self-deifying pride, and converted from beastlike character to MAN'S form and true position toward God: symbolized by his eagle-wings plucked, and himself made stand upon his feet as a man (Daniel 7:4). Here, the beast's head is not changed into human, but receives a deadly wound - i:e., the world-kingdom does not turn to God, but for a time its God-opposed character remains paralyzed ('as it were slain:' marking the beast's outward resemblance to the Lamb 'as it were slain,' notes, Revelation 5:6: cf. the second beast's resemblance to the Lamb, Revelation 13:11). Though seemingly slain х esfagmeneen (G4969), 'wounded'], it remains the beast still, to rise again in another form (Revelation 13:11).
The six first heads were pagan-Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome; the seventh world-power (the German hordes pouring on Christianized Rome, including the Greek third empire, and so the two former), whereby Satan hoped to stifle Christianity (Revelation 11:15-16), became Christianized (the beast's, as it were, deadly wound: slain, and it is not, Revelation 17:11). Its ascent out of the bottomless pit answers to the healing of its deadly wound (Revelation 17:8). No change is noticed in Daniel as effected by Christianity upon the fourth kingdom. The beast, healed of its wound, returns from, not only the sea, but the bottomless pit, whence it draws new strength of hell (Revelation 13:3; Revelation 13:11-12; Revelation 13:14; Revelation 11:7; Revelation 17:8). [It was antitheos: it now is antichristos (G500).] Compare the seven evil spirits taken into the temporarily dispossessed, and the last state worse than the first, Matthew 12:43-45. A worse paganism breaks in upon the Christianized world, more devilish than that of the first beast's heads. The latter was apostasy only from the revelation of God in nature and conscience; this is from God's revelation of love in His Son. It culminates in Antichrist, the man of sin, son of perdition (cf. Revelation 17:11): 2 Thessalonians 2:3: cf. 2 Timothy 3:1-4, the characteristics of old paganism (Romans 1:29-32) (Auberlen). More than one wound is meant: e.g., that under Constantine (when the worship of the emperor's image fell before Christianity), followed by healing, when image-worship and the Romish and Greek Catholic errors were introduced (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:11; Daniel 7:24-25; 1 Timothy 4:1-3); again, that at the Reformation, followed by the form of godliness without the power, to end in the last apostasy, the second beast (Revelation 13:11), Antichrist (the willful king of the third kingdom, Daniel 8:11-12; Daniel 11:36), the same seventh world-power in another form (2 Timothy 3:1-9).
Wondered after - followed with wondering gaze.