So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
The wilderness. Contrast her in Revelation 12:6; Revelation 12:14, having a place in the wilderness-world, not a home; a sojourner, looking for the city to come. Now, on the contrary, she is contented to have her portion in this moral wilderness.
Upon a scarlet-coloured beast. The same as Revelation 13:1: there described as here, 'having seven heads and ten horns (betraying that he is representative of the dragon, Revelation 12:3), and upon his heads name of blasphemy:' cf. also Revelation 17:12-14, below, with Revelation 19:19-20, and Revelation 17:13-14; Revelation 17:16. Rome, resting on the world-power, and ruling it by the claim of supremacy, is her chief, though not exclusive, representative. As the dragon is fiery-red, so the beast is blood-red; implying blood-guiltiness, and deep dyed sin. The scarlet is also symbol fiery-red, so the beast is blood-red; implying blood-guiltiness, and deep dyed sin. The scarlet is also symbol of kingship.
Full - all over: not merely "on his heads," as in Revelation 13:1; for its opposition to God now develops itself in all its intensity. Under the harlot's superintendence, the world-power puts forth blasphemous pretensions worse than in pagan days. So the pope is placed by the cardinal in God's (so-called) temple on the altar to sit there, and the cardinals kiss the feet of the pope. This ceremony is called, in Romish writers, the adoration ('Histoire de Clerge Amsterd.,' 1716; and Lettenburgh's 'Notitia Curiae Romanae,' 1683, p. 125; Heidegger, 'Myst. Bab.,' 1:, 511, 514, 536). A papal coin ('Numismata Pontificum,' Paris, 1679, p. 6) has the blasphemous legend, 'Quem creant, adorant.' [Kneeling and kissing are the worship meant by proskunein (G4352): nine times used of the rival of God.] Abomination is the scriptural term for idol, or creature worshipped with the homage due to the Creator.
Still, there is some check on the world-power while ridden by the harlot: the consummated Antichrist will be when, having destroyed her, the beast shall be revealed as the concentration of all self dealing God-opposed principles which have appeared in various forms and degrees heretofore. 'The Church has gained outward recognition by leaning on the world-power, which in its turn uses the Church for its own objects: such is Christendom ripe for judgment' (Auberlen). The seven heads in the view of many are Rome's seven successive governments: kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, military tribunes, emperors, the German emperors (Wordsworth), of whom Napoleon is the successor (Revelation 17:11). See, rather, notes, Revelation 17:9-10. The crowns on the ten horns (Revelation 13:1) have disappeared: perhaps an indication that the ten kingdoms into which the Germanic-Slavonic world (the old Roman empire, the East as well as the West, the two legs of the image with five toes on each) is to be divided will lose their monarchical form in the end (Auberlen); but Revelation 17:12 seems to imply crowned kings.'