Revelation 12:14

And there were given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness unto her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

The two wings of the great eagle ... The great drama of persecution has here moved into its third phase: (1) It first raged against the woman before Christ was born. (2) It reached it bitterest and most intense malignity during the ministry of the Son of God. (3) It next fell upon the young church, the old Israel itself being a satanic instrument in this. The first outrages against the church were promulgated by the Jews. The church would sorely need the wings of the great eagle in order to flee from her foes.

This figure of eagle's wings is an old one, God himself having used it in speaking of his deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Exodus 9:4), of which God said, "I have borne you on eagles' wings." Here the wings are given to the woman, and thus there is both a difference and a resemblance. "The strength of the earlier dispensation was a strength often used for, rather than in, the people of God; the strength of the latter is a strength in them."[76] There is a plain indication in this passage that the experiences of the church are the antitype of the escape of Israel from Pharaoh, "and her preservation in the wilderness."[77] The church also has her wilderness wanderings. "The typology seems to remind the people of the new covenant that, like the people of the old covenant, they are pilgrims having no settled home in the world."[78]

Where she is nourished ... The manna and other marks of divine favor given to Israel in the wilderness are a pledge that God will also provide for his church. "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).

For a time, and times, and half a time ... This is the same period as the forty-two months (Revelation 11:2,3); and, "This is the whole period of the church's experience upon the earth."[79] "These forty-two months may contain an allusion to the forty-two stations of the wilderness wanderings (Numbers 33:5f)."[80] The historicist interpreters limit this period to 1,260 years after the rise of the papacy, and extending to the days of Martin Luther.[81] As stated repeatedly, we do not despise this method of interpretation, because there very definitely are very startling suggestions of the things held to be prophesied here; but our preference for another view is inherent in the evident purpose of Revelation to encourage Christians; and it could have been no encouragement at all for the suffering saints of the first century to be told that the Lord would start nourishing the church in her wilderness some four or five centuries after they lived.

[76] W. Boyd Carpenter, Ellicott's Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p. 595.

[77] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 314.

[78] G. R. Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 205.

[79] Charles H. Roberson, op. cit., p. 88.

[80] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 164

[81] John T. Hinds, A Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1962), p. 185.