Revelation 13:3

And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death; and his death-stroke was healed: and the whole earth wondered after the beast;

Smitten unto death, and his death-stroke was healed ... See in the chapter introduction under "The Fatal Wound that Did Not Kill," for a complete discussion of this. As Lenski said:

The fact that only one of the heads suffered the death-stroke must not mislead us. Thereby the beast itself was slain.[43]

These seven heads were seven successive world dominions, and the death of any one of them would have been the death of the beast. Pagan Rome perished in 476 A.D.; and that is when the death-stroke fell upon the sixth head of the sea-beast. The "healing of this" occurred when the land-beast, the religious beast with the two lamb's horns (closely resembling Christianity) succeeded the sixth head which was killed, restored all the old forms, and went right on exercising the worldwide persecuting power that pertained to the beast prior to the mortal wound sustained by the sixth head of it.

It is almost universally agreed among commentators that the Roman empire must be understood in one way or another as the sea-beast; but the thing that defies all comprehension is how so many of them report Nero's suicide as the "fatal blow"! "The mortal wound is evidently an allusion to the myth that Nero, who died of a wound in his throat, would return to life to plague the empire."[44] Ridiculous! Was Nero the only emperor that died? How could the mere death of any emperor, or a dozen emperors in succession, be viewed as a fatal blow to the Roman empire? The scholars are simply not thinking in their acceptance of such nonsense. As for the so-called myth that Nero would rise from the dead, there is no evidence that any such myth ever existed; but even if it existed (which we deny), no apostle of Jesus Christ would ever have paid the slightest attention to it. "The Roman empire (not one of its scores of emperors) was smitten to death; but it is the resurrection state of it with which the world still has to deal."[45] Supporters of the notion that the death of Nero is meant here try to make it out that the seven heads are "seven kings," which, of course, they are in Revelation 17:9; but that is a different vision. John used the same symbols for different things in different visions.

And the whole world wondered after the beast ... "The grand sweep through history of this "resurrected beast" is inherent in a statement like this.

[43] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 393.

[44] Martin Rist, op. cit., p. 461.

[45] Frank L. Cox. op. cit.. p. 85.