birth to the man Jesus,
who foiled all the attacks of Satan and ascended to heaven. The old
prophetic characteristic of connecting events far apart without
reference to intervening time is marked here. The long interval between
the break-up of the Jew nation and its taking shape again as a nation,
which has lasted nineteen hundred years roughly, comes between the last
word of verse five and the first word of verse six.

The prophetic writing takes no reckoning of Israel, except as a nation.
The woman fleeing into the wilderness is Israel organized again as a
nation suffering persecution. She is so persecuted for twelve hundred
and sixty days, but divinely protected and preserved. Such is the first
act of the drama pictured here.[146]

Then we are told _why_ the woman flees, that is, the explanation of this
special persecution of the Jew this time.[147] Satan has had his
headquarters somewhere in the heavens, below God's throne, but above the
earth. Now, after a conflict, he is cast out of heaven, down to the
earth. Here is a third event that comes approximately at the beginning
of the tribulation time, Satan is cast down to the earth.

The Holy Spirit is withdrawn from the Church up to heaven, so removing
the restraint upon evil. Satan is cast out of heaven and comes down to
earth. Thus there is a double intensifying of evil on the earth, the
withdrawal of restraint, and the presence of the evil one himself. And
as the witness of the Holy Spirit is withdrawn the special witness of
the two men in Jerusalem begins.

The defeat of Satan in this heavenly conflict draws out a burst of
praise from the upper hosts. It is because of the great victory of our
Lord Jesus in His death that this victory is gotten. They overcome
because of the blood of the Lamb, _and_ the word of their testimony,
_and_ they loved not their lives unto death,--a threefold cord that
could never, and can never, be broken or successfully resisted.

This explains the special persecution at this time of the reshaped
Jewish nation. It is the outburst of the rage of the freshly defeated
Satan. But the Jew is protected. The armies that would swallow the Jew
up are swallowed up by the great earthquake that closes the tribulation
time.

The length of this persecution is put in two different ways, twelve
hundred and sixty days, and "time, times, and half a time." This latter
phrase seems to be an old Oriental or Hebrew way of saying a year, two
years, and