What a remarkable passage are we reading today! But what has the Bible verse at the top of this page got to do with it? It does require some explanation.
Jesus was in the synagogue in Nazareth and there He read from the scroll of Isaiah (61:1,2). But when we look this up in the book of Isaiah, we see Jesus did not read the entire second verse. Halfway he stopped and gave back the scroll. Then He said, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ So He separated ‘the year of the Lord’s favor’ of what came next, namely ‘the day of vengeance of our God’.
The prophet has seen everything happening as if he was looking from afar, without being able to distinguish how much time would pass between the events. It is always like this with a prophetic word: the time, the chronological order in which things will happen, is difficult to determine (1 Peter 1:10,11). When we are reading Revelation, we should be well aware of this.
Then it becomes a miracle what God shows us. Projected from eternity, we see the woman Israel - consisting of twelve tribes - who gives birth to a Son according to the ancient promise (Genesis 3:15).
The Satan, the dragon, has attempted from the very beginning to kill Jesus. At the moment when God was about to take Jesus away - when He was crucified for our sins - the devil tried to get Him from the cross (Mark 15:32).
The woman, Israel, flees into the wilderness where she will be purified and supported by God until the year of the Lord’s favor, the era of the church, will end…