One other point ought to be noticed in connexion with these verses. The helping of the woman by the earth seems to be the Scripture parallel to the difficult words of St. Paul when he says in writing to the Thessalonians, "And now ye know that which restraineth to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way."[335] This "restraining" power, generally, and in all probability correctly, understood of the Roman State, is "the earth" of St. John helping the woman because it is helped by her. We have been introduced to the first great enemy of the Church of Christ. It remains only that he shall take up his position on the field. The next clause therefore which meets us, and which ought to be read, not as the first clause of chap. xiii., but as the last of chap. xii., and in which the third person ought to be substituted for the first, describes him as doing so: _And he stood upon the sand of the sea_, upon the shore between the earth and the sea, where he could so command them both as to justify the "Woe" already uttered over both in the twelfth verse of the chapter. There we leave him for a time, only remarking that we are not to think of ocean lying before us in a calm, but of the restless and troubled sea, raised into huge waves by the storm-winds contending upon it for the mastery and dashing its waves upon the beach. FOOTNOTES: [285] Chap. xix. 20. [286] Gen. i. 16. [287] Chap. xxi. 12. [288] 1 John i. 5. [289] Comp. ver. 17. [290] Rom. viii. 29. [291] Matt. i. 20. [292] John i. 13. [293] Comp. John i. 4. [294] John viii. 44; 1 John iii. 12; Rev. xvii. 6 [295] Chap. ix. 10, 19. [296] Dan. viii. 10. [297] Ps. lxxiv. 13; Ezek. xxix. 3. [298] Matt. ii. 16. [299] Acts ii. 23. [300] John xvi. 21. [301] 1 Cor. x. 3, 4. [302] 1 Kings xvii. 6; xix. 5. [303] Matt. iv. 4. [304] Chap. xi. 3. [305] Jude 9. [306] Brown, _The Book of Revelation_, p. 69. [307] 1 Thess. iv. 16. [308] Dan. x. 13, 21. [309] Dan. xii. 1-3. [310] 2 Pet. ii. 4. [311] Jude 6. [312] Luke x. 17, 18. [313] Luke xi. 21, 22. [314] John xii. 31; xvi. 11; Heb. ii. 14, 15; 1 John v. 4, 18. [315] Comp. R.V. (margin). [316] Comp. 1 John v. 4. [317] John xx. 21. [318] Exod. xix. 3, 4. [319] Deut. xxxii. 11, 12. [320] Ps. xxxvi. 7. [321] Isa. xl. 31. [322] 2 Cor. xii. 9. [323] 1 Cor. x. 13. [324] 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10. [325] Isa. lix. 19. [326] Comp. p. 150. [327] Ps. cxxiv. 2-6. [328] Ps. xviii. 4-16. [329] John xv. 5, 6. [330] John xv. 19. [331] Chap. iii. 4. [332] Isa. lxi. 9. [333] Rom. xi. 5. [334] 1 John ii. 18, 19. [335] 2 Thess. ii. 6, 7. CHAPTER X. _THE SECOND AND THIRD GREAT ENEMIES OF THE CHURCH._ REV. xiii.