I. The Issues
Before studying Rev 17 in more detail, some basic questions must be answered:

(1) Is the sea beast of Rev 13 identical with the beast of Rev 17 or does the beast of Rev 17 represent a different power?

(2) What is the time frame of the vision? Does John describe events from a first century A.D. perspective, or is the point of reference to be found later and John is placed there in the spirit?

(3) Is the description of the beast in Rev 17:8 “it was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and goes to destruction”–parallel to the description of the horns in verse 10 which says ”five are fallen, one is, the other has not yet come,” or do these different stages of the beast not directly coincide with the subdivision of the heads?

(4) How should the heads be interpreted? We will briefly turn to these questions and propose some answers.

The beast of Rev 17 as well as the heads have been understood differently by biblical scholars within the Adventist Church. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary lists several views but is not dogmatic about any of them:

(1) Some Adventists hold that the “was” phase of the beast represents pagan Rome, the “is not” phase the interim between pagan and papal Rome, and the “will come” phase papal Rome.

(2) “Others equate the ‘was’ period with that represented by the beast and its seven heads, the ‘is not’ period with the interval between the wounding of the seventh head and the revival of the beast as ‘the eighth’, and the ‘yet is’ period with the revival of the beast when it becomes ‘the eighth.’” In this case the “was” period would probably stand for papal Rome and the “will come” phase for its revival after the healing of the deadly wound.

The heads are understood by some as “all political opposition to the people and cause of God.” Another suggestion is to interpret the five heads as the beasts of Dan 7 plus the little horn, that is, the empires from Babylon to the papacy, the sixth head as the beast out of the abyss (Rev 11), that is, the French Revolution, and the seventh head as the beast out of the earth (Rev 13) namely the United States of America.

Still another proposal considers the five heads as the empires Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece, the sixth head as pagan Rome, and the seventh as papal Rome.

The difference between the second and third view on the heads is that with the second view the sixth head is placed in the year 1798 A.D., whereas in the third view the sixth beast represents the time in which John lived, namely the first century.

We will have to address this issue later. The following interpretation should be regarded as a good possibility, but not as the final word on one of the most difficult passages of Scripture.

Although the sea beast of Rev 13 and the beast of Rev 17 have some common elements, there are also important differences.

Common elements are: Both have seven heads and ten horns (13:1; 17:7). The sea beast has a “mouth speaking . . . blasphemies” (Rev 13:5), whereas the other beast is “full of blasphemous names”

(Rev 17:3). Both are powers opposed to God, Jesus, and the saints (Rev 13:6-8; 17:14). The differences are also remarkable: The sea beast has crowns on its horns (Rev 13:1), the beast of Rev 17 does not have any crowns.

The color of the sea beast is not mentioned, but the other beast’s color is scarlet (Rev 17:3). The sea beast comes out of the sea (Rev 13:1), but the beast on which Babylon rides comes out of the abyss (Rev 17:8). This suggests that these beasts symbolize different entities, although they share some characteristics and pursue similar goals.

BRI:
A natural understanding of Rev 17:10, “and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while” seems to imply that at the time John wrote the Book of Revelation five kingdoms had fallen and the sixth was ruling. We are not told that John was transported into another time. Obviously, John lived during the period of the sixth head. In addition, the Book of Revelation was primarily addressed to Christians living in the first century. Probably they would have understood verse 10 in such a way that the sixth head referred to the time they were living in. If we assume that the sixth head was not ruling when Revelation was penned and John had been taken to another time, then we are not able to come up with any definite interpretation of Rev 17, because there is no way to determine in which time John was transported, whether he was in the first centuries A.D., the medieval ages, directly after 1798, or at an even later time.

The BRI
Summary
We suggest that: (1) The seven heads of the beast seem to represent kingdoms rather than individual kings. These kingdoms are Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the papacy. (2) The beasts in Rev 12, 13, and 17 do not exactly represent the same power. The beast of Rev 17 is Satan working through political powers.