War in heaven

The whole story

The dragon had seven heads and ten horns, and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. He stood before the woman to devour her child as soon as it was born, but the child was caught up to God, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she was fed twelve hundred and sixty days.

Then came the war. The dragon and his angels “prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven” (Revelation 12:8). A loud voice in heaven proclaimed the victory, and said the brethren overcame the accuser “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11).

Readers have heard older passages echo here: Isaiah’s lament for the morning star fallen from heaven, and Jesus saying, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Some read the war as the first rebellion of the angels before the world began, others as the victory won at the cross, others as still to come. John sets it among his visions of the end, and gives no date.

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Revelation 12:9, KJV

Where it happened

Patmos, Greece.

A small island of the Dodecanese; the Cave of the Apocalypse is shown on the hill above the harbor.

Every story stands at its place on the Worldwide Watch map: the Bible’s world, on the map.

Sources and editorial method

Research and editorial references used for this page include:

• The King James Bible, as published by bible-api.com
• The Book of Enoch, translated by R. H. Charles (1917), Project Gutenberg

Every story is told from the King James Bible, and from the Book of Enoch in R. H. Charles’s translation (1917) where a story names it. Every quotation was checked word for word against those texts. Where a place is not known, the page says so. The paintings and the narration were made for the house.