What is the mark of the beast?
Revelation 13 describes a moment when loyalty becomes visible: a second beast rises and forces every person on earth to carry a mark on the right hand or the forehead, and without it no one can buy or sell. The questions the passage raises are practical ones — who imposes this mark, what wearing it actually says about a person, and why refusing it costs everything.
Who imposes it
The mark does not come from the first beast directly. It is enforced by the second, who uses religious authority to push people toward worshipping the first.
Hamilton SmithThis wicked man will claim universal religious authority over all — both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond. To enforce his authority he will insist that a public submission to the first beast is made by a public mark in the right hand and in the forehead, without which it will be humanly impossible to exist, for without this mark none will be able to buy or sell.
What the mark means
The two locations are not interchangeable. Each says something different about the person who carries it.
Walter ScottThe mystic mark on the forehead, whatever that may be, publicly proclaims the person as an adherent of the Beast; on the hand intimates active support, a willing worker in the interests of the Beast.
Underneath the symbolism is a relationship of ownership. One writer sums up the mark in a single phrase after quoting verses 16 and 17:
William KellyThat mark was a seal of subjection or slavery to the beast.
Total control
The list of pairs — small and great, rich and poor, free and slave — is deliberate. No category of person is left outside the system.
Walter ScottIn those awful days individual thought and action are crushed out. The most abject submission to the vilest tyranny ever witnessed is demanded, and none dare refuse. The various classes named are a comprehensive designation of all within the range of the influence of the Beast, and are mentioned in pairs. None, however insignificant in station, none, however exalted, can escape. Neither riches nor poverty can buy nor find exemption from the iron rule of the Beast… To resist his will is to be deprived of the right to live (for he effectively controls all commerce), and to court certain death.
Commentators differ on the mark's physical form. Some deliberately leave it undefined, calling it a "mystic mark, whatever that may be." Others suggest a mechanism:
L. M. GrantExperiments have already been reported in the United States which involve infusing a thin layer of liquid plastic under the skin as a backing for an invisible number only discerned by a laser scanner. In this way the number will be in the person rather than on a credit card he possesses and can lose or have stolen. When a thing like this is forced upon the population with the intention of having the people subject to the Beast's authority, or not to be allowed to buy or sell, then believers will be called upon to fully refuse this identification with the Beast as though they were his property.
The number 666
Scripture itself says the number belongs to a man. That is the interpretive key.
L. M. GrantIn Scripture, six is the number of a man — man independent of God — and as such, reduced to the level of a beast. The number six is indelibly stamped upon mankind, and though it is intensified (666) in the number of the Beast, yet it is short of seven which is the number of completeness in the Bible. Secular humanism — mankind filled with pride in his accomplishments — in its fullest development is seen in the number 666. However, in God's account such pride is merely beastly and doomed to solemn judgment.
The counter-mark
God moves first. Before the beast brands anyone, He puts His own seal on His servants' foreheads.
Frederick W. GrantThe sealing is as evidently preservative as the "mark" is. They are both upon the forehead — open and manifest… The time of unreserved confession of one master or the other will then have come; and no divided service will be any longer possible.
The cost of taking it
Refusing the mark means starvation or death. Taking it carries a far heavier penalty, announced by a third angel in the next chapter.
Walter ScottThe Beast and his image must both be worshipped, and his mark received either in the hand or forehead, and that under the dread penalty of death. There is no escape. The alternative to the worship of the Beast is death, probably in its severest forms, and all commerce, trade, and barter are sternly prohibited to those who refuse to recognise his claims.
Summary
- Slavery. The mark is a seal of subjection to the beast — the forehead declares allegiance publicly, the hand shows active service.
- Squeeze. Every class is named in pairs so no one escapes; control of buying and selling makes refusal a death sentence.
- Six. 666 is called the number of a man: humanity at its proudest, still falling short of seven, and doomed in God's reckoning.
- Seal. God marks His own servants' foreheads first, so the beast's brand is answered by a prior, protective claim of ownership.
- Separation. When both marks are visible, divided service ends — everyone belongs openly to one master or the other, and the wrath that follows the beast's mark is what makes the choice final.