A problem that won’t go away appears again at the end of verse 14. So what’s the meaning of the phrase, “…who was wounded by the sword and yet lived”? This is already the third time in this chapter that this concept has appeared (see verses 3 and 12), and it will once again surface three times in chapter 17.
Some Bible scholars believe the fatal-wound puzzle is solved by explaining that there was a myth circulated in the early church about Nero returning to life following his suicide. He supposedly had escaped to the East and would return in power. Rather than go into the details, let’s just say that it seems highly unlikely that Jesus would include in His prophesy, which He entrusted to John, something based on a hoax.
Just as a hypothetical example, let’s say the Medes and Persians were to come back into power. These people were masters of their known world for over 200 years, ruling a vast territory that stretched all the way from India to Greece. Their twin capitals of Persepolis and Susa were located in what is present-day Iran. Something like this huge empire coming alive again could be the beast/superpower that “once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction” (Rev. 17:8). Again, I am only giving a possible fulfillment. The Abyss is the underworld, a terrifying place where in Revelation 20:1-3 Satan is thrown for a thousand years.
A fatal wound is one that results in death. The word fatality is used when someone has been killed. So even though a given earlier superpower died, the beast continued to appear in other forms. But in the future, that superpower that was once killed will come back to life in a revived form. That could be the head “whose fatal wound had been healed.”
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