The Wilderness Preparation: Strength, Separation, and the Overcomers
The vision of Revelation 12:6 shifts the narrative from the celestial birthing of the man child to the terrestrial survival of the woman. Following the ascension of the child, the woman does not remain in the place of delivery but flees into the wilderness. The text explicitly states this location is "a place prepared of God," designating it as a zone of divine intention rather than accidental exile. The duration of her stay is fixed at "a thousand two hundred and threescore days," situating this event squarely within the 3.5-year period of the Great Tribulation.
The critical action occurring in this wilderness is defined by the Greek verb (trephōsin). While often translated simply as "feed" or "nourish," the etymology suggests a process of stiffening, enlarging, bringing to full development. This indicates that the woman's time in the wilderness is not merely for survival or hibernation, but for vigorous preparation. She is being strengthened, vitalized, and fully developed for a future duty. The wilderness acts as a incubator for strength, transforming vulnerability into capacity.
The agents of this strengthening are identified only as "they" (contained in the third-person plural verb form). I infer the identifies of these agents as the specific group of faithful individuals, overcomers, detailed in the letters to the seven churches (Revelation 2–3). These are the people who have already demonstrated the capacity to withstand pressure and remain faithful in a "wilderness" environment of separation and testing.
Shared Environment: The wilderness is traditionally a place of desolation, testing, and separation from worldly support systems. The overcomers are defined by their ability to thrive in such spiritual barrenness, having already conquered the temptations of their respective churches (e.g., rejecting the Nicolaitans, enduring poverty in Smyrna, resisting Jezebel in Thyatira). They are uniquely qualified to inhabit this prepared place.
Shared Sustenance: The overcomers in Pergamum are promised "hidden manna" (Revelation 2:17). It is logically consistent that those who have access to the hidden sustenance of God are the ones tasked with "feeding" or strengthening the woman in her time of need.
Shared Authority: The overcomers in Thyatira are granted "power over nations" (Revelation 2:26), and those in Philadelphia are made "pillars in the temple" (Revelation 3:12). These promises suggest a destiny of rule and structural importance. Their role in the wilderness is active—they are the hands that administer the divine provision to the woman, ensuring she reaches full development.
Therefore, the wilderness becomes a proving ground where the woman is separated from the dependencies of the world system (the Beast's economy) and forced into total dependence on God. The "they" who minister to her are the proven elite—the overcomers—who use this time of isolation not just to survive, but to stiffen and enlarge the capacity of the covenant community, preparing them for the tasks that await at the conclusion of the 1,260 days. The wilderness is not a place of defeat, but the training ground for the final victory.
"They" are in a wliderness, a desolate, barren area, a place of separation, testing, and divine encounter. A place of challenges with struggles, thus "overcomers" as those mentioned of in Revelation 2:7 who eat of the tree of life, 2:11 shall not be hurt of the second death, 2:17 eat of the hidden manna, given a white stone with their new name written on it which no man knoweth save he that receiveth , 2:26 granted power over nations, 3:5 clothed in white raiment, name not blotted out of the book of life, their name confessed before God and his angels, 3:12 made a pillar in the temple of God, and we never leave it and the name of God written upon the overcomer, 3:21 granted a seat with Jesus at His throne.