The Woman of Revelation 12

I've argued before that The Man-Child is The Church, using Isaiah 66 to back that up, and thus that puts The Rapture at the Midway Point.

This agrees with the view that The Woman is Israel, thus refuting any views making Israel and The Church exactly the same.  I'm not a traditional dispensationalist, but there is a clear distinction.

This is proven by lots of old Prophetic references to Israel/Jerusalem being a woman (like Isaiah 62:4 where she is named Hephzibah), and often travailing in child birth, like Jeremiah 6 and Isaiah 66.

The Sun, Moon and Stars imagery comes from Genesis 37:9-10, one of Joseph's dreams.

"Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me."  And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, "What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

Which defines for us the Sun and Moon as Jacob and his Wife, and the eleven stars as Joseph's eleven brothers.  Revelation 12 has twelve stars because now Joseph is included.

Commentators repeatedly claim the Sun is Jacob and the Moon is Rachel, but that is wrong.  The mother in mind here is clearly Leah not Rachel because Rachel had died before Joseph had this dream and so clearly never bowed before Joseph in Egypt when this was fulfilled.  What confuses people is Jacob saying "your mother" to Joseph.  But I don't doubt that by this point Leah was a mother to all 12 sons.

I argued in my Time of Jacob's Trouble post that Rachel in a sense serves typologically as a female personification of Israel.  Through Benjamin and Joseph she was a mother to populations in both Kingdoms.

In Genesis 35:19 and 48:7 Rachel dies after giving birth to Benjamin and was buried in the same land that will become Bethlehem.  (Some have argued those events only happened on the way to Bethlehem, either way they are thematically tied to Bethlehem by God's Word.)  When the children of Bethlehem were slaughtered by Herod, Matthew 2:18 quotes Jeremiah 31:15.

Thus saith Yahuah; "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not."

So I think the reason the Woman herself is not in the dream in Genesis 37 is because the Woman in a sense is Rachel.  Because it was a Tribe born to Leah that had Bethlehem when that slaughter happened, yet Rachel weeped for them as her own children.

Update June 2017: Virgo

 I'm now much more skeptical of the Mazaroth and Gospel In The Stars type theories then I used to be.  And I've already done a post refuting that hype around the September 2017 alignment.  But for sake of reference I'll talk about how the desire to associate Virgo with the Woman of Revelation 12 can back up her being in a sense Rachel.

There are different takes on which Signs to identify with which Tribes.  But the main form I'm familiar with is one that makes Issachar the tribe Virgo represents.  Many then note how the traditional site of Nazareth is in land allotted to Issachar (near Japhia), and Nazareth can be associated with The Virgin Mary.

The reason however for this argument to associate Issachar with Virgo revolves around Rachel in the narrative in Genesis 30:14-18.

"The young woman (Virgo) carries a branch (of mandrakes) and a stalk of harvested wheat, because at the harvest-time (stalk of harvested wheat) Issachar (whose name means hired man) was conceived by Leah after hiring her husband for the night from Rachel, Rachel receiving as her hire the mandrakes which Leah's son had found in the fields. The mandrakes were desired by Rachel because she hoped their aphrodisiac powers would help her conceive, when before this she had been barren (Virgo = virgin). And, indeed, she did conceive immediately thereafter, bringing forth her firstborn son, Joseph, typing the Promised Seed, the Messiah Jesus, born from the Virgin (Virgo) Mary. Rachel (Virgo) is seen in the sign carrying off the mandrakes, to represent the hiring from which Issachar received his name, and bearing the Seed (the star Spica, Ear of Corn), as a prophecy of the coming Messiah. A subjoined constellation, Coma, the "Hair" of the Virgin (representing the hair of the wheat plant ["mother"] which bears the Seed), was in ancient times depicted as a Virgin bearing a young boy on her lap. The Arabs said this young boy was Jesus, the Messiah, and claimed that an ancient prophecy of the Magi foretold that a great star would beam forth in this sign at the time the Messiah was born."

So, that is quite interesting.