And the serpent cast out of his month water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood; cast out of his mouth after the woman water as a river … carried away by the river.
A flood, in the Old Testament, has several significations. It frequently expresses overwhelming misfortune. Thus Psalms 69:15, "Let not the waterflood overflow me;" Psalms 90:5, "Thou carriest them away as with a flood" (cf.
also Daniel 9:26; Daniel 11:22; Isaiah 59:19; Jeremiah 46:7; Amos 9:5, etc.). The flood is typical of every form of destruction with which the devil seeks to overwhelm the Church of God. At the period of the writing of the Apocalypse, it plainly symbolized the bitter persecutions to which Christians were subjected; but its meaning need not be limited to this one form of destruction.
Thus all those writers are correct, so far as they go, who interpret the flood of the Mohammedan power, of heresy, of the Gothic invasion, etc.