12 The ten horns that you saw are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour.
the ten horns – these were described and discussed at Daniel 7:24, as coming out of the sixth kingdom (Rome). These are the Ten Europeans states that came out of the fallen Rome. These Ten States were first listed by John Napier (who discovered logarithms) as Spain, France, Lombardy, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, and the exarchate of Ravenna. Isaac Newton (who proposed the law of gravity), listed the names of the Ten States that immediately came out from the Empire. Other interpreters have listed the names of the states according to differing time periods; European peoples with slightly different boundaries.
John Napier’s view is likely more accurate, as these must be the states that continue until the kingdom of God is re-established, see Daniel 2:44.
But perhaps the strongest representation was made by Machiavelli, who listed the Ten States with no view of explaining this prophecy. We discussed his listing at Daniel 7:7.
as kings with the beast – the Apostle John’s description of the religious/political relationship of the Beast (the Pope) with the Ten European states is astounding.
for one hour – the Book of Revelation describes four “hours,” of about 533 years, representing 1/12 of the human clock of 6,400 years, and a “half an hour” of silence in heaven.
The first hour is this one. John said that Ten Kings reigned with the beast as for “one hour.” This hour began with the East-West Schism of 1054, and ended in the Reformation of the 16th Century. This “hour” was described three times in Chapter 18: “in one hour your judgment has come!”; “in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste”; “in one hour she has been laid waste.”
After the East-West Schism of 1054, only Ten States remained with the Pope. This included the Bohemians, in the North-West part of Hungary, who first broke free from the Papacy in 1471. But the actual political power of Rome did not end until the 16th Century.
The Pope gave power to these Kings of Europe, even appointing them as Kings.
In Revelation 11, we are told that 1/10 of the Great City died in the next hour. These were the religious wars that plagued Europe after the Reformation.
But in Revelation 8:1, we are told that there was “silence in heaven for a half an hour. This was the silence of the martyrs from the end of the Reformation wars in 1648, until the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit after 1917.
The third hour is “the Hour of God’s Judgment,” announced in Revelation 14:6, and the last hour is the “hour to reap – the harvest” in Revelation 14:15.