The nations between the angel and the beast in the Book of Revelation

The aim is merely to confront these great players: the Angel, the nations, and the beast. This presupposes that the primary place is occupied by the Lamb. Before the Lamb the reactions and the intentions of these three players do not coincide, because the words they hear or refuse do not coincide either. The reader/listener is left with the hermeneutic task of reading and interpreting what these players hear or refuse, in order, thereby, to stand beside them before their angels and their beasts, before the angels of the world and the beasts of history. The reader/listener has to carry out the same hermeneutic operation as the nations do throughout the stage of the Apocalypse, placed between positive and negative characters, as is proper and normal in human life. But the author of the Apocalypse does not stop at presenting the two sides of a combat.