Q. The book of Revelation says, “The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle.” What are these two wings?
I personally don’t believe that these wings are individually symbolic. That is, one wing doesn’t stand for something, and the other wing for something else. Rather, I think this is an allusion to a statement that God makes to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, right after bringing them out of Egypt and just before giving them the Ten Commandments: “I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”
The book of Revelation is full of quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament. It uses these to portray the experiences of Jesus’ faithful followers as continuous with the experiences of God’s people down through history to that point. I believe that the passage in Revelation where these wings are mentioned is, in its initial application, a description of an experience that the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem had in the middle of the First Century. As I say in my study guide to Daniel and Revelation:
“Many interpreters believe that the story of the woman’s escape from
the dragon recapitulates how Jewish followers of Jesus escaped from
Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman war of AD 66–70. In the
spring of ad 68, they fled across the Jordan River. It was swollen with spring
floods, but it unexpectedly subsided enough to permit them to cross. This
was like the Israelites crossing the Red Sea to escape from Egypt, when, as
Moses said, God carried them ‘on eagles’ wings.’ On the other side of the
Jordan, these Jewish followers of Jesus reached the city of Pella, where Gentile Christians from Galilee provided for them throughout the period of danger.”
(You can download a free copy of this study guide at this link.)
It is possible that this passage will have a further fulfillment sometime in the future, when faithful followers of Jesus experience a similar deliverance. But I believe that we need to start by understanding such passages in their initial historical setting, and then think about further applications by analogy.
Good Question 