What does the woman on the scarlet-colored beast in Revelation 17 represent?
The woman on the scarlet-colored beast represents a religious system, which Revelation portrays in the female gender. She sits on a beast full of blasphemous names with seven heads and ten horns, and this imagery identifies her as a symbolic representation of that religious system.
Les explains that Revelation 17 shows a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored beast full of names of blasphemies, with seven heads and ten horns. He says this system is referred to in the female gender, just as people often refer to a religious system as “she” or “her” in everyday speech. Therefore the woman is a symbol of a religious system, not a literal person.
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.