These are not real questions. They are words of worship. Barnes explains the first as meaning the beast "is to be regarded as unequalled and as supreme," and the second as saying "he is invincible. They thus attributed to him omnipotence - an attribute belonging only to God." Gill notes that the people were "using such expressions as are used of God himself," and points to Exodus 15:11, where Israel sang, "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?" The healed wound had filled the world with wonder (Revelation 13:3), and wonder turned into worship of both the beast and the dragon that gave him power.

No one in the scene answers the crowd. But the text answers quietly with two small words, "was given." "There was given unto him a mouth speaking great things," and "power was given unto him to continue forty and two months" (Revelation 13:5). "It was given unto him to make war with the saints" (Revelation 13:7). His power is received, not his own (Revelation 13:2), and it has a set time. Later the book answers the second question outright: the beast's allies "shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings" (Revelation 17:14).

The dragon is named in the chapter before: "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world" (Revelation 12:9).

Commentators differ on what the beast stands for. Barnes, Gill, and Matthew Henry all read Revelation as unfolding in the history of Rome and the church. Barnes, "as the whole connection leads us to suppose," takes the beast to be "the Roman secular power, considered as the support of the papacy." Gill sees "the Roman empire, when divided into ten kingdoms, and united in the Papacy." Henry admits interpreters disagree even within that approach: "By the first some understand Rome pagan, and by the second Rome papal; but others understand Rome papal to be represented by both these beasts." These are interpretations. The text itself stresses what the beast does: it receives worship that belongs to God.

The crowd borrows the language of worship that belongs to God alone. After the Red Sea, Israel sang, "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?" (Exodus 15:11). Here the world sings the same kind of song to a beast. Their measure of greatness is raw power: no one is like him, no one can fight him. Matthew Henry says they "thought there was no power able to withstand them."

Revelation does not let that question stand. The chapter keeps reminding the reader that the beast's power was "given" and limited (Revelation 13:5, 7), and it calls for "the patience and the faith of the saints" (Revelation 13:10). Two chapters later, those who "had gotten the victory over the beast" sing a very different question: "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy" (Revelation 15:2-4). The book sets the two questions side by side.