And I will give [power] to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred [and] sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.
God promises to raise up two witnesses in a city held down by foreign power. Who they are, why they wear sackcloth, and why God counts their days one by one are the questions this verse raises.
What God gives is the power to make the testimony effective:
Here we have the same word as in chapter 8:3. God says, "I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy" — the word means power, or effectiveness. These things are not given in any order at all; but there is adequate testimony: two lampstands, two olive trees. These witnesses have the power of Moses and Elijah.
God does not leave the trampled city without a witness:
The hostile powers act without hindrance, yet God does not let them defile the city without raising up a witness against them. Verse 3 speaks of this witness... Outwardly the witnesses are marked by the deepest humiliation, shown by their sackcloth. Inwardly they are marked by a shining light, which God gives and keeps burning. The picture comes from Zechariah 4, except that here each witness is an olive tree and a lampstand. The olive tree supplies the oil, and the oil feeds the light. God is the God of the earth, and though the holy city is trampled down He has not given up His claim to the earth. So before He makes good that claim in irresistible power, He maintains His witness in the face of the enemy.
The period is not vague. It lines up exactly with the forty-two months of the previous verse, and both are anchored in a known prophetic timetable:
Note next how long their prophetic testimony lasts. It will be a thousand two hundred and sixty days... The two periods coincide, both being three years and a half... These three and a half years are the last half of Daniel's seventieth week (Daniel 9:25-27). This is the period of Antichrist's terrible rule in Jerusalem, backed and sheltered by all the power of the last head of the Roman empire. At the close of that period Christ will come in glory.
Elsewhere the same span appears as months. Here God counts days, and the change is deliberate:
The Lord speaks of days here, not of forty-two months. It seems He does this to mark how much He values their testimony. He makes as much of it as He can. He does not sum it up together, as He does when He speaks of the beast (Rev. 13:5). Lovingly He speaks of the time as days, as though He were counting them all out.
That counting also guarantees the testimony does not fail early, and does not run late:
Their days of testimony are counted one by one. Theirs is not an on-and-off testimony. It goes on daily till the allotted period is finished, and not a day longer.
Commentators differ here. Some expect named people to return; others take the number as a legal measure:
People have made countless guesses about the number of witnesses... Others, with more reason and with some support from Scripture, suppose that Moses and Elijah are the two witnesses... The number of the witnesses is meant to convey a full and adequate testimony... Jewish law, and here we stand in Jewish circumstances, called for two witnesses to give valid evidence (Deut. 17:6; 19:15).
Others reject personal identification outright while keeping the moral likeness:
I see no proof at all that either Elijah or Moses is one of the two witnesses. The two witnesses stand in the same moral position as those two men, but there is no proof that they are the same people.
In Israel, sackcloth was the everyday dress of grief and of turning back to God (Samuel Ridout). Worn here, it says something about both the message and the men:
Being clothed in sackcloth may show that their message is one that calls aloud for repentance.
Their sorrow is not for themselves. It is over what has become of the people they belong to:
They stand apart from everyone around them, mourning over the terrible falling away of the nation they love, and everyone rejects them. Sackcloth is a fitting emblem of their testimony.
- Given — the witnesses do not produce their own power; God gives it, and it makes their prophesying effective.
- Counted — God speaks of these years in days, but of the beast's time in months. He counts out the days of those who testify for Him.
- Clothed — sackcloth marks grief and a call to repentance. Outwardly they are humbled; inwardly God feeds their light.
- Enough — under Jewish law two witnesses made evidence valid. Commentators differ on whether Moses and Elijah return in person, but the witness carries their power.
- Timed — the testimony runs the full 1,260 days and not one day longer. Then God makes good His claim on the earth in power.
These are the two olive trees and the two lamps which stand before the Lord of the earth;
The scene is Jerusalem in the last days, near the end of the times of the Gentiles, where God raises up two prophets. Verse 4 says what these witnesses are, and the picture comes straight from a vision the prophet Zechariah once saw.
The verse gives two pictures. One speaks of what supplies the witnesses; the other of what they do.
They are compared to two olive trees and two lampstands. This reminds us of Zechariah 4, where the prophet sees a vision of a seven-branched golden lampstand fed by two olive trees. The two lampstands speak of their clear and capable testimony. The two olive trees show that the Spirit of God gives this testimony all the support it needs.
The link to Zechariah 4 is obvious, but so is the difference. Zechariah saw one lampstand; here there are two. Commentators read the change like this: there the work is finished, here there is only a witness to what has not yet come.
In Zechariah there is one lampstand, all of gold, with its bowl, its seven lamps, its seven pipes, and an olive tree on either side. That is perfect unity and full development... The two anointed ones the prophet saw point in their fullness to the offices of Christ as King and Priest. These are the great means of giving and keeping divine light in "the world to come." Here we have only a testimony to these things. So there were two witnesses, the smallest testimony the law would accept. The oil here goes with mourning, not with joy. And the witnesses wear the sackcloth of affliction, not the garment of praise.
That is why their light does not end the night around them:
In Zechariah the thing itself is done; here there is only testimony to it... They stand before the Lord of the earth, the One to whom the earth belongs, to maintain His claim on it. They wear sackcloth because people resist that claim. Theirs is testimony enough in the power of the Spirit, a spiritual light in the darkness — a light that does not drive the darkness away.
Two is the smallest number the law accepts to establish a case. It also measures how much light that day will have.
It will be a testimony given at Jerusalem during Israel's Great Tribulation, but not worldwide. God will acknowledge it, for "only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established" (Deuteronomy 19:15). It will not be a full testimony, as Zechariah's was, because instead of seven lamps there will only be two... Their light will support the weak remnant still living in Jerusalem before Christ's reign.
Another writer ties the two witnesses to Israel's condition, and warns against pressing the number further:
It is an adequate testimony to the state of Israel according to God — "two witnesses." God will also be among the remnant, without acknowledging the people as His own... In the "two," I do not go beyond the idea that it is an adequate testimony.
Olive trees make them anointed men. Their message is about a King who is also a Priest.
They are anointed ones, for they are olive trees, and so they testify in the power of the Holy Spirit. They are the two lampstands, so their testimony is the light from God in the darkness of that day. Standing before the Lord of the earth shows what their testimony is about: the claims of the coming Messiah as the rightful Lord of the earth... They are also two anointed ones. Besides the power of their testimony, this points to how Christ will come and take possession — as King and Priest, a Priest on His throne, like Melchizedek.
The title is deliberate. God had handed the earth over to the Gentiles; here He takes back His own claim to it.
God is Lord over the earth. He will not let the times of the Gentiles last any longer... He had given the earth to the Gentiles (Daniel 2:37). His throne had judged Jerusalem and left it... But God will take back His place as Lord over the earth. The two witnesses testify to this lordship, to the Lord over the earth — not to the Father, or to the heavenly glory, or to the Lord of heaven.
Some older versions read "the God of the earth" here, but the reading is "the Lord of the earth." The phrase says whom they serve, and it also explains how they keep going.
The prophets stand before the Lord of the earth. They know whose presence they are in, and they endure because by faith they see Him, though human eyes cannot see Him.
- Source — The olive trees mark the witnesses as anointed men. The Spirit of God carries their testimony, not their own strength.
- Shape — Zechariah saw one lampstand and perfect unity. Here two lampstands mean testimony only, not the finished thing: the oil of mourning, not of joy.
- Sufficiency — Two is the smallest number the law accepts to establish a charge. It is light enough, though far less than Zechariah's seven, and it does not yet remove the darkness.
- Subject — They proclaim Messiah's double right: King and Priest, coming to take possession of what is His.
- Stance — They stand before the Lord of the earth, the place God takes back when the times of the Gentiles end. They know whose presence they are in, and they endure by seeing the One no eye can see.
and if any one wills to injure them, fire goes out of their mouth, and devours their enemies. And if any one wills to injure them, thus must he be killed.
The two witnesses of Revelation 11 prophesy in sackcloth, and this verse says what happens to anyone who tries to stop them. Fire from a prophet's mouth raises two questions: what is this power for, and why does it look nothing like the way God's servants act today?
The fire moves with their speech. What comes out of their mouth is testimony, and judgment travels with it.
The power of judgment comes out of their mouth. That is, their word brings judgment on their enemies, in line with their testimony, to devour those who would stop that testimony. They have great power in this way... This is great power. But they are in sackcloth — in sorrow and suffering. This power is only in their hand when they need it. And it is there only to secure and keep up their testimony, not to set aside the power of the beast itself.
The judgment is not sweeping. It falls on people one by one, and only on those who go from rejecting the message to attacking the messengers.
Death is the certain portion of anyone who wants to harm the witnesses. Some will receive the testimony, and it may be many. Others — by far the greater number — reject the message with pride and scorn. Another group will try to harm the witnesses by violence or slander. Stern judgment falls on this last group. It does not fall on the crowd, but on one person at a time, as the opposition to the witnesses turns violent.
The clause repeats twice for a reason: the attacker dies, the witness lives. God keeps them alive for as long as He wants them speaking.
God is the God of the earth. Though the holy city is trampled down, He has not given up His claim to the earth. So before He makes that claim good in unstoppable power, He keeps His witness going in the face of the enemy. So much so that, for the whole time of their testimony, no one can touch them. It is their attackers who die, not them.
The witnesses carry powers already seen in Israel's history.
Notice here that the power of the two witnesses in Revelation shows itself in two kinds of signs. They shut heaven so that no rain falls, and they bring down fire from heaven; and if anyone wants to harm them, that is how he must be killed. That is Elijah. They strike the earth with every plague as often as they want. That is Moses.
The Lord Himself refused to do this, and rebuked two of His disciples for wanting it.
This shows that it was not true Christian testimony... It was the very thing the Son would not do when He was on earth, and the thing He rebuked James and John for wanting (Luke 9:54-55). Here, instead, fire comes out of their mouth and devours their enemies. That is exactly right when God is about to take the place of Judge on earth. But the Lord does not take that place now. He is saving sinners... It would be foreign to Christianity, and against everything Christianity breathes, if a believer wished the death or injury of someone who opposed him with evil intent. Christianity shows that the victory grace gives us is to show love and kindness to an enemy.
This judgment is not cruelty. It comes after grace has failed to move people, and it aims at something beyond punishment.
This is not the grace of Christianity. It is the ministry of power in the manner of Elijah and Moses. The judgment must come because grace has had no effect, and its outcome will be blessing, for "when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness" (Isa. 26:9).
Some push this fire forward to the final judgment at the end of the world. One writer answers that the power belongs to the witnesses now:
Some try to dodge the difficulty of the devouring fire that comes out of them by pointing to the final fiery judgment on God's enemies. But what could be weaker than such excuses? The true and full meaning is judicial power now, ongoing or occasional, against everyone who opposes them: like Elijah's among a people who had turned away from God, and like Moses' among a people oppressed and enslaved by the Gentiles. Their testimony is prophecy, not the gospel, so it is armed with judgment instead of breathing grace.
- Word — the fire comes out of their mouth. Their testimony carries the judgment against those who try to silence them.
- Guard — the power defends them. It secures their witness; it does not topple the beast. Whoever attacks them dies instead.
- Pattern — the signs are Elijah's and Moses': fire and shut heavens, and plagues on the earth.
- Contrast — Christ refused this and rebuked James and John for wanting it. Today the victory grace gives is kindness to an enemy.
- Purpose — judgment comes because grace had no effect, and it ends in blessing. When God's judgments are in the earth, people learn righteousness.
These have power to shut the heaven that no rain may fall during the days of their prophecy; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth as often as they will with every plague.
In Revelation 11 two witnesses prophesy in sackcloth, and this verse hands them power over sky, waters and earth. Why does God back their testimony with drought, blood and plagues instead of the mercy heard in the gospel?
Each power named here belongs to a prophet Scripture already knows.
We may note here that the power of the two witnesses in Revelation shows itself in these two kinds of signs. They shut heaven so that no rain falls. They bring down fire from heaven. If anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. That is Elijah. They strike the earth with every plague as often as they wish. That is Moses.
The conditions of Moses' and Elijah's day come back. Israel returns to idolatry and to foreign rule.
In fact, those times match much of what you have in Moses and Elijah. There was idolatry in Israel then, and Elijah gave a remarkable testimony against it. God Himself punished His people, and the sky above them was like brass. So it will be again. The man who then controls Israel's future will turn away from God, and he will allow and enforce idolatry. Israel will again live under the authority of the nations, as they did in the days of Moses. Yet a little remnant will be set apart for God.
The two prophets also addressed different parties:
Elijah witnessed to a people in relation to God; Moses to a hostile power. In this way God would show how He will leave the people among whom the witness is given without excuse.
Some read this chapter as the literal return of those two men.
This does not mean that they are Moses and Elijah themselves. It means that their testimony has a similar character, and that God backs it as He backed the testimony of those two honoured servants long ago.
This kind of power returns when God's people are in disorder. The verse also names three spheres: sky, waters, earth.
Here we find again the power of Elijah and of Moses. It is the proof that God takes up His relationship with His people once more, but in a sovereign way, through prophets as in earlier days — when His people were in Egypt, or cut off from the temple, as in the time of Elijah. This is always what God does when His people are in disorder and He returns to His relationship with them. The witnesses shut the heavens; they have authority over the waters and over the earth. The three things which we have seen to be objects of judgment (chapter 8) are now in their power.
This power has a purpose and a limit.
Verse 6 gives them the same kind and extent of power that Moses and Elijah had. Elijah shut up heaven; Moses turned water to blood and struck Egypt with plagues. To this last there is no limit — every plague whenever they will. This is great power; but they are in sackcloth — in sorrow and suffering. This power is only in their hand in time of need. And it serves only to secure and maintain their testimony, not to set aside the power of the beast itself.
This way of working would be out of place in the Christian's calling today.
How useless to apply all this to witnessing Christians, in the West or the East, earlier or later! In practice their calling was not to resist evil, to love their enemies, to bless those who cursed them, to do good to those who hated them, and to pray for their persecutors. And the Lord Himself showed the pattern for this calling: their heavenly Father. He does not shut heaven so that no rain falls. He does the opposite, and sends rain in mercy on just and unjust alike, with no distinction between them.
Yet judgment is not the end of God's purpose.
This is not the grace of Christianity. It is the ministry of power in the manner of Elijah and of Moses. This judgment must come because grace has proved ineffective. And its outcome will be blessing, for "when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness" (Isaiah 26:9).
- Two powers. Shutting heaven is Elijah's sign. Turning water to blood and sending plagues is Moses' sign. One testimony carries both.
- Two targets. Elijah spoke to a people in relation to God. Moses confronted a hostile power. Together they leave the hearers without excuse.
- Two men, not returned. The likeness is in the character and backing of the testimony, not in the identity of the witnesses.
- Power fenced in. The plagues fall as often as the witnesses choose. But the power is there to guard their testimony, not to remove the beast. They wear sackcloth while they hold it.
- Power for a different day. The believer's calling now is to bless enemies and mirror a Father who sends rain on just and unjust. Judgment comes in that day only because grace has proved ineffective. Its end is that the world learns righteousness.
And when they shall have completed their testimony, the beast who comes up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and shall conquer them, and shall kill them
Revelation 11 has just described two witnesses no one could touch. Fire came out of their mouths against anyone who tried to harm them. Verse 7 flips the picture. A beast rises from the bottomless pit, makes war on them, and kills them.
The order matters. The beast does not interrupt the testimony. He acts only once it is complete. One writer sets this beside Christ's own life:
God preserves them despite the beast, till their work is done. But as soon as their testimony ends, God allows the beast to overcome them. It is just as it was with the Lord. The greatest pressure came against Him in His service.
Some have tried to soften the word "finished," so that the witnesses could die partway through. One writer rejects that reading:
The truth is simple. Take the word in its regular meaning and in harmony with the context, and God protects the witnesses for the whole 1260 days of their testimony. Then, once their mission is complete, and not before, God permits the beast to fight them, overcome them, and kill them.
The "bottomless pit" is a specific place in this book — not the final place of punishment, but a prison:
The word is ἄβυσσος, literally 'without a bottom,' an abyss. The passages in Revelation show us that the abyss is where the Satanic powers are shut up. It is not where they will be punished. That place is the lake of fire.
Elsewhere this same beast rises out of the sea. The two pictures give two origins for one power:
This is the first mention of the Beast in these apocalyptic visions. He is named as one well known. In Daniel 7:2-3 and Revelation 13:1 the Beast, or Rome, rises from the sea. That is, it rises out of the struggling masses of mankind, out of a scene of anarchy and confusion... But our text says the Beast comes "up out of the abyss." So while its historical rise is human, its revival is satanic.
Some readers take the phrase as a time marker. One writer answers that it describes what he is, not when he comes:
Next it is assumed that Revelation 11:7, "the beast that rises from the bottomless pit," means the beast who then rises from the bottomless pit. There is no proof of this. It is a characteristic, and not a date. Isn't it better to believe that he takes this character when Satan is cast down from heaven and is full of rage, and that the dragon then gives him his throne and great authority?
Three verbs pile up: war, conquer, kill. One writer marks how new this outcome is for God's servants:
"It was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them." Some are killed — for example, the two witnesses. This could never have happened before. God never allowed His saints to be overcome.
Even so, the beast is not acting freely. Both what he does and how long he does it are held within limits:
The Beast has found his way from Rome to Jerusalem. Rome is the capital seat of Gentile power, both civil and religious. There he ravages and murders as he pleases. Yet both his power and the length of time he may use it are under divine control.
The time he is given is fixed, and killing the witnesses falls at the end of it:
The Beast continues for at least seven years, but his power to persecute is limited to 1260 days, or forty-two months of thirty days each. The Beast is then allowed, at the close of his active career, to enter Jerusalem and kill the witnesses — "his last political act," as one has said.
What the beast counts as conquest, heaven records the other way round:
Looked at from man's side, the beast had made war with them and "conquered them." Looked at from God's side, they have "conquered the beast."... God is always victorious in the end, and so are those who trust Him.
- Finished, then killed. The beast strikes only after the testimony is complete. Until their work is done, no one can touch them.
- Protected like their Lord. Christ faced the greatest pressure in His service. His hour came only when His work was done.
- Human rise, satanic revival. In Daniel and Revelation 13 the beast rises "out of the sea," out of the struggling masses of mankind. Here he rises "from the bottomless pit." His final power is satanic.
- Power on a leash. He murders at will. Yet God fixes both what he does and how long he does it. His power to persecute runs 1260 days, and killing the witnesses is his last political act.
- Conquered and conquering. From man's side the beast conquered them. From God's side they conquered the beast. Same event, read from heaven.
and their body [shall be] on the street of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
The two witnesses have just been killed. Their bodies lie in the open street of a city that is never named, only described. God identifies it by three things: a title, two nicknames, and one crime.
One clause settles which city this is.
The words "where their Lord was crucified" make it clear that the scene of their testimony is Jerusalem. Whatever wrong has been done to the Lord's name at Rome, and however truly Rome may be pointed to in a secondary application, it would be an inexcusable twisting of the text to claim that any other city could be meant. It can only be the city where our Lord was actually put to death: Jerusalem.
The wording of that clause matters. Walter Scott points out that the better reading is "their Lord," not "our Lord."
"Where also their (not our) Lord was crucified." This clause rules out any symbolic application of the city to the Church. The Jerusalem of history is identified here by the crowning act of her guilt.
Earlier in this chapter the same city is holy. Here the title changes. The two views stand side by side on purpose.
Jerusalem is seen in two very different ways: by its place in God's purposes, and by its actual condition. This chapter gives us both views. When it speaks of God's purposes, and of the guilt of the nations who trample the city down, it calls Jerusalem "the holy city." But here the city is seen in its spiritual state, under the power of "the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit," and it is described as sunk in the deepest moral darkness.
Greatness here is not a compliment.
Marked out for its lusts as Sodom, and for its cruelty to the people of God as Egypt, the city is no longer called the "holy" city but the "great" city — great even in its crimes.
The verse says the city is "symbolically" called Sodom and Egypt; older translations say "spiritually". The names describe character, not geography. Commentators fill each one out a little differently.
Sodom has become a symbol of the world in its unrestrained lust and wickedness. There man drags himself down below the level of the animals, so that the cry of it goes up for God to step in and judge. Egypt is a symbol of the world with its splendid outward show. It supplies everything that serves man's pleasures and the appetites of the flesh. Yet Egypt itself is ruled by a degrading idolatry, which even enslaves the people of God if they fall under its power. All this may be great in man's eyes but it certainly is not holy.
Refusing burial was a deliberate insult.
Their bodies lie in the street. The malice of their enemies leaves them exposed and refuses them burial. But God allows it, so that the bodies stand as an open charge against those who have now finally rejected His righteous rule.
There is calculation behind it too. J. A. Trench suggests they had learned from the burial of Christ:
In verse 9 they profit from past experience. Because they allowed Christ to be buried, they will not allow burial to these witnesses. So it all happens in the open, and not out of sight as Christ's resurrection was (verse 12).
The description is not only about the future. Bob Costen applies it to the land as it is now.
Jerusalem as it now is, the city we read about in the Bible and in our newspapers, is the city that "symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified" (Rev. 11:8). It is not a holy land. When people talk about going to "the holy land", we know what they mean. They want to go where Jesus walked and see Palestine. That is fine if they want to take a trip, but it is an unholy land.
- Named — God does not print the city's name. He prints its crime: the place where their Lord was crucified. That one clause makes it Jerusalem.
- Stripped — Earlier in the chapter it is the holy city. Here it is the great city. The first is what God purposes for it; the second is what it has become.
- Charged — Sodom stands for lust and corruption, Egypt for idolatry and the enslaving of God's people. The names describe character, not a place on a map.
- Exposed — Refusing burial was meant as contempt. God lets the unburied bodies stand as a public charge against the men who left them there.
- Warned — A city can keep its religious reputation long after God has renamed it. The words "their Lord" tie the verse to a real city and a real guilt, not to a symbol.
And [men] of the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations see their body three days and a half, and they do not suffer their bodies to be put into a sepulchre.
The beast has just killed the two witnesses. Their bodies lie in the open street of the city where their Lord was crucified. What follows is not a burial but a public show: a watching world, a refused grave, and a fixed span of three and a half days.
The verse names one crowd. Writers point out that the surrounding verses sort the scene into separate groups, each with its own guilt.
There are three classes in this dark picture: (1) The beast who murders the witnesses. (2) Those "of the peoples, and tribes, and languages, and nations." They look at the bodies of the prophets, thrown out onto the street or the public places of the city, open to everyone's stares. They also show their hatred and scorn by forbidding the burial of the bodies, a shameful act. (3) "Those who dwell on the earth," the worst of the peoples of that day who had abandoned the faith. All the groups named here really live on the earth, but that phrase carries a moral meaning. They have turned their backs on Christianity. They firmly rejected the heavenly calling and chose the earth instead.
The distinction matters. Refusing burial is the malice of the nations. And those who celebrate miss what is about to happen.
The Gentiles and "those who dwell on the earth" rejoice over the silencing of this testimony. They little suspect that, in spite of the death of the witnesses, the prophecy is on the very eve of fulfilment... Here two classes stand apart: the nations or Gentiles, and the dwellers on the earth. Of the first, "some" — no doubt a vast majority — rejoice, and in their triumph will not even allow anyone to bury the bodies... These people love the world and live for it. So the witnesses' prophecy of a coming kingdom of righteousness and judgment is unbearable to them.
In Jerusalem's past, leaving a body unburied was itself part of God's judgment.
One of the judgments announced against the people of Jerusalem was that they should not be buried. Birds and wild animals would eat their bodies. Jeremiah 16:4. With God's two future witnesses in Jerusalem, the wicked will rejoice over their dead bodies and will not let anyone bury them. Then their joy turns to terror. They see them stand on their feet alive again, and watch them go up to heaven. Revelation 11:9-12.
Writers take the three and a half days as ordinary days, like the other time periods named in this chapter.
The three and a half days mentioned twice (vv. 9, 11) are literal days. It is impossible to take them any other way. We stand on the eve of the events that close the last prophetic week. Probably not many days remain, much less years, before the Lord returns to take His power and kingdom to Himself. The four periods of time named in this chapter are literal and exact. They belong not to the historical past, but to the coming crisis.
The bodies lie in one city, yet nations far away see them. One writer suggests how, and insists the death is no illusion.
The two witnesses suffer bitter rejection and apparent shameful defeat. Murdering them is not enough for their enemies. They leave their dead bodies on the street in Jerusalem... Other nations also watch these dead bodies for 3½ days, perhaps by means of television. There can be no doubt of their actual physical death.
The refusal to bury is meant as a final insult. It becomes the very thing that puts the enemies in front of God's answer.
In the sight of their enemies the two witnesses are raised from death and stand on their feet (v. 11). If they had buried them, they would not have seen this great sight. But they take a morbid delight in staring at the dead bodies. So they expose themselves to the terror of seeing them come to life.
Commentators differ over whether the witnesses are two persons or a larger company. The wording of this verse itself is part of the argument.
The beast "makes war against them, and overcomes them, and kills them." The nations, peoples and languages see their bodies "in the broad street of the city." This wording inclines me to think that they are not only two persons, but a large body of people. Their power is of God (v. 3), and He places them as His witnesses.
- Seen — Their bodies lie in the open street. People from every tribe, language and nation stare at them. The death is real, not staged.
- Scorned — Refusing a grave is open contempt. It echoes the old judgment on Jerusalem, where bodies were left unburied (Jeremiah 16:4).
- Sorted — The scene divides the guilty into three. The beast kills. The nations stare and forbid a grave. The earth-dwellers are worst, for their name marks a settled choice of earth over heaven.
- Short — The gloating lasts three and a half literal days, as exact as the other time periods in this chapter.
- Sprung — The insult becomes a trap. Because they refused a grave, the enemies are standing there when the witnesses rise, and their joy turns to terror.
And they that dwell upon the earth rejoice over them, and are full of delight, and shall send gifts one to another, because these, the two prophets, tormented them that dwell upon the earth.
Two prophets lie dead in the street of the great city. The world does not fall silent. It celebrates, with a worldwide holiday and gifts sent back and forth. The verse gives the reason in one word: torment.
Everyone in this chapter lives on the planet. So the phrase marks out something in the heart, not an address.
This phrase does not simply mean people who live on the earth. It carries a moral force. It means people who are earthly-minded at the core, who do not rise above the earth in heart or in ways.
Does the phrase point to a place, or to a state of heart?
In Revelation, "the earth" seems to mean what we would call the civilised world — a region the light has reached and where it has at least outwardly stayed. Yet wherever the words "those who dwell on the earth" occur, they readily bear a moral meaning. They are a class who make an outward profession of the light. They even admit that the testimony in the word of God is true — both its witness to the present grace of the gospel and its witness to the coming judgment on the world. Still, their interests lie only on the earth.
Verse 9 shows people from every nation refusing burial to the bodies. Verse 10 names a group that goes further.
There are three classes in this dark picture: (1) The beast who murders the witnesses. (2) Those "from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations," who look at the bodies of the prophets thrown out on the street of the city, exposed to the crude stares of the crowd. They show their hatred and scorn by forbidding the burial of the bodies — a shameful act. (3) "Those who dwell on the earth," the worst among the apostate peoples of that day… Bad as the beast and his allies are, these dwellers on the earth are infinitely worse. The nations deny burial to the bodies of the martyred witnesses; the earth-dwellers keep high and joyful holiday, and exchange gifts and congratulations over the killing of the prophets.
The same writer explains the custom behind the celebration.
Sending presents or gifts on occasions of public joy is an old and universal custom (Proverbs 19:6; Esther 2:18; Esther 9:19-22). Death has silenced the voice of the witnesses, and this is the cause of the public rejoicing.
The word "torment" explains the whole celebration. So what did the two prophets actually do to these people?
Unbelief likes present enjoyment. Anything that gets in the way of it and makes the conscience uneasy is hated and unwelcome.
The torment came from lives lived close to God among people who had turned away from Him.
The testimony of holy consistency and prophetic nearness to God is a constant torment to those whom that testimony confronts about their apostasy. A prophet like this is always a witness that, for all their pride and self-satisfaction, they have fallen away from God. That is torment, because they really have no peace with God, whatever they pretend.
The message itself was the problem, not only the messengers.
These people love the world and live for it. The witnesses foretold a kingdom of righteousness and judgment, and to such people that prophecy is unbearable. So their joy is intense when news comes that the hated witnesses are dead and the dreaded testimony is silent.
This reaction is not only a future thing. It can be seen now.
The careless world opposes true witness to Christ in the gospel. But it stirs a specially fierce resentment and rejection in today's modernists, whose effort is to reduce the faith of Christ to a mere scheme for earthly improvement. They deny that it came from heaven, and that it leads to heaven. They simply cannot stand its truth; it torments them.
The celebration collapses almost as soon as the gifts arrive.
Their triumph is brief. Only three and a half days pass before a miraculous display of God's power terrifies them. It shows His acceptance of the fallen witnesses and His wrath against the men who destroyed them and gloated over it.
The witnesses stand up. A voice calls them to heaven, and they go up while their enemies watch.
- Choice. "Those who dwell on the earth" is a moral label more than a location. These people admit the light and still fix their whole interest on this world.
- Torment. That choice is why the witnesses tormented them. Nearness to God exposed people who had turned away from Him and had no peace with Him.
- Silence. Killing the messengers looks like the end of the torment. So the news brings a worldwide holiday and gifts.
- Degrees. The beast murders. The nations deny burial. The earth-dwellers throw a party — and commentators call them the worst of the three.
- Reversal. The party lasts three and a half days. Then the witnesses stand up and rise to heaven while their enemies watch.
And after the three days and a half [the] spirit of life from God came into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon those beholding them.
The two witnesses lie dead in the street of the great city. The world refuses them burial and sends gifts to celebrate their silence. Then God acts. What looked like the end of their testimony becomes its most public moment — and the watching crowd is gripped by terror, not joy.
The world's rejoicing is cut short. One writer reads the reversal as God's verdict on two parties at once — the men who were killed, and the men who killed them.
But their triumph is brief. Only three and a half days have passed. Then a miraculous display of God's power terrifies them. It shows His acceptance of the fallen witnesses, and His anger against those who destroyed them and celebrated over them.
They do not just revive; they stand. One writer sees in that standing a settled strength, and traces the onlookers' fear to what their own consciences now admit.
The energy of life, eternal life, from God is put forth, and the witnesses rise in its power and stand on their feet. Their witness is finished and their trials are past. They stand in the strength and stability of a life that death cannot touch. The whole world watches this act of resurrection. The Gentiles who have turned away from God see it, and their own consciences admit that it is from God. The effect is terror and alarm.
One writer weighs the wording closely. The ESV reads "a breath of life"; older translations have "a spirit of life" — and the writer asks why it is not "the Spirit of life."
This was what marked what entered them and set them on their feet — a Spirit of life. The point was not to present the Spirit as an object, but to show the character of this sudden event and its source. To say "the Spirit of life" here would have gone too far. That would have amounted to a declaration that the Holy Spirit came and dwelt in them; but that was not the point. It was simply that this living power, from God, changed the whole state of things.
Refusing burial was meant as the final insult. It backfires: the enemies are standing right there when the bodies rise.
However, this wicked folly of Israel's leaders makes them witness their own defeat. In the sight of their enemies the two witnesses are raised from death and stand on their feet (v. 11). If they had buried them, they would not have seen this great sight. But they took a morbid delight in staring at the dead bodies. So they expose themselves to the terror of seeing them come to life. These witnesses stand there long enough to impress men with the reality of their resurrection.
Commentators differ on how to take the time note. One takes every period of time in the chapter as exact and still future.
The three and a half days mentioned twice (vv. 9, 11) are literal days. It is impossible to regard them otherwise. We are here on the eve of the events that close the last prophetic week… There is no room or need to take the time as anything but literal. The four periods of time named in this chapter are literal and exact. They belong to the coming crisis, not to past history.
Another allows a literal fulfilment in the crisis, yet reads most of the language as symbolic. He also marks what has changed in the testimony itself.
There may be a more literal fulfilment of this in the crisis. Even so, nothing in the reviving of the witnesses makes it strictly literal. On the contrary, the terms are mostly symbolic. "A spirit of life from God," though it may be applied that way, does not strictly describe a mere giving of life. It was, however, something different from a simple renewal of prophecy in sackcloth. The testimony now was by their public exaltation, not by their faithfulness under trial.
- Cause: The world celebrates for three and a half days over two silenced prophets. Then God's power reverses it, showing that He accepts His servants and is angry with their killers.
- Gift: What enters them is life from God. The wording does not name the Holy Spirit as a person living in them. It marks a living power whose source is God, and it changes everything at once.
- Reach: They stand on their feet in a life death cannot touch. Their witness is finished, their trials are past, their strength is settled.
- Result: The insult of leaving them unburied backfires. The enemies stand there as eyewitnesses of the resurrection they never wanted to see.
- Reading: Commentators differ on the three and a half days. Some take every period in the chapter as literal and still future. Others read the language as mostly symbolic. Both agree on one thing: the testimony now speaks through public exaltation, not through suffering.
And I heard a great voice out of the heaven saying to them, Come up here; and they went up to the heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
God's two witnesses lay dead in the street while their killers celebrated, and now breath returns to them and a voice calls them up. Three questions follow: whose voice is it, why does the text say the cloud, and why does God do this in front of the men who killed them?
Who is calling, and where does the call take them? One writer answers both:
John then heard "a loud voice from heaven." This was the voice of Jehovah, or of someone He empowered. It spoke to the witnesses, now raised in bodies that are immortal and cannot decay. They stood in front of their enemies, and their enemies were overcome with fear. "Come up here." In Heaven they are to find their place and portion. What an answer to earth's scorn, reproach, and murder!
Translations differ here: some read "in a cloud," others "in the cloud." One writer says the difference matters:
It is not merely in a cloud, as some translations read, but in the cloud. I think it was the cloud seen at the start of Revelation 10, the one that wrapped around the mighty angel. That cloud is the known, special emblem of Jehovah's presence. It received the witnesses. It proved that their Lord, the Lord of heaven as well as earth, was on their side. They went up to heaven right in front of their enemies.
Walter Scott adds a contrast with the hope given to believers:
We are to be caught up in the clouds; they went up in the cloud, not in a cloud. Only here and in Luke 9:34 do we read of people entering into the glory cloud, the cloud of the divine presence.
Nothing here is hidden. Commentators note how this differs from every other departure to heaven in the Bible:
The public saw both things: the witnesses raised, and their triumphant departure from the scene of their testimony and suffering. In these two ways they differ from Christ and from the heavenly saints. No human eye saw Christ come out of the tomb, and only His disciples watched Him go up. There is not a hint that anyone on earth will see our coming resurrection and removal to heaven.
The enemies' own cruelty put them in the front row:
If they had buried them, they would not have seen this great sight. Instead they took a sick delight in staring at the dead bodies, so they left themselves open to the terror of seeing them come back to life. These witnesses stand there long enough to convince people that their resurrection is real. Then a great voice from heaven calls them to come up.
They lose everything on earth and gain everything in heaven. One writer sets the loss against the gain:
Earth throws them out. In our Lord's prophecy they appear as brothers of the King: hungry and thirsty, strangers, naked and sick and in prison. Heaven welcomes them with delight as people the earth was not worthy of — a gleaning after harvest, as it were, of wheat for God's granary. They have lost the blessing on earth; they have gained the blessing in heaven. Their light was put out for a time, so that it may shine in a higher place forever.
after fix: restores "earth" (original), splits hard sentences
Their rise is not only their vindication. It also signals what is coming for the powers that killed them:
They suffer under the beast, but are caught up to a heavenly portion, not an earthly one. Their going up foreshadowed the speedy fall of the beast and his followers.
- Silenced. Their enemies killed them and left them unburied. The world thought it had won.
- Summoned. A great voice from heaven — Jehovah's own, or one sent by Him — calls them up, and heaven becomes "their place and portion."
- Sheltered. They rise in the cloud, the known emblem of God's presence. It proves the Lord of heaven and earth was on their side all along.
- Seen. No hostile eye saw Christ rise, and none will see the saints caught up. This departure happens in full view of the murderers.
- Signal. Their going up warns of what comes next. Earth cast them out, heaven received them, and the beast falls soon after.