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.