1Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, “Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers. 2But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations. They will trample the holy city for 42 months.
3And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in burlap and will prophesy during those 1,260 days.” 4These two prophets are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of all the earth. 5If anyone tries to harm them, fire flashes from their mouths and consumes their enemies. This is how anyone who tries to harm them must die. 6They have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy. And they have the power to turn the rivers and oceans into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.
7When they complete their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit will declare war against them, and he will conquer them and kill them. 8And their bodies will lie in the main street of Jerusalem, the city that is figuratively called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” the city where their Lord was crucified. 9And for three and a half days, all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will stare at their bodies. No one will be allowed to bury them. 10All the people who belong to this world will gloat over them and give presents to each other to celebrate the death of the two prophets who had tormented them. 11But after three and a half days, God breathed life into them, and they stood up! Terror struck all who were staring at them. 12Then a loud voice from heaven called to the two prophets, “Come up here!” And they rose to heaven in a cloud as their enemies watched. 13At the same time there was a terrible earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand people died in that earthquake, and everyone else was terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
14The second terror is past, but look, the third terror is coming quickly.
Revelation 11:1-14
This is a relatively short block of text but it is packed with allusion and deeper interpretive elements which require us to pay attention. We need to have our wits about us with this passage in order to be able to understand it, then to put it back together in the right way after we have analysed it. There are many allusions to be found in the words used which have multiple meaning or references in the Old Testament, the background of which we have to be aware. In reality a difficult passage to interpret. Add to that mix, the fact that we are dealing with Revelation, full of symbolic images and complicated changes in the verb tenses used, switching from present to future to past (aorist) and back again. We need to note the questions which come to mind as we read this passage. It is more likely to confuse us than to be easily interpreted.
The first question we need to ask ourselves is who are the two witnesses?
The way the text is phrased, the witnesses in focus are very specific. ‘My two witnesses’ is a very particular phrase which requires us to think of who is in focus here. From the context, who comes to your mind? I imagine you think firstly of a certain two people when you read clues like:
- two prophets
- two olive trees
- two lampstands
- Fire flashes from their mouths and consumes their enemies
- They have the power to shut the sky so no rain falls
- turn rivers and oceans into blood
- Strike the earth with every kind of plague
Who comes to mind when you read that list of clues? But a little background first.
Elijah
Then he sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. They found him sitting on top of a hill. The captain said to him, “Man of God, the king has commanded you to come down with us.” But Elijah replied to the captain, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and killed them all. So the king sent another captain with fifty men. The captain said to him, “Man of God, the king demands that you come down at once.” Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!” And again the fire of God fell from heaven and killed them all.
2 Kings 1:9-12
From Jeremiah
The people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against me,” says the LORD. “They have lied about the LORD and said, ‘He won’t bother us! No disasters will come upon us. There will be no war or famine. God’s prophets are all windbags who don’t really speak for him. Let their predictions of disaster fall on themselves!’”
Therefore, this is what the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies says: “Because the people are talking like this, my messages will flame out of your mouth and burn the people like kindling wood.
Jeremiah 5:11-14
The sense seems to be that all prophets can operate this way, i.e. fire coming out of their mouths to burn up the enemies of God. Whether the fire comes via their words or whether the fire is literal coming from their mouths is debatable, but the consequences are the same. Most commentators opt for Moses and Elijah as the combination in focus here. They are the two who most exemplify the clues I have listed above, which John included in the text. But also because these two are the two “witnesses” at the transfiguration. Numbers of commentators claim Moses and Elijah fit the role of “My two witnesses” the best because both Moses and Elijah didn’t die a natural death. This thought comes from the apocryphal book the ‘Ascension of Moses’. In fact Deuteronomy records Moses death and burial.
5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Deuteronomy 45:5-6
Surely it has to be Moses and Elijah given their appearance at the Transfiguration. It is not a requirement that the two witnesses did not die a normal death. After all God could send them to earth again despite their having ‘died’. I would not dare to hold an apocryphal book, like the Ascension of Moses, above the text of Deuteronomy. But there are some other candidates as well.
The word picture in Revelation 11 has a parallel in Zechariah 4. John has included allusions to Zechariah where in Chapter 2:1-2 Zechariah is found measuring the temple in Jerusalem. One lampstand and two olive trees are mentioned in Zechariah whereas Revelation lists two olive trees and two lampstands. It is clear the lampstands are dependant on oil, hence the need for the olive trees.
And I see two olive trees, one on each side of the bowl.” Then I asked the angel, “What are these, my lord? What do they mean?” “Don’t you know?” the angel asked. “No, my lord,” I replied. Then he said to me, “This is what the LORD says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
Zechariah 4:3-6
So we have to add Zerubbabel and Yeshua / Jehoshua / Joshua to the list. Zerubbabel being the Governor of Yehudi in Achaemienid Province, the leader of 42,000 Jews who returned from Babylon under Cyrus the Great and Joshua, including the variations on his name, the High Priest at the time. “The two anointed ones who stand in the court of the Lord of all the earth.” Zechariah 4:14
But wait we are not finished yet. There is another possibility we have to include. witnessing to the truth must always be via a minimum of two witnesses.
But never put a person to death on the testimony of only one witness. There must always be two or three witnesses.
Deuteronomy 17:6
“You must not convict anyone of a crime on the testimony of only one witness. The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Deuteronomy 19:15
But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses.
Matthew 18:16
Do not listen to an accusation against an elder unless it is confirmed by two or three witnesses.
1 Timothy 5:19
Therefore the prime options for ‘My two witnesses’ are:
- Moses & Elijah
- Zerubbabel & Yeshua
- Any two witnesses from among God’s anointed ones.
John’s point at this time could well be to encourage his contemporary church to continue to bear witness to Christ while facing increasingly hostile circumstances. If that applied to the church in John’s day, surely it applies to us too. John is focused more on the encouragement to persevere to the end rather than when the time of the end is coming. Now where have we heard that before? It is John’s repeated catch phrase. I will look again at developing that thought as a result of something I want to develop further. Like John, let’s just put that thought on hold, pause it for a Gem or two.
One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you. . . “Where will this happen, Lord?” the disciples asked. Jesus replied, “Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.”
Luke 17:20-21, 37
John is not interested in giving us a chronology of the build-up toward the end; neither did Jesus divulge such information to the disciples. Rather the focus was on preparedness to stay strong to the end and maintain your trust in Jesus. I will return to these two witnesses after we have looked at details of what happened to them.
Every time your faith is put on trial, your character is placed on the witness stand.
A R Bernard
Never forget the only thing a witness has to do is speak up for Jesus in season and out of season. Let Him take care of the rest.
Ian
Go be a witness. You receive the power when you open your mouth.
Ian
Most false sects arose after the eyewitnesses to the events surrounding Jesus and those they told had passed away.
Ian
Elijah was taken up into heaven – i.e. he didn’t die. Moses died, but in Jude we read that Michael and Satan fought over his body. I don’t think they will fight over mine! But Moses’ body was important enough to be fought over for some reason. It must have had a further purpose – and the one that springs to mind is just this – to stand with Elijah as the two witnesses. The event of the Transfiguration may have been a planning session…