Two Lamp Stands in the Great City

11:1-2Measuring what God will keep

John is handed a reed like a rod and told, "Rise, and measure God's temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it." The outer court is to be left out, "for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months." (WEB)

Measuring is a biblical picture, and it can mean different things. In Zechariah 2, a man with a measuring line goes to measure Jerusalem, and the Lord promises to be "a wall of fire around it" and "the glory in the middle of her." That is measuring for protection. In Ezekiel 40, measuring a temple is about restoration. Here the measuring marks out what belongs to God, and what is measured is kept.

What is the temple? Some read it as a literal temple in Jerusalem. Others read it as a picture of the church, since the New Testament calls believers God's temple (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21). The outer court "given to the nations" echoes Jesus's words in Luke 21:24, "Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

The forty-two months, and the 1,260 days in verse 3, are the same span of three and a half years. It comes from Daniel, where the oppressor's reign lasts "a time and times and half a time" (Daniel 7:25). Many scholars take it as a symbol: half of seven, a period of pressure that is real, but cut short and limited by God. Whatever view you take, the message is clear: the inner sanctuary cannot be trampled.

11:3-6Two olive trees, two lamp stands

God says, "I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." Sackcloth was the cloth of mourning and repentance. These are not glamorous figures. They look like people calling a city to turn back.

John identifies them as "the two olive trees and the two lamp stands, standing before the Lord of the earth." That borrows from Zechariah 4, where a golden lamp stand is fed by two olive trees, and the angel says, "These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth." The message of that vision is "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit." Lamp stands in Revelation have already been named: in 1:20 they are churches. These witnesses are lamps, shining on borrowed oil.

Who are they? Some think they are two particular prophets in a final generation, perhaps in the pattern of Moses and Elijah. Others think the number two points to the Old Testament rule that a matter is established "At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established" (Deuteronomy 19:15), so that the two stand for the whole witnessing church. Others see the Law and the Prophets. The powers fit both Moses and Elijah: fire that devours enemies, as Elijah called down fire in 2 Kings 1:10; a sky shut up as in 1 Kings 17:1; waters turned to blood and plagues, as under Moses.

Notice what is said about their protection. They cannot be touched until "they have finished their testimony" (verse 7). God sets the length of their work, and nobody can shorten it.

11:7-10The street where the truth lies dead

"When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them." This is the first time we meet "the beast" in Revelation. We will see him properly in chapter 13. For now notice only that he is permitted to win a battle, and only after the witnesses have finished.

Their bodies lie in "the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." The word "spiritually" is the key. John is telling us to read this city as a symbol. Sodom stands for moral corruption, and Isaiah 1:10 had already addressed Jerusalem's rulers as "rulers of Sodom." Egypt stands for oppression of God's people. And the city is where Jesus was crucified, which points to Jerusalem. Many scholars think John is painting a picture of the world city in rebellion against God, with Jerusalem as the pattern, rather than naming a single address.

Then comes the humiliation. The bodies are left unburied for three and a half days, a deep disgrace in the ancient world. Peoples, tribes, languages, and nations watch, and they celebrate with gifts, "because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth." That is a haunting line. Truth is a torment to those who have built their lives on a lie. The world's party is real, but it is the party of people who have silenced the one voice that made them uncomfortable.

11:11-14Breath from God

"After the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet." This is language from Ezekiel 37, where God told the prophet to say, "I will cause breath to enter into you, and you will live," and the dry bones "stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army." What the world thought was a final answer is overturned in one breath.

Then a loud voice calls, "Come up here!" It is the same invitation John heard in 4:1. They go up "in the cloud," as Jesus did in Acts 1:9, "and their enemies saw them." The vindication is public. The pattern here is the pattern of Christ himself: faithful witness, rejected in the great city, killed, raised, and taken up to heaven. Those who follow the Lamb walk his road.

An earthquake follows, a tenth of the city falls, and seven thousand die. Many scholars hear an echo of the seven thousand faithful in Elijah's day (1 Kings 19:18), though here the point is a limited judgment: a tenth of the city, not the whole. The surprise is the response: "the rest were terrified, and gave glory to the God of heaven." Interpreters differ. Some hear true repentance, since giving glory to God is what the angel calls all to do in 14:7. Others hear fearful, forced acknowledgment, since later in the book people curse God rather than give him glory. Either way, the witness is not in vain.

Verse 14 ends with a warning: "The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe comes quickly."