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The Baptist now goes into some detail describing what comes next if his listeners do not accept the Messiah God sent John to announce.
REVELATION 11:1–14
1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and it was said unto me: Arise, and measure the temple
of God, and the altar, and them that adore therein.
2 But the court, which is without the temple, cast out, and measure it not: because it is given unto the
Gentiles, and the holy city they shall tread under foot two and forty months:
3 And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred sixty
days, clothed in sackcloth.
4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks, that will stand before the Lord of the earth.
5 And if any man will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths, and shall devour their enemies. And if
any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain.
6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and they have power
over waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they will.
7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast, that ascended out of the abyss, shall make
war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
8 And their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually, Sodom and Egypt, where
their Lord also was crucified.
9 And they of the tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a
half: and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in sepulchres.
10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry: and shall send gifts one to
another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwell upon the earth.
11 And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their
feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them.
12 And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them: Come up hither. And they went up to heaven
in a cloud: and their enemies saw them.
13 And at that hour there was made a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell: and there were slain
in the earthquake names of men seven thousand: and the rest were cast into a fear, and gave glory to
the God of heaven.
14 The second woe is past: and behold the third woe will come quickly.
A voice tells John to measure the Temple and observe those who worship there. But John is not to measure the Temple courtyard. The courtyard now belongs to the Gentiles, who will trample the holy city for forty-two months. John then sees two witnesses who will prophesy forty-two months. Enemies rise against the witnesses and kill them. Their bodies lie in the street. Three days later God raises them.
As described above, John the Baptist first preached this portion of Revelation around A.D. 22. John's disciples kept his preaching alive throughout the years 22 to 70. It was a message to Judea encouraging faith in the promised one. It was put in its final written form, the text that we received in A.D. 96, twenty-six years after Jerusalem's destruction. All during the public ministry of Jesus and forty-two years following it, Judeans watched as events prophesied by the Baptist, one by one, came true. Our review of these events is now in the year 70. The Temple is gone.
Forty-two months signifies a time of tribulation. Its origin stems from the Seleucid conquest of Judea. After the death of Alexander the Great, the original Greek empire separated into four sections. Alexander's strongest generals ruled three of them. Antigonus Gonatas ruled Macedonia and Greece. Seleucus ruled an area including Syria with his capital at Damascus. Ptolemy ruled Egypt and nearby areas with his capital at Alexandria. The fourth section divided into many small autonomous city-states in Greece and Turkey. One hundred and twenty-five years after Alexander's death, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a descendant of Seleucus, began expanding his empire southward toward Egypt. Judea, caught in the middle, decided to oppose the advance. In April 167 B.C., Antiochus IV Epiphanes conquered Judea. Thinking he could strengthen his empire's unity if all his subjects practiced the same religion and lived the same culture, Epiphanes outlawed all other religions.
He made circumcision a capital crime. He abolished the Temple sacrifice. His priests desecrated the Temple by sacrificing pigs to Zeus. He converted Temple rooms into brothels for sacred prostitution to honor Athena. Sacrificing pigs to Zeus (this is the same god the Romans worshiped as Jupiter) in the Temple of the Most High God is an abomination. It deeply offended the Judeans. They never forgot the day it started. The Temple remained desecrated until a Judean family, the Maccabees, led a war of liberation. When Jerusalem was liberated, the Judeans re-consecrated the Temple. The length of time between the desecration of the Temple and its rededication was three and one-half years, from April 167 to Oct. 16, 164 B.C.
Three and one-half years are forty-two months or twelve hundred and sixty days. Since this experience involved the triumph of unbelievers followed by God's retribution, the Judeans began to look at it in a broader sense. They considered the desecration as God's rejection of them because of their infidelity. The loss of the Temple led to their repentance. The rededication showed God's acceptance of a repentant and forgiven people. This process took three and one-half years. The Judeans then used this duration of time in apocalyptic literature to recall when God allowed the forces opposed to righteousness to triumph over God's chosen people. "Three and one-half years" becomes "a time, [two] times, and a half time" (Rev. 12:14). The same number is sometimes expressed as days rather than years, for example: The forces opposed to God will triumph over the two witnesses for three and one-half days. Sometimes the same duration is given differently as, for example, forty-two months or one thousand two hundred and sixty days. The Gentiles will trample the outer courts for forty-two months.
Following the Temple's destruction, two witnesses will appear, clothed in sackcloth. They will prophesy. This is a difficult passage to interpret. Are the two witnesses actual individuals or are they symbolic of something else? The most widespread interpretation is that two individual men will prophesy during the last times. The prevailing view is that they will be Elijah and Enoch or Elijah and Moses. Elijah did not die. God sent a chariot to take him while he was still alive (2 Kings 2:11). Elijah is mentioned in Holy Scriptures as one sent to restore all things (Matt. 17:11) in the great day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5). Enoch did not die either; God took him from this life in a special way (Gen. 5:24 & Heb. 11:5). Both men were witnesses of God's goodness, and both were prophets. Some think that, unlike people who die in the usual way, these two men are present, body and soul, in paradise (Heydock, note for Gen, 5:24). Their bodies are similar to what they had been when still in this world; they do not have resurrected bodies. At some point in history, these men will come back to make their final witness and will be martyred by their unbelieving listeners. Then their souls will enter the traditional heaven. At the end of the world, they will rise with resurrected bodies.
The reason Moses is also proposed is because, during his time on earth, he was both a special witness for God and an extraordinary prophet. During his face-to-face meetings with God on Mt. Sinai, God in some way changed the appearance of Moses. The Israelites saw God's glory shining through the face of Moses:
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tablets of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him" (KJV Exodus 34:29–30).
When Moses died, an angel hid his body so Satan could not claim it. This is unusual. This is another reason some think God has set Moses aside for a return in the end times. Now this popular interpretation may be true; that is, in the end times, two Old Testament saints will come back. However, it could be that the two witnesses are not historical persons at all but symbols of something else. In the Mosaic code, there is a rule concerning witnesses in a court of law. For a serious accusation, two witnesses are required (Dt.17:6 & Dt. 19:15). God is accusing Judea. The two witnesses can mean that God has sufficient witnesses.
God sent prophets throughout the first covenant to encourage the Israelites to follow the Commandments and to point out their crimes when they refused. The same happened during the new covenant when Jesus and the apostles made their witness. The two witnesses could be a symbolic reference to the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament prophets. The greatest Old Testament prophet is John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). The greatest New Testament prophet is, naturally, Jesus Christ. The chief representatives, therefore, of both testaments were present when Revelation was first preached. Unbelievers killed both of them. Jesus rose from the dead and went to heaven (Acts 1:9–11). When Christ's soul ascended into heaven immediately after his death, he took the souls of those who died righteous before him. This would include John the Baptist. Forty days later, the resurrected Jesus ascended bodily into heaven in full view of his apostles and disciples.
Humans cannot perceive individual souls, but angels and the fallen angels can. Jesus took the soul of John the Baptist to heaven in a way that does not escape detection by Satan and the fallen angels. The souls of those marked by baptism who die righteous after the resurrection of Christ are also taken to heaven.
One last parallel: when this occurred, minutes after the death of Jesus, a strong earthquake terrified the city. Dead people really did rise from their tombs and appeared to many (Matt. 27:51–3).
REVELATION 11:15–18
15 And the seventh angel sounded the trumpet: and there were great voices in heaven saying: The kingdom
of this world is become our Lord's and his Christ's, and he shall reign for ever and ever. Amen.
16 And the four and twenty ancients, who sit on their seats in the sight of God, fell on their faces and adored God, saying:
17 We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, who art, and who wast, and who art to come: because thou hast taken
to thee thy great power, and thou hast reigned.
18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that
thou shouldest render reward to thy servants the prophets and the saints, and to them that fear thy name, little
and great, and shouldest destroy them that have corrupted the earth.
These verses describe the seventh trumpet, which announces the third woe. Nothing is said in Rev. 11 of what the third woe will be. That will be covered in Rev. 16 under the seven vials. Then the third woe, under the symbolism of seven vials of God's wrath, will pour upon the earth. The third woe is even more threatening to unbelievers than the first and second woes. But then, the unbelievers were not moved by the first and second woes. They remained adamant in their rejection of Christ. The third woe will defeat those who oppose the Messiah.
David had a similar experience. The position of king given David had previously been Saul's, but Saul was not faithful. That is why God gave it to David. Saul should have humbly accepted God's will and looked to David as king. Instead, Saul opposed David. He tried often to kill David. Finally, God allowed Saul's enemies to destroy his pretensions to the throne. Faced with ruin, Saul committed suicide. He died in a way some think glorious, but it is really an inexcusable and pathetic violation of God's Commandments. To his greater shame, many Israelites believed his claims rather than David's. They met disaster along with Saul. The kingdom then became David's, not overnight it is true, but in God's good time. After that, for the rest of his life, David remained the only king of all God's chosen people.
Jesus is God's chosen to be the Messianic King. He came to the circumcised. They all should have accepted him, for God made Jesus their king. Instead, some opposed him and killed him. He did, however, start his kingdom among the circumcised. His word inspired Gentiles to join his kingdom. They replaced the first chosen who had rejected him. Many Gentiles joined. Though chosen second, God gave them equality with those who had been chosen first. The first chosen who did not yet believe heard many appeals to come to faith. Some of them believed, but others would not listen. Instead, those who did not believe tried to destroy Christ's kingdom. God allowed their enemies to destroy their pretensions to the kingdom, first by internal strife (the first woe), then by a Roman invasion and siege (the second woe), and finally by a worse disaster (the third woe). I propose to show that this worse disaster is the Judean defeat by Septimius Severus in A.D. 131–5.
This happened sixty years after the fall of Jerusalem. The Judeans who still did not believe Christ rallied behind bar Kochba, whom they thought to be the Messiah. Under his leadership, they started a war of liberation. They fought so wholeheartedly that defeat would mean collapse of the Judean state, and that is exactly what happened. With that collapse, and the widespread dispersion of survivors, the unbelieving Judeans were no longer able to oppose the Church. The whole Judean nation was brought low, almost to extinction. The baptized inherited the messianic kingdom, the whole kingdom because it all belongs to Jesus now. The kingdom will be, not what humans expect, but a more glorious thing. It will bring salvation to all through the sufferings of Jesus and through the ministry of his followers. His followers act in union with him for the salvation of all. This is what God treasures most: the salvation of those who repent and seek forgiveness.
REVELATION 11:19
19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the arc of his testament was seen in his temple, and there
were lightnings, and voices, and an earthquake, and great hail.
The Israelites thought that the Temple had its counterpart in heaven. God resides on earth, dwelling with the chosen people in the earthly Temple they built. God also dwells in heaven in a heavenly counterpart, an unimaginably glorious counterpart, of the earthly Temple. At this point in our journey through history, the earthly Temple lies ruined, but the heavenly temple is unharmed. When the earthly Temple had been standing, very few people could enter or even look into it. Only those few born into the priesthood could enter. In this vision, the Baptist (whom God did not place by birth into the priesthood) can see the heavenly temple. It is opened so that he can look inside. He sees the arc of the covenant.
The Israelites lost the earthly arc of the covenant six hundred and fifty-six years earlier. Maccabees describes the prophet Jeremiah hiding the arc of the covenant on Mt. Sinai to keep it safe from the Babylonians (2 Mc. 2:5–6). The Old Testament predicts the arc's rediscovery shortly before the world's end (2 Mc. 2:7). During the old covenant, only males of Levi's tribe could approach the Temple, and only males descendant from Aaron could enter the Temple. To enter the Holy of Holies was even more restricted. Only one descendant of Aaron, the one who was high priest—and only one day of the year—could enter the Holy of Holies. This is the sacred place where the arc would have been kept were it still with the Judeans. Now that the Messiah is here, anyone who believes and accepts baptism is eligible to approach the heavenly holy of holies.
A few years before the fall of Jerusalem, a second portion of Revelation was added to the first portion. Some Biblical scholars think that a disciple of Jesus who had previously followed John the Baptist composed the second portion. The combined portions were then preached anew (Ford, p. 3).
The second portion starts with a series of "signs" or "portents":
(1) A woman about to give birth confronted by a dragon and defended by Michael.
(2) A beast rising from the sea.
(3) Another beast rising from the land.
(4) A vision of the Lamb and his elect.
(5) Three angels each with a message.
(6) Three more angels each with a command, followed by an intermediate vision of seven angels with seven last plagues.
(7) Then a vision of those who had overcome the beast standing before God's throne (The Jerusalem Bible, p. 429).
The second portion added much more detail on the third woe “The end is here.” This newly added portion starts off with chapter 12, the seven signs. These seven signs give more insight into why events are happening as they are. And they prepare the way for the completion of the third woe.
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