10/8/2024
We’re reading through Revelation along with NT Wright’s Revelation for Everyone. These notes include discussions of topics of additional interest and attempt connections with more Old Testament material.
11:1-14
“This section is perhaps the most difficult passage to interpret in the entire book of Revelation.” -Asbury Seminary Biblical Studies professor Craig Keener
Given the difficulty of understanding what’s happening here, we focused on the things we can recognize from the Old Testament and Gospels especially, and there are many of those.
John receives a measuring rod to measure the Temple just as Ezekiel did in Ezekiel 40. He’s told to exclude the outer court. Matt Fisher recalled that the outer court is the area cleared by Jesus when he fashioned a whip and drove out the moneychangers and animal sellers. Even in his day, there was corruption encroaching on the outer courts.
The Gentiles trample on the city for 42 months, which is 3.5 years, half of seven, a common symbolic number in Revelation so far. God grants two witnesses 1,260 days, which in a 30 day/month calendar is also 3.5 years.
Biblical rules of evidence required a minimum of two witnesses for valid testimony (Deut. 17:6; 19:15).
The imagery of two olive trees and two lampstands appears to be derived from Zechariah 4, where a prophecy of coming judgment and the establishment of a temple includes 2 olive trees and a lamp stand:
The angelic messenger who had been speaking with me then returned and woke me, as a person is wakened from sleep. He asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, “I see a menorah of pure gold with a receptacle at the top. There are seven lamps at the top, with seven pipes going to the lamps. There are also two olive trees beside it, one on the right of the receptacle and the other on the left.” Then I asked the messenger who spoke with me, “What are these, sir?” He replied, “Don’t you know what these are?” So I responded, “No, sir.” Therefore he told me, “This is the Lord’s message to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength and not by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
“What are you, you great mountain? Because of Zerubbabel you will become a level plain! And he will bring forth the temple capstone with shoutings of ‘Grace! Grace!’ because of this.” Moreover, the Lord’s message came to me as follows: “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundations of this temple, and his hands will complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has sent me to you. For who dares make light of small beginnings? These seven eyes will joyfully look on the tin tablet in Zerubbabel’s hand. These are the eyes of the Lord, which constantly range across the whole earth.”
Next I asked the messenger, “What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the menorah?” Before he could reply I asked again, “What are these two extensions of the olive trees, which are emptying out the golden oil through the two golden pipes?” He replied, “Don’t you know what these are?” And I said, “No, sir.” So he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” (1-14, NET)
Matt Fisher pointed out that cherubim in Solomon’s Temple were carved of olive wood (1 Kings 6:23), so they may be in view here too.
The two have the power to bring judgment – prevent rain as Elijah did (1 Kings 17) and any kind of plague including water turned to blood recalling Moses (Exodus 7-11).
“…while this passage does model the two witnesses after Moses and Elijah, it also deliberately modifies the connections. Thus, for example, fire comes from the witnesses’ mouths (11:5) rather than from heaven, as with Elijah; this is figurative language for the harsh power of God’s word, as in Jeremiah’s ministry (Jer. 5:14).” – Craig Keener
Jeremiah 5:14 uses similar language to Zechariah when describing God:
Because of that, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies said to me:
“Because these people have spoken like this,
I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.
And I will make this people like wood,
which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.”
Given the similarity, God as Lord of Heaven’s armies is likely intended subtext for Revelation’s account.
Moses and Elijah have previously appeared together – with Jesus at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9).
A beast comes up from the abyss and kills the two witnesses. In chapter 9, we learned about locust-scorpion-man hybrid creatures that came up from the abyss to torment and, considering similarities with common imagery in surrounding cultures, concluded they are likely spiritual beings, so this beast likely is also.
The bodies of the witnesses lie in the street of the city that is called Sodom and Egypt and is where Jesus was crucified (Jerusalem). How can this city be an ancient city, a country, and another contemporary city? Beginning in Genesis 4, cities are associated with earthly powers in opposition to God. There, Cain founds a city after God exiles him for murdering his brother. Nimrod, a violent warrior figure, founds cities including Assyria and Babylon leading to the rebellion at Babel. The cities of Sodom and Shechem also figure prominently in Genesis narratives as the sites of abusive, murderous actions by their leaders and inhabitants. Egypt becomes a similar overwhelming power in the centuries before Moses, enslaving and murdering the Israelites. John is drawing on numerous Old Testament stories to identify a corrupt earthly power, here host to the corrupt spiritual power of the beast.
Exchange of gifts after slaughter may be an inversion of Esther 9:19, where the Jews exchange gifts after slaughtering their Amalekite and Persian enemies.
“But after three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and tremendous fear seized those who were watching them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: ‘Come up here!’ So the two prophets went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies stared at them.”
Jesus rose to heaven (Acts 1). Elijah was taken up to heaven without dying (2 Kings 2). Moses climbed a mountain and died in the presence of God (Deuteronomy 34). So the witnesses’ ascent may be part of this layered set of connections. The witnesses’ experience appears as echoing the end of Jesus’ life – transfiguration, death, resurrection, and ascension.
“Just then a major earthquake took place and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
The earthquake may recall the signs that followed Jesus’ death (Matthew 27, 28), though there are other earthquakes (Acts 16) and the gospels give us warnings of earthquakes to come (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21).
“The second woe has come and gone; the third is coming quickly.”
The elements in this chapter appear consistent with the cycle of judgment in God’s relationship with people that can be found beginning in Genesis.