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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Revelation 11:8 - 11:10
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Rev_11:8-10. As the slaying of the two witnesses could not occur[2868] until they had fulfilled their mission, so the Almighty Lord[2869] here allows dishonor to be shown their dead bodies, only in order afterwards to glorify them the more, Rev_11:11.
τὸ πτῶμα αὐτῶν . The sing.[2870] is regarded collectively;[2871] “that which has fallen of them,” i.e., their corpses.
ἐπὶ τῆς πλατείας τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης . On the street, in the place where in the public exercise of their μαρτυρία they are slain, they remain lying unburied,[2872] the most ignominious outrage even according to the feeling of the Gentiles,[2873] who here are represented as instruments of the beast of the abyss from the fact that they inflict such an outrage upon Christ’s witnesses, Rev_11:9, and rejoice at this, Rev_11:10.
That “the great city” is identical with the holy city where the ναὸς τοῦ θεοῦ stands, Rev_11:1 sqq., and, therefore, is none other than Jerusalem, is evident already from the connection; just as unambiguously is this declared in Rev_11:8, first in the spiritual designation of the same as Sodom and Egypt, then especially in the words ὅπου καὶ ὁ κύριος αὐτων ἐσταυρώθη . The spiritual designation ( καλ . πνευματικῶς ) expresses, in distinction from the proper historical name, the spiritual nature of the city; but the juxtaposition of the two names, Sodom and Egypt, shows that reference is not made here to individual relations,[2874] but to that wherein Sodom and Egypt are essentially alike, viz., entire enmity to the true God, his servants, and his people. As already the ancient prophets called Jerusalem, in express terms, Sodom,[2875] or a sister of Sodom,[2876] they wished not so much to characterize individual sins, as rather to designate them radically from the perverted position of the people to their God. So here the city wherein the witnesses of Christ are slain, and lie unburied on the street, and wherein also the Lord was crucified, is spiritually designated by both anti-theocratic names, because its antichristian hostility to the Lord is to be represented as against his witnesses.[2877] But the pneumatic designation of the city gives also the answer in harmony with the context to the question in hand as to why the city is called here, not, as Rev_11:2, the holy, but “the great.” Aret., Calov., and many of the older Protestants, have concluded from a comparison with Rev_16:19, Rev_18:15, etc., that also in this passage the great city is nothing but Babel, i.e., Papal Rome. Ebrard and other allegorists wish from this designation to prove at least that not the actual Jerusalem, but that which is allegorically meant, i.e., the secularized church, is to be understood. The reply of De Wette, that John could no longer call the city holy after its “profanation,” and yet “wanted to designate it as a chief city containing a large population, Rev_11:13, and at the same time many Gentiles, warriors, and others,” especially in its second part, is not properly satisfactory. The reason is more probable that it is impossible in one breath to call the city holy, and Sodom and Egypt, while the τ . μεγἀλῆς points in like manner as with respect to the city, which in ch. 16 sqq. bears the spiritual name of Babel, to the city’s greatness and power as the vain foundation of its godless security and arrogant enmity against the Lord and his witnesses calling to repentance.
That the concluding words of Rev_11:8, ὅπου , κ . τ . λ ., dare not be conceived of as a mere notice of locality, Ebrard properly mentions; but from this the impossibility does not result that the significance of the πνευματικῶς with καλεῖται extends also to the clause ὄπου
ἐσταυρώθη , as Hengstenb. and Ebrard still assert, as, like the old Protestant allegorists, they refer it to the spiritual crucifixion of the Lord in the secularized church,[2878] a conception against which already the aor. ἐσταυρώθη , pointing to the definite fact of the crucifixion, is arrayed,—but only the necessity follows for seeking the correct reference of that clause in the pragmatism of the context. Again, the text itself shows this, partly by the καὶ before ὁ κύρ . αὐτ ., partly by the expression ὁ κύρ . αὐτων . Both belong inwardly together; as the two witnesses, so also their Lord was there slain, crucified; the servants have suffered the same thing as their[2879] Lord.[2880] This is accordingly made prominent, because from this it becomes clear that the antichristian enmity of the great city remains always the same; with the same hatred as that wherewith they formerly once brought the Lord there to the cross, they now slay the two witnesses just because they are his witnesses. But still in another respect is the allusion to the crucifixion of the Lord significant, viz., with respect to the judgment announced. For even in their days,[2881] the city shows the same impenitent hostility, on account of which the Lord himself already had proclaimed its judgment.[2882]
Rev_11:9. The subj. to βλέπουσιν lies directly in the partitively formed expression ἐκ τῶν λαῶν , in connection with which a τινὲς is not to be supplied.[2883] In like manner, the subject is partitively formed, Joh_16:17, the object, Mat_23:34; in the simple gen., without ἐκ , the partitive obj. is found; e.g., Rev_3:9.
From peoples, kindreds, etc. (Rev_5:9), Jews and Gentiles (cf. Rev_11:2), many then have assembled in Jerusalem;[2884] these see the indignity (Rev_11:8) ἡμέρας τρεῖς καὶ ἡμίσυ , “three days and a half.”[2885] The schematic significance of this date can only be mistaken, and a definite chronological prophecy be found here, if the specifications of time of Rev_11:2-3, also be taken literally,[2886] which then of course is ill adapted to the further view of the allegorical character, and the reference of the whole to the antichristian period at the end of the world. All those have felt the schematic nature of the three and a half days, who have thought in connection therewith of only a short time;[2887] but that just three and a half days are named cannot be explained by an allusion to the three days during which the Lord lay in the grave;[2888] also not with Ewald: “Longer than it is proper for a dead person to be left unburied, especially if we consider that from the nature of the land the dead should be buried sooner, so as not to become offensive;” but only from the analogy of the three and a half years, Rev_11:2 sq.[2889]
ἀφίουσι . The form, like the ἥφιεν , Mar_1:34; Mar_11:16, from the stem ἄφίω .[2890]
τεθῆναι εἰς μνῆμα . Cf. Luk_23:53; Luk_23:55; Mat_27:60.
From the fact that in Rev_11:10 it is said, “they that dwell upon the earth” rejoice over them,[2891] it has been inferred[2892] that not the actual Jerusalem is to be regarded as the scene, but the allegorically so-called great city, Papal Rome, or rather the Romish Papacy, which actually extends over the whole earth. Improperly; for the strange attempt in this way to present the entire mass of all individuals dwelling on earth as spectators would thereby miscarry. In the expression ΟἹ ΚΑΤΟΙΚ . ἘΠῚ Τ . Γ ., the question is not with respect to the numerical mass, but the generic idea;[2893] the self-evident limitation to the ΚΑΤΟΙΚΟῦΝΤΕς ἘΠῖ Τῆς Γῆς [2894] found in the city, as representatives of the entire class, the text itself gives by accounting for their joy, to which they testify by mutual presents as on festivals,[2895] as follows: ὅτι οὺτοι οἱ δύο προφῆται ἐβασάνισαν τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς . The βασανισμός [2896] on the part of the two prophetic witnesses, which in no way can be referred to the inner pain[2897] excited by their preaching of repentance,[2898] was perceptible only to the enemies in the city, who just as such represent the entire class of dwellers upon earth.
[2868] Cf., on this idea, the ἐδόθη αὐτῷ (Rev_13:7).
[2869] Cf. Rev_11:4.
[2870] Cf. Rev_11:9, the plural.
[2871] De Wette.
[2872] Cf. Rev_11:9.
[2873] Cf. Winer, Rwb., i. 172 sq.
[2874] Against Hengstenb.: “ Ἁιγυπτος refers to religious corruption, Σόδομα to immoral practices.” Otherwise in Vitr., etc.
[2875] Isa_1:9 sqq.
[2876] Eze_16:48.
[2877] Cf. Ewald, Bleek, De Wette.
[2878] In the Papacy. Calov., etc.
[2879] The reference of the αὐτῶν to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Ew. ii.) is ingenious, but violates the pragmatism of the statement, which also testifies to the passive form ἐσταυρώθη .
[2880] Cf. Mat_10:24 sqq.: Joh_15:20.
[2881] Cf. Rev_11:2 sqq.
[2882] Cf. Luk_19:41 sqq.
[2883] Against Ebrard.
[2884] Beng., De Wette, etc.
[2885] Accus. of duration, as Rev_11:3.
[2886] Beng.
[2887] Zeg., Hengstenb., etc.
[2888] C. a Lap., Hengstenb.
[2889] De Wette. Cf. also Hengstenb. and Ebrard, of whom, however, the latter concurs therein with Beng., etc., in that he also understands the time of antichrist at the end of the world, by conceiving of the one thousand two hundred and sixty days (Rev_11:3), at whose close the three and one-half days (Rev_11:9) fall, as the period of the Church from the destruction of Jerusalem until the conversion of Israel before the end of the world.
[2890] Cf. Winer, p. 77.
[2891] ἐπʼ αὑτοῖς ; viz., so far as the witnesses are slain, and lie ignominiously upon the street.
[2892] Calov., Vitr., etc.
[2893] Cf. Rev_6:10, Rev_3:10.
[2894] Cf. Rev_11:9 : ἐκ τῶν λαῶν , κ . τ . λ .
[2895] Cf. Neh_8:10; Neh_8:12; Est_9:22. Cf. Winer, Rwb., i. 482.
[2896] Rev_9:5.
[2897] Hengstenb.
[2898] Beng., Ew., De Wette.