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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Revelation 11:9 - 11:9
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And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations; that is, a multitude of people of all sorts shall take notice of this suppression of these two witnesses in their bearing witness for God, and all the cruel dealings with them.
Shall see their dead bodies three days and an half: there are great disputes what time these three days and an half denote: it cannot be understood of three natural, or artificial days; for (as it is noted by the most judicious interpreters) this is much too short a time for all people to
see their dead bodies, to
rejoice over them, and to
make merry, and to
send gifts one to another in testification of the satisfaction of their lusts, upon the victory got over them. I find some understand these three days and an half of the one thousand two hundred and sixty years, wherein they prophesied in sackcloth, Rev_11:3, which they thus make out; they first conclude, that these are prophetical days, and so signify three years and a half; then they resolve each of those years into days, and count three times three hundred and sixty days (for in those countries they say the year was counted to contain but three hundred and sixty days); to which they add one hundred and eighty, the half of three hundred and sixty, for the half day, which make up one thousand two hundred and sixty days, or forty-two mouths; which is the just time both of the beast’s reign, and of the woman’s abode in the wilderness, and of the witnesses’ prophesying in sackcloth, and of the Gentiles’ treading down the outward court.
1. But it seems very hard, thus first to make the three days three years in a prophetical sense, and then again to resolve those years, into days, and make those days so many more years; this looks as much like oppression to the text, as the counting interest upon interest to a debtor.
2. It plainly confounds the time of the prophesying of the witnesses in sackcloth, with the time of their lying dead.
Now although the time of their lying dead must be within the one thousand two hundred and sixty days, in the latter end thereof, (for it must be within the beast’s forty-two months, mentioned Rev_13:5), yet it seems hard to make it as long as the beast’s reign. It certainly signifies a time toward the end of the beast’s reign, when there shall be a more eminent and universal suppression of the faithful witnesses of Christ than ever was before: it seemeth therefore rather to be understood more generally for a short time, as much such a phrase or way of speaking is used, Hos_6:2, or else for a determinate time of such three years and a half as we ordinarily count. I must confess the half day being added, makes me more incline to the latter; for though it be usual with us to express a short time by, two or three days, and this seems by that text of Hosea to have been an ancient way of speaking, yet we do not use to put in half days when we so speak. I do therefore agree with those who think the time here specified is to be understood of three ordinary years and a half; and the rather, because this is the very time that Christ was under the power of the Pharisees. As three days (that is, part of them) was the time of his being under the power of death, so three years and a half was the just time of all the indignity that he suffered from his manifestation to the world, to his death: and (as we read in 1 Macc.) it was the just time of Antiochus’s oppressing of the Jews, whom divines judge that Daniel, in his 11th chapter, {Dan_11:1-45} makes a type of antichrist.
And shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves: divines are divided whether these words be to be understood of enemies or friends. If it be to be understood of friends, the death being a civil death principally that was spoken of, it signifieth the providence of God so working for his witnesses, by the adherence of a party to them, that their adversaries the popish party should not wholly extinguish them; which hath been seen all along the story of the church: though their adversaries have been warring against them, overcome and killed them, yet they have not been able to bury them; nor shall they be able to do it at this last pinch, when they shall have a greater victory over them than ever before, and kill them to a further degree. But methinks the phrase rather signifies this an act of enemies, who, to show their further malice to them, and contempt and scorn of them are said to be so inhuman, as not to suffer their dead bodies to be buried.