Measuring the temple
11
📚And I was given a reed like a rod. And the angel stood by, saying, “Get up and measure 📖 the temple 📖 of God, and the altar, and the worshipers there. 2 📚But exclude the court that is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it is given to the Gentiles, and they will trample 📖 the holy city underfoot forty-two months 📖.Two witnesses for God
3 📚And I will give power to my two witnesses 📖, and they will prophesy for a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. 4 📚These are the two olive trees 📖, and the two lampstands 📖 standing before the God of the earth. 5 📚And if anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouth 📖 and devours their enemies 📖. If anyone wants to harm them, this is how he must be killed. 6 📚These witnesses have power to shut heaven 📖, so that it does not rain during the days when they prophesy, and they have power over waters to turn them to blood and to strike the earth with all kinds of plagues 📖, as often as they will. 7 📚And when they have finished their testimony 📖, the beast 📖 that comes up out of the Abyss 📖 will fight against them, and will defeat them and kill them 📖. 8 📚And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
11:8 The words here seem to clearly identify this great city with Jerusalem. That, of course, is the city where the Lord Jesus was crucified. And Jerusalem is figuratively called Sodom in Isa 1:8-10. In the Bible “Egypt”, figuratively speaking, means spiritual slavery. And that is what Jerusalem represents (compare Gal 4:25).⚜
9 📚And some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will see their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not allow their dead bodies to be put in graves.
11:9 How will so many in such a brief time be able to see this? In these days of television can we think this will be difficult? The words “dead bodies” and “put in graves” seem plainly to indicate literal individuals who die.⚜
10 📚And those who live on the earth will be glad about them, and celebrate, and will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who lived on the earth”.
11:10 See here what mankind by nature is like. The death of God’s prophets is good news. Men in general do not want the truth of God. It tends to torment them and they feel only relief when they don’t have to hear it. Compare John 3:19-20; Rom 8:5-8.⚜
11 📚And after three and a half days the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.
11:11 The devilish glee of wicked men will be short-lived (compare Job 20:5). The language seems clearly to mean a physical resurrection, a coming to life of dead bodies.⚜
12 📚And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here”. And they went up to heaven in a cloud 📖, and their enemies saw them go.
11:12 This, too, seems to speak clearly of a literal event, an ascension of those who die and live again.⚜
13 📚At that very hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth part of the city fell, and seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were frightened and gave glory to the God of heaven.
14 📚The second woe 📖 is past, and now 📖 the third 📖 woe is coming quickly.
The 7th trumpet
15 📚And the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and loud voices in heaven said,
“The kingdoms of this world have
become 📖 the kingdoms of our Lord,
and of his Christ 📖; and he will reign
forever and ever 📖”.
11:15 The 7th trumpet is the last trumpet in this series, the last in this book, the last before the return of Christ. Compare Matt 24:30-31; 1 Cor 15:51-52; 1 Thess 4:16. Judging from what has been revealed in earlier chapters and what is said in the following verses this trumpet sounds after the rise of the antichrist and after the great tribulation.⚜
16 📚And the twenty-four elders 📖 who had been sitting on their thrones in the presence of God, prostrated themselves and worshipped God, 17 📚saying,
“We give you thanks 📖, O Lord God Almighty,
who are and were and are to come 📖,
because you have taken your
great power and reigned 📖.
18 📚And the nations were angry 📖,
and your wrath has come 📖,
and the time when the dead should be judged 📖
and for you to give rewards 📖 to
your servants the prophets,
and to the saints, and to those
who fear your name 📖, small and great,
and to destroy those who destroy the earth 📖”.
19 📚And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and in his temple 📖 the ark 📖 of his covenant appeared. And there were lightning flashes, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail 📖.