Revelationchapter 11
19 verses · BSBRevelation book hub →
Speaks with:Daniel 7×4Revelation 4×3Revelation 12×3Zechariah 4×2Romans 8×2Revelation 6×2
Summary
Chapter summary
John is given a reed and told to measure the temple and the altar, but to leave out the court without, 'for it hath been given unto the nations: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months': the three and a half years that govern the middle of the book. Two witnesses prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days in sackcloth: 'these are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks' (Zechariah 4), with power to shut the heaven that it rain not: Elijah and Moses plainly behind them. Then 'the beast that cometh up out of the abyss,' here first named, kills them, and their bodies lie in the street until the breath of life from God enters them. The seventh trumpet announces the outcome in advance: 'The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ' (11:15).
Context
Apocalyptic · John — Revelation overview
- A. 1–6 Measure the Temple: Two Witnesses in Sackcloth
- B. 7–14 Bodies in the Street, Then Breath From God
- C. 15–19 The Seventh Trumpet: The Kingdom Has Become His
The outline
A.Measure the Temple: Two Witnesses in Sackclothvv. 1 to 6
Read vv. 1 to 6 →B.Bodies in the Street, Then Breath From Godvv. 7 to 14
Read vv. 7 to 14 →C.The Seventh Trumpet: The Kingdom Has Become Hisvv. 15 to 19
Read vv. 15 to 19 →
The world behind this chapter
Revelation 11The history
John is given a reed and told to measure the temple, the altar, and the worshipers, but to leave out the outer court because it is given to the nations, who will trample the holy city for forty-two months. Measuring in the prophets is a way of marking off what belongs to God and will be preserved.
The forty-two months, and the 1,260 days that follow, are the same span counted two ways — three and a half years, the same period Daniel gives as "a time, times, and half a time." That length had become shorthand for a bounded season of persecution.
The two witnesses prophesy in sackcloth and have power to shut heaven and to turn water to blood — the signature miracles of Elijah and Moses. They are killed, and their bodies lie in the street of the great city for three and a half days while people from all nations look at them and celebrate and send each other gifts. Leaving a corpse unburied was, in that culture, the deepest humiliation available.
The city is called "spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified" — a description that points at Jerusalem while refusing to flatter it.
Then breath from God enters them, they stand, and they go up in a cloud while their enemies watch. The seventh trumpet sounds and heaven declares that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.
What it meant to them
This chapter admits the thing believers most feared: that faithful witnesses can be silenced and left in the street while the world throws a party. It does not deny the defeat. It puts a time limit on it — three and a half days.
And the seventh trumpet gave them the sentence they were waiting for. Not "will become" someday in a vague fog, but announced in the past tense in heaven while Rome still stood: the kingdom has changed hands.
Sources cited
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews (Whiston translation)
- Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Revelation 11. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 4 · An echo of this verse
Zechariah's two olive trees flanking the lampstand -> Revelation's 'two olive trees... the two witnesses'.
Zechariah 4:3→There are also two olive trees beside it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on its left.”
public-domain quotation; G1636
v. 15 · A stretch of this thread
'He shall reign for ever and ever' -> 'they shall reign for ever and ever' - the reign consummated and shared with the redeemed. Closes Row 1's Rev 22:5.
Revelation 22:5→There will be no more night in the city, and they will have no need for the light of a lamp or of the sun. For the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.
text
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.