Revelation 11:8

After [the two witnesses] have witnessed and urged escape from this deceit, the beast, that is, the antichrist, comes forth from the dark and deep recesses of the earth to which the devil had been condemned. And, with God's allowance, he will kill them and …

And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city,.... Not Jerusalem, which was destroyed when John had this vision, and which will; not be rebuilt at the time it refers to; nor is it ever called the great city, though the city of the great King; however, not in this book, though the new Jerusalem is so called, Rev 21:10; but that can never be designed here; but the city of Rome, or the Roman jurisdiction, the whole empire of the Romish antichrist, which is often called the great city in this book; see Rev 16:

The great city - Some say Rome, which may be spiritually called Sodom for its abominations, Egypt for its tyrannous cruelty, and the place where our Lord was crucified, because of its persecution of the members of Christ; but Jerusalem itself may be intended. All these things I must leave to others.

It must, therefore, have an anticipatory reference to the mystical Babylon. which--Greek, "the which," namely, "the city which." spiritually--in a spiritual sense. Sodom--The very term applied by Isa 1:10 to apostate Jerusalem (compare Eze 16:48). Egypt--the nation which the Jews' besetting sin was to lean upon. where . . .

And their dead bodies shall lie in the street - Prof. Stuart, “Shall be in the street.” The words “shall lie” are supplied by the translators, but not improperly. The literal rendering would be, “and their corpses upon the street of the great city”; and the meaning is, that there would be a state of things in regard to them which would be well represented by supposing them to lie unburied. To leave a body unburied is to treat it with contempt, and among the ancients nothing was regarded as more dishonorable than such treatment. See the Ajax of Sophocles. Among the Jews also it was regarded as a special indignity to leave the dead unburied, and hence they are always represented as deeply solicitous to secure the interment of their dead. See Gen 23:4. Compare 2Sa 21:9-13; Ecc 6:3; Isa 14:18-20; Isa 22:16; Isa 53:9. The meaning here is, that, for the time specified, those who are here referred to would be treated with indignity and contempt. In the fulfillment of this, we are not, of course, to look for any literal accomplishment of what is here said, but for some treatment of the “witnesses” which would be well represented by this; that is, which would show that they were treated, after they were silenced, like unburied corpses putrefying in the sun. Of the great city - Where these transactions would occur. As a great city would be the agent in putting them to death, so the result would be as if they were publicly exposed in its streets. The word “great” here supposes that the city referred to would be distinguished for its size - a circumstance of some importance in determining the place referred to. Which spiritually is called - πνευματικῶς pneumatikōs. […]