The two witnesses appear to be part of the 6th trumpet (Revelation 9-11). The portion we are concerned with is in chapter 11.
3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. 6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.
Revelation 11
Who are the two witnesses?
Many will contend that the two witnesses are individuals, but this is unlikely to be the case.
Churches are the lampstands as described earlier in Revelation 1:20; in Greek “church” is ekklesia which means “congregation” which is a common term for the nation of Israel, and the menorah is the national symbol of Israel today.
6 God says:
Isaiah 49
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Here God says directly to Israel, that not only would he bring Israel back, God would make them as a light for the nations. Yes, this includes the church, as we are grafted into Israel.
Christians and Jews are described as olive trees
Exodus 19:6 and 1 Peter 2:9 describe both Israel and the Church as a ‘kingdom of priest and a holy nation’. In Romans 11, the apostle Paul describes two olive trees, a cultivated olive tree and a wild olive tree.
24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Romans 11
Paul goes in the next verse to say that the partial hardening of Israel will occur until “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.“
Thus we can be quite certain that the Church and Israel are the two witnesses.
When do they witness?
1Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, 2 but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. 3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
Revelation 11
The witnesses witness for 1260 days.
The city is trampled for 42 months.
It is often assumed that the 1260 days is the same time period as the 42 months. However, 42 months from a solar month perspective is 1278 days. Similar, but possibly significant. We reasonably deduce that the 1260 days is actually years (note 1), so if they are different periods of time, it is likely the 1278 days is also years. However, are these years regular solar years, or 360-day years?
The reader should be aware, that the ‘temple of God’ here, is not necessarily the temple of Yahweh. In fact, it is unlikely. Daniel’s prophecy (chapter 9) and Jesus’ statements in Matthew 24, state that the temple they see would be destroyed and the Abomination set up on the temple. They did not say that the temple would be rebuilt, and then the Abomination set up, and then the temple destroyed again. John uses the generic ‘theos’ which would mean a shrine (ναός) such as the Dome of the Rock could well satisfy the description here. It indicates that temple/shrine is the start of the counting of time.
At any rate, the city is trampled underfoot 1260 years or 1277.5 years (as explained above). Israel returned home in 1948 and regained Jerusalem in 1967 (but not the Temple Mount). If we consider 1260 years prior (and 1278 years prior), we arrive at two significant dates.
Construction of the Dome of the Rock commenced in AD.688, and concluded in AD.691/2. The Al Aqsa mosque was built sometime between AD.705 and 715 (although most scholars lean toward 705). What we observe above that AD. 688 features significantly whether we use 1260 years or 1278 years.
We can now be fairly certain that the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa mosque is the start of the time of the two witnesses as both fit the time periods given. There is 1260 solar years between AD.688 and 1948, and there are 1278 solar years between AD688 and 1967 where the holy city ceased to be trampled. If it is assumed that the 1260 days and the 42 months are the same time period, it still satisfies the prophecy as 1260 solar years before 1967 is AD.707 which is an acceptable date for the Al Aqsa mosque which is also on the temple mount.
It appears then that the Two Witnesses are around during the Great Tribulation that occurs after the Abomination of Desolation is set up.
In sackcloth and ashes. Lying in the streets for 3.5 days
The two witnesses are present for 1260 days. It represents the 1260 years the Christians and Jews bore witness against Islam for 1260 years until the holy city was no longer trampled underfoot.
Mark Twain wrote in Innocents Abroad, that “Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.”1 A fulfilment of the state that it and its people were left in and prophesied by Revelation 11:3. Islam utterly devastates the Jews and Christians, leaving them in abject poverty.
Christians and Jews have been systematically killed for their witness of Christ, in Israel and Jerusalem (and throughout the Islamic world) under Islamic rule.
The resurrection of the two witnesses occurs in two ways:
- the resurrection of the nation of Israel, which the whole world bears witness to; and
- the resurrection when Christ returns shortly afterwards.
Fire pours from their mouths?
These witnesses appear to be terrible foes. However, this description of fire coming from their mouths must be seen and understood from other prophecies (e.g., Jeremiah 5:13-15; Psalm 18:7-9; 2 Samuel 22:8-10; Job 41:18-20) which various describe prophets, God, and a massive animal respectively. In no instance are these literal descriptions. These descriptions of the two witnesses fighting their foes must be seen as metaphorical or figurative.
Knowing the time period of the Two Witnesses, we can reasonably understand these to be the various attacks and defences that Christians and Jews did over the years that Islam dominated the holy city, and perhaps notably the crusades.
It is interesting that the inhabitants (aka Muslims) will claim that the Two Witnesses tormented or oppressed them (v.10). This is exactly the claim made by Muslims today, that the Christians and Jews oppressed Muslims and violently mistreated them, especially the crusades. Anyone who lends their ear to such a claim does not know what Muslims were doing. As Revelation 11 says the two witnesses were being persecuted and killed by these inhabitants, while at the same time, the inhabitants claim to be oppressed by these witnesses.
But what of the droughts? Extreme drought was so common during the various Islamic empires that controlled the Holy Land, that it was a barren wasteland – the Muslims even said that the land rejected them2 3, which even Jews have pointed to as the fulfilment of prophecy.
Conclusion
We know that the two witnesses almost certainly prophesy during the 1260 days of Revelation 12, and during the 42-month reign of the Sea Beast, which we know is Islam. It is therefore understood that the two witnesses’ ministry spans that time period of 1260 years.
Israel was trodden underfoot by gentiles for 1260 years (and 1278 years when including Jerusalem). There are no future two witnesses.
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