Revelation 11
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along the line of the af fliction and reproach borne by the Israelites in that land.
Jacob and his seed entered Egypt as a people accustomed to the lowly, but honorable, tending of flocks of sheep and goats. The Egyptian people despised shepherds,
who were an abomination unto them (Gen. 46:31–34). The taskmasters of Egypt
under Pharaoh (a representation of Satan) afflicted Israel with heavy burdens (Exod.
1:11–14). Egypt was known as a land of oppression and reproach and as an iron
furnace of affliction (Exod. 13:3; Deut. 4:20; Josh. 5:9; 24:17) to the Israelites (the
called of God out of the land of dark ness); thus “Egypt” well illustrates, in this
instance, the persecution of Christ by the people, great and small, under the Adversary’s influence (John 8:44–48; Matt. 5:10–12; Luke 4:24–29; 13:34). Jesus
died in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation that did not appreciate his
works of righteousness. Instead of accepting Jesus as their Messiah, the people crucified him . . . just as would have happened in Egypt under Pharaoh, for light and
righteousness were made manifest to both the Egyptian monarch and the people
under him through Moses’ ministry and the plagues.
It is also possible that Revelation 11:8 refers to Moses’ manifestation of his concern for his people when he came of age while residing in Egypt. At that time it was
said to him by a Hebrew, “Who made thee a prince and judge over us?” (Exod.
2:11–15). Expecting an imminent betrayal to the authorities by his fellow Jews,
Moses absented himself from Egypt for forty years. The same religious climate
existed at the First Advent of Christ, when “he came unto his own, and his own
received him not” (John 1:11).
In summation, Revelation 11:8 is emphasizing that just as Jesus was not crucified
in Sodom or Egypt but in Israel, so the Bible was crucified by the Romish Church
not in Italy but in England.
Verse 9:
And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall
see their dead bodies15 three days and an half, and shall not suffer
their dead bodies to be put in graves.
The expression “they of the people” signifies some of the people, that is, a sizable portion of the populace both at home and abroad. Specifically, the expression
pertains to those at the scene of the crime, namely, in England and in the Low
Countries of the Continent, where Testaments and books considered heretical were
confiscated and burned with the ap proval of the emperor Charles V. Not only
residents but also foreign visitors witnessed this spectacle. This, then, is the setting
where the dead bodies of the two witnesses were seen lying for 3½ days in the
15. In the King James Version the Greek word ptoma, indicating a “body” or “carcass,” is found
three times in the plural. It occurs once in verse 8 and twice in verse 9 of Revelation 11. In the
second of the three instances, the word is rendered in the singular in the Sinaitic manuscript.
Some Greek codices use either the singular or the plural for the first two instances, adding to
confusion and uncertainty. However, all testaments seem to agree that the word should be plural
in the third and last occasion.
The singular form in the first two instances appears historically proper in that the New Testament
can be representative of both testaments—a part is frequently put forth for the whole (Matt.
6:11,22; James 2:10). In Daniel 7:23 the Roman Empire, a part of the earth, is representative of
the whole.