What is the context?
The witnesses’ death comes only after they finish their testimony. The beast from the Abyss wages war against them and kills them. Their bodies remain exposed in the street of the great city for three and a half days, while people from many nations look on and refuse them burial.
The city is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt and is described as the place where their Lord was crucified. Those names connect the setting with rebellion and oppression. The witnesses’ opponents celebrate their deaths and exchange gifts, believing the prophets who tormented them have been removed.
The celebration ends when God gives the witnesses life. They stand, hear a voice calling them upward, and ascend to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watch. The power that killed them cannot prevent God from raising and receiving them.
An earthquake then destroys a tenth of the city and kills seven thousand people. The survivors are terrified and give glory to the God of heaven. The second woe ends, and the third is announced as coming soon. John records the survivors’ response without spelling out every question about their subsequent lives.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley reads the deaths, return to life and ascent as events involving two prophets in Jerusalem. Gill understands the witnesses more broadly as faithful churches and ministers; he reads the great city in terms of Rome and its religious power. The USCCB notes also understand the city symbolically, relating it to Rome’s opposition to God and His witnesses.
The survivors’ response is also disputed. Wesley and Gill understand their giving glory to God as genuine conversion. Walvoord, while expecting an actual resurrection and earthquake, understands the response as acknowledgment of God’s power rather than clear evidence of faith in Christ. The passage’s words should remain visible alongside that difference: the survivors fear and give God glory.
The vision’s broad reach has prompted suggestions about how people see the bodies, including modern broadcasting. Such suggestions concern the means by which the event might be witnessed. John describes the public exposure and international response without naming a communication technology.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
The breath entering the witnesses and their standing on their feet closely parallel Ezekiel 37:1–14. In Ezekiel, God explains the dry bones as the house of Israel, whose hope has been lost, and promises to give His people life. Revelation uses a recognizable picture of life restored by God. The parallel does not erase Ezekiel’s own explanation or make the two passages identical in every detail.
The larger pattern is that human opposition does not have the last word over God’s servants. The witnesses finish their task, suffer death and are publicly received by God. Their enemies’ celebration proves premature. This part of the vision prepares for the next announcement: the kingdom belongs to the Lord and His Christ, rather than to the powers that oppose them.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.