Revelation 11:7

OLBGrk;

And when they shall have finished their testimony; otan teleswsoi Mr. Mede notes, that this is ill translated by the preterperfect tense; the true English of it is, when they shall be about to finish their testimony: when they have prophesied in sackcloth the most of their twelve hundred and sixty years, they shall meet with ultimum conatum antichristi, the last struggle of the beast for life. The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, that is, the beast mentioned Revelation 13:1,4, (by which the papacy is meant, whom they have plagued all the time of their prophecy, though continual sufferers from it), shall make war against them; shall get life again, and make one push more, possibly the sharpest yet made; and shall overcome them, and kill them; and be too hard for them, and kill them. It is a great question, whether this be to be understood of taking away their natural lives, or of a civil death relating to them as witnesses, making them as if they were naturally dead. The latter of these seemeth to me much the more probable, for these reasons:

1. Supposing the godly magistracy, or ministry, or the latter alone, to be the two witnesses, it doth not seem probable that ever the papacy shall so far prevail, as to kill all such over the face of the whole church.

2. Neither is the Holy Ghost here speaking of them as men, but as witnesses.

3. Nor would either friends or enemies suffer dead bodies to be unburied three days and a half, in the street of a great city, as Revelation 11:8,9.

4. Neither is their resurrection, mentioned Revelation 11:11, to be understood of a corporal resurrection. I take therefore the killing here mentioned, to be understood of a destroying them as witnesses, turning magistrates out of their places, and ministers out of their places; though it be not probable that such a malice and hatred as should cause this, should terminate without the blood of some of them; but that surely is not the thing principally here intended.