Revelation 11:2

Revelation 11:2. While it shall be thus with the innermost part of the temple-buildings it shall be otherwise with the rest. The court which is without the temple includes every part of the precincts not belonging to the Holy and Most Holy place; and this fact, together with the instruction ‘cast it out,' shows that it symbolizes not the world but the false members of the Church, the branches of the vine that bear no fruit. These parts of the building are not to be measured: they are to be ‘cast out.' The expression is important. It is that of John 9:34-35, and implies exclusion from the community of God's people. The faithless members of the Church, those who have yielded to the power of the world, have been given over to the nations, the nations of chap. Revelation 10:11, of chap. Revelation 20:3. (For contrast see chap. Revelation 2:26.)

Of these nations it is further said, the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. In the words ‘the holy city' the first allusion is to Jerusalem, but not in a material sense, as if the meaning were that the literal city should be trodden down under the feet of hostile armies. The sense, whatever it be, is metaphorical, as in the case of the ‘temple,' the ‘altar,' and the ‘court.' Jerusalem was the place which God had originally designed to be the residence of His people. In idea and in name it was still that place, but it had been profaned by too many of its citizens. At the time when our Lord knew it, and when its condition became to St. John the mould of the future, it contained both true and false members of the Jewish Church, those who were fulfilling the great end of the economy under which they lived and those who were proving themselves unworthy of their glorious destiny. The counterpart of this in after ages is the outward Christian Church, containing both good and bad members. Glorious things may be said of this city of God; but that with which we have now to do is the entrance of a heathen, of a false, element into her, by means of which the ‘nations' tread her under foot (comp. Psalms 79:1).

They do this for ‘forty and two months.' The period thus alluded to meets us again in Revelation 13:5, where it is said of the beast that ‘power was given unto him to continue 40 and 2 months.' Again we read of ‘1260 days' (= 42 months of 30 days each) in chap. Revelation 11:3, where the two witnesses prophesy 1260 days, and in chap. Revelation 12:6, where the woman is nourished in the wilderness 1260 days. And once more, in chap. Revelation 12:14 we read of the woman's being nourished for ‘a time and times and half a time.' The comparison of the two latter passages proves that the time and times and half a time are equivalent to 1260 days; and we can thus have no doubt left upon our minds that all the three periods are the same. This designation of time is taken from Daniel 7:25 (comp. also Daniel 12:7); and the different numbers must be understood symbolically. The main question is, What do they symbolize? First of all it is obvious that 3 1 /2 must be regarded as the half of 7. It is indeed expressly presented to us in this light in Daniel 9:27 where it is said, ‘and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.' The middle of the week is the half of 7, or 3 1/2. Hence the general meaning may be learned with an approach to certainty. Seven is the number of the covenant with its fulness of peace and joy and glory: three and a half is that number broken, incomplete, looking forward to something else. It symbolizes, therefore, a period of persecution and sorrow, when the covenant seems to be broken, and the promise to fail; when instead of joy there is tribulation, instead of the crown the cross. All the three numbers have essentially the same mystic meaning. Not only, however, is this the case; the considerations now adduced lead to the further conclusion that the three periods referred to denote not three periods of the same length but the same period, and that the change of nomenclature is due to the difference of aspect under which the period is viewed. When ‘months' are spoken of the prominent idea seems to be that of the rule of evil, when ‘days' that of the suffering of the good. Thus it will be found that chaps. Revelation 11:2 and Revelation 13:5 on the one hand, and chaps. Revelation 11:3 and Revelation 12:6 on the other, go together. The ‘times' or years of chap. Revelation 12:6 lead us rather to the thought of God's preserving care of His Church while evil rules and good suffers. The space of 40 and 2 months is thus identical with that of 1260 days, and both express the whole time of the Church's militant and suffering condition in the world, the whole time between the First and Second Coming of the Lord. They are the latter half of the week of the prophet Daniel, the ‘middle of the week' being the point from which the calculation runs.