And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves; and from among the peoples and tribes, etc.
, do [men] look upon, etc., and suffer not, etc., in a tomb (Revised Version). The fourfold enumeration points to the wide distribution of the state of things symbolized (cf. Revelation 4:6; Revelation 5:9, etc.
), and seems of itself almost sufficient to demonstrate that the two witnesses are not two individual persons who are hereafter to appear. The period is but three days and a half; again, as in Revelation 11:2, Revelation 11:3, a broken, that is, a finite but uncertain period; but, as compared with the three years and a half—the period of the world's existence—very short.
(On the signification of the last clause, see on Revelation 11:8.) It is the usual Eastern mark of contempt and degradation. The whole verse, together with the preceding and succeeding verses, describes symbolically, but graphically, the scorn and contempt to which the Church and God's Word will be subjected by men.