Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Two Witnesses
Revelation 11:3-6
3 I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” · WEB
Two witnesses prophesy through the whole span in sackcloth, identified by Zechariah's olive trees, armed with the powers of Moses and Elijah.
I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.
The voice is God's own — my two witnesses — and their term is the great period again, in its day-form Revelation 11:2: through the whole long era of the trodden court, the witness never stops. But its dress is sackcloth — mourning cloth, the prophet's garb of hard times Revelation 11:3: testimony sustained through the entire span, and sustained in grief — truth alive but in mourning, prophesying through centuries that gave it no hearing and no honor.
Who are they? The book answers with its decoding voice: these are the two olive trees and the two lamp stands, standing before the Lord of the earth Revelation 11:4.
The identification is Zechariah's vision, quoted almost verbatim Zechariah 4:3 Zechariah 4:14. There, the two olive trees fed golden oil to the lampstand — the emblem of the word working not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit Zechariah 4:6. Lampstands, by this book's own key, are light-bearers for God Revelation 1:20; olive trees are the oil's living source. The two witnesses are God's testimony itself in its two-part fullness — the word in both its covenants, the law and the prophets with the apostles, Scripture's own double witness Deuteronomy 19:15 — sustained by the Spirit's oil, giving light through the darkest span, embodied in the faithful line that carried the word when carrying it cost everything Revelation 6:9 Revelation 12:17.
Their armament is the assembled arsenal of the two great witness-prophets: if anyone desires to harm them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies — Elijah's answer to the arresting captains 2 Kings 1:10, and Jeremiah's definition of it: I will make my words in your mouth fire Jeremiah 5:14. These have the power to shut up the sky, that it may not rain during the days of their prophecy — Elijah's drought, three years and six months, the same span in miniature 1 Kings 17:1 James 5:17. Power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague — Moses' credentials entire Exodus 7:20.
The word, in its sackcloth centuries, was never defenseless: what it spoke came true — droughts and plagues of judgment on its despisers — and those who set out to destroy it were, generation after generation, consumed by the fire of the very words they suppressed. The witness mourned, and testified, and could not be silenced — until the term itself was finished Revelation 11:7.
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