And they that dwell upon the earth
Out of which the beast arose, and over which he reigns, even the
inhabitants of the Roman empire, often in this book called the
earth, the followers of antichrist, men that mind nothing but
earth, and earthly things: shall rejoice over them, and
make merry, and shall send gifts one to
another;
as is usual with persons, and was with the Jews, to do in times
of public rejoicing; see ( Esther 9:18 Esther 9:19 ) (
Nehemiah
8:10 Nehemiah
8:11 ) .
Because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the
earth;
not because they were tormented by them, but because they were
now freed from their tormenting ministry; they had tormented them
by the preaching of the Gospel, which is foolishness, and the
savour of death to natural men, and gives them pain, and fills
them with vexation and wrath; by their testimony which they had
bore for Christ, and against antichrist; by their sharp reproof
of them for their false doctrine and will worship, and their
impure lives and conversations; by their own holy lives, which
would sometimes flash light into their consciences, and make them
uneasy; and by their foretelling the calamities and ruin,
temporal and eternal, that would come upon them; but now they are
silenced, and they hear and see no more of these things at which
they rejoice.