And when they shall have finished their
testimony
For Christ, his truths and ordinances; when they are about to
finish it, and almost concluded it, even towards the close of the
1260 days or years, in which they must prophesy in sackcloth: or
else their testimony and their prophesying may be considered as
two distinct things, and the one be finished before the other;
their open public testimony, as witnesses, so as to be heard,
attended to, and received, will be finished before the last war
of the beast against them, in which they will be killed; but
their prophesying will continue to the end of the beast's reign,
these two being contemporary, of equal date, beginning and ending
together; for they will prophesy when they are dead; being dead
they will yet speak, and their very death will be a prophesying
or foretelling that the ruin of antichrist is at hand; and upon
their resurrection and ascension, that will immediately come on.
But when their testimony is finished, by a free and open
publication of the Gospel,
the beast that ascended out of the bottomless
pit;
the same with that in ( Revelation
13:11 ) , with which compare ( Revelation
17:8 ) ; and which is no other than the Romish antichrist;
called a beast for his filthiness and cruelty; and said to ascend
out of the bottomless pit, out of hell, because his coming is
after the working of Satan: he is raised up, influenced, and
supported by him; he is a creature of his, and has his power,
seat, and authority from him, the great dragon, the old serpent,
called the devil and Satan; his original and rise are the same
with those of his doctrine and worship, the smoke of the
bottomless pit; they all come out of it, and they will return
thither again. The Alexandrian copy, and some others, read, "the
fourth beast that ascendeth" as if it was the same with Daniel's
fourth beast, ( Daniel 7:7 Daniel 7:19 ) , as it
doubtless is. Now this filthy and savage beast
shall make war against them;
the witnesses; a war he has been making against the saints ever
since he was in power, by his decrees, his counsels, his
anathemas, and by sword, fire, and faggot, ( Revelation
13:7 ) ; but this will be his last war, and it will be a
dreadful one; it will be the last struggle of the beast; and
though it will be attended with the conquest and slaughter of the
witnesses, yet it will lead on to, and issue in his own ruin;
this is "the hour of temptation", in ( Revelation
3:10 ) ;
and shall overcome them;
not by arguments taken out of the word of God, by which their
mouths will be stopped, so as to be confounded, and have nothing
to say, or so as to yield to him, and give up the truths and
ordinances of the Gospel; but by outward force and tyranny, so as
that they shall be obliged to give way, and he will take
possession of the kingdoms and nations in which they have
prophesied: he will first attack the outward court, the bulk of
formal professors, and will prevail over them; and then, the
outworks being taken, he will more easily come at the inner court
worshippers within the temple.
And kill them;
not corporeally, but civilly; for as their dead bodies lying
three days and a half, that is, three years and a half, unburied,
and their resurrection from the dead, and ascension to heaven,
cannot be understood literally, so neither the killing of them;
not but that in this war there may be a great slaughter, and much
blood shed, in a literal sense: but the killing spoken of seems
to regard them, not as men, but as witnesses; they will not be
suffered to bear an open testimony any longer; they will be
silenced; they will be banished, or removed into corners; and
they will not only be under the censures, excommunications, and
anathemas of the Romish antichrist, but they will lose all credit
and esteem among those, who once pretended to be their friends;
who will be ashamed of them, and will join in reproaching and
rejecting them; so that their ministrations will be quite shut
up, and at an end.