The Plot Thickens

Not All the Jews Flee to Edom
A day of the LORD is coming when your plunder will be divided among you.
2
I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses
ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will
not be taken from the city.
3 Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. –
Zechariah 14:1-3
These verses lead us up to the Battle of Armageddon, which will be discussed in the next
chapter. Jerusalem appears to have been occupied by “foreign armies” from the mid-point of the
Tribulation when “The Abomination of Desolation” is set up–until the great battle at the end of
the Tribulation. According to the above text half of the city will go into exile and the other half
will remain.
The Jews who will remain in Jerusalem, and elsewhere in Israel during the second half of
The Tribulation, will be ignoring the warning of Jesus given some 2000 years earlier. These Jews
in fact will stay–and will maintain their secular, apostate, stance opposing the God of their
forefathers, and continuing to stumble over their own cornerstone, Jesus (Romans 9:32). God
will continue to warn them through a new generation of prophets. Their message will be like that
of Jeremiah at the time of the Babylonian captivity. At that time, when Nebuchadnezzar pillaged
Israel, remnants led by Daniel and Ezekiel had escaped to Babylon where they enjoyed God’s
protection and blessing. God clearly spoke to the Jewish people urging them to go to Babylon.
Jeremiah’s warnings went unheeded in Jerusalem, yet God did not leave himself without a
witness in the capital. Most of those who remained in Jerusalem died in the terrible destruction
of 586 BC. The glorious Temple of Solomon was pillaged, burned and destroyed on the 9th of
Av. Jeremiah was taken by rebellious countrymen to Egypt where he was soon martyred,
according to tradition.

Two Fearless Witnesses on the Temple Mount
At the mid-point of the Tribulation period Jesus will call his faithful remnant to flee
Jerusalem and hide in the desert place, and he will place two powerful witnesses on public
display in Jerusalem. For a full three and a half years they will speak to the nation and to the
world of impending judgment. In spite of the enormously hostile environment of Jerusalem in
that Day, these bold spokesmen for the Lord will be kept safe until their mission is
accomplished.
Revelation, Chapter 11, gives us details concerning two special servants God sets before his
nation during the final turbulent months just prior to the return of Messiah in power and glory:
1
I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and
the altar, and count the worshipers there. 2But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because
it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. 3And I will
give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
4These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5
If
anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how
anyone who wants to harm them must die. 6These men have power to shut up the sky so that it
will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into
blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.
7Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will
attack them, and overpower and kill them. 8Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city,
which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. 9
For three and
a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse
them burial. 10The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each
other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.
11But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on
their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. 12Then they heard a loud voice from heaven
saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies
looked on.
13At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven
thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to
the God of heaven.
14The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon. – Revelation 11:1-14
This parenthetical section describes Two Witnesses who are given supernatural power to
prophesy, to perform miracles and to speak the truth boldly without fear of being captured or
killed for a period of 1260 days, which is the same length of time as the 42 months of verse 2 in
this same chapter. The 42 months, in turn, is the same as 3 1/2 years, the exact duration of the
second half of the Tribulation. This also corresponds to the period of the evil dictator‘s reign in
chapter 13, verse 5.
The identity of these two is not certain, but they could be Enoch and Elijah since these
are the two people who were taken to heaven without dying (See Genesis 5:24 and 2 Kings
2:11). Since it is “appointed for men to die once” (Hebrews 9:27), God may be planning to send
these two back to conclude their life’s work in this striking manner, and to die. Elijah was, of
course, a prophet and it is said of Enoch that he prophesied also (Jude 14).
It is also possible that they will be Moses and Elijah since these were the two who
appeared with Jesus in his transfiguration (Matthew 17:3). If this is the case, they would
represent the two Old Testament periods of The Law and The Prophets. Moses did die, but he
was with God alone when he it happened, and was personally buried by God (Deuteronomy
34:1-8). He was considered the greatest of prophets (Deuteronomy 34:10).
These Two Witnesses are identified as “two olive trees.” This is reminiscent of the
imagery in Zechariah’s prophecy of two olive trees that automatically supplied oil continuously
to the Golden lampstand in the Temple (Zechariah 4:1-14). The meaning given in the passage is
that the work of rebuilding the Temple in Zerubbabel’s days was ” ‗Not by might nor by power,
but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). Likewise, though enemies are
arrayed against God in the last days, his purposes will prevail by the power of his Holy Spirit.
The miraculous powers that these two demonstrate will be very much like the miracles
performed by Moses and Elijah (Exodus chapters 4 through 12; 1 Kings 17:1,7; 18:1,19-45; 2
Kings 1:10-14). This is another indication that the Two Witnesses could be Moses and Elijah.
When their work is finished, God will allow them to be put to death. The place of their
death will be Jerusalem, probably on the Temple Mount. The City greatly loved by God is
known for killing the prophets (Matthew 23:37). On his way to be crucified, Jesus remarked that
God’s prophets were always killed in Jerusalem!
Conservative Bible commentators on the book of Revelation are divided about the time
period of the work of the Two Witnesses (followed of course by their death, resurrection and
ascension). Does this work take place in the first half or the second half of The Tribulation
Period? If their ministry is during the first half of The Tribulation they will presumably have a
bigger audience on site. The completion of their ministry is marked by an earthquake. Then,
presumably, the False Prophet of Revelation 13, Paul’s man of sin, will step into the newly
completed Third Temple and defile it. Followers of Christ who are in Jerusalem at that time have
been told ahead of time by Jesus himself to flee Jerusalem at once when that desecration happens
(Matthew 24:15-22).
If, on the other hand, the Two Witnesses engage in their bold preaching during the Great
Tribulation, (i.e., the second 3.5 year portion of the Tribulation period, the “time of Jacob’s
trouble”) they will need God’s maximum protection–the man of sin will surely do all he can to
wipe them out. Horrific violence will occur all over the earth, Israel and Jerusalem will be
invaded and nearly destroyed completely. The earthquake that marks the end of the ministry of
the Two Witnesses from the Temple Mount could then be the same earthquake marking the
second coming of Jesus Christ to the Mount of Olives as described in Zechariah 14.
Spiritually speaking, Jerusalem can be compared to Sodom and Egypt, immoral places
that were condemned by the Lord. Ungodly people rejoice at their death because they had stood
against all their evil deeds.
After three and a half days, the Two Witnesses will be raised from the dead and caught
up to heaven when they heard the words from heaven, “Come up here.” The rapture of the
Church happens at the beginning of The Tribulation, but this event toward the end of these seven
years is similar, and may even be representative of what happens to the believing martyrs of this
period of time.