The Two Witnesses: Their Power, Their Death, and Their Resurrection
The short answer
Revelation 11 gives the two witnesses 1,260 days of prophesying in sackcloth, with power to shut the sky, turn water to blood, strike the earth with plagues, and consume anyone who tries to harm them. Then the beast out of the abyss makes war on them and kills them, and their bodies lie in the street for three and a half days while the world celebrates. Then God breathes life into them, calls them up, and an earthquake shakes the city. That entire sequence is the hinge before the seventh trumpet announces the Kingdom.
This is part two. If you haven't read the first part on who they actually are, start there: Who Are the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11?
What power are they actually given?
Read Revelation 11:3–6 slowly, because the list is specific. Fire proceeds out of their mouths and devours their enemies. They have authority to shut up the sky so that no rain falls during their prophesying. They can turn the waters to blood and strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.
Notice whose signatures those are. Shutting the heavens is Elijah. Water to blood and plagues on a nation is Moses. Whoever these witnesses are, they operate in the same spirit and power that those two men carried — which is exactly why so many readers have assumed they must be Moses and Elijah returned in person.
And they are untouchable while their assignment runs. "If anyone desires to harm them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies." No one takes them out early. The text is careful about the timing: the beast can only kill them "when they have finished their testimony."
The beast that finally kills them
Revelation 11:7 introduces him: "the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them." Revelation 13 then describes him — rising out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns, like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the crucial line: "the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority."
Keep those two apart, because people run them together. The dragon is Satan. The beast is a man who receives authority from him. Just as God works through prophets, the adversary works through a chosen vessel — he imitates everything God does.
His programme is stated plainly. "It was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation was given to him" (Revelation 13:7). Daniel saw the same figure centuries earlier: "He will speak words against the Most High, and will wear out the holy ones... they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time" (Daniel 7:25). And Revelation 13:8 names who follows him — everyone whose name is not written in the Lamb's book of life.
He will not arrive looking like a monster. He arrives looking like the solution.
Sodom, Egypt and Babylon: what the city names mean
Revelation 11:8 says their bodies lie "in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." That is a deliberate stacking of names, and each one carries a diagnosis.
Sodom — moral collapse. And it is worth reading Ezekiel 16:49 rather than assuming: "pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her... neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." Arrogance, comfort, and indifference to the poor are named first. That should make every prosperous nation uncomfortable, including ours.
Egypt — bondage and idolatry. Exodus describes a people made to serve with rigour, their lives made bitter, under a pantheon standing in direct opposition to the one true God. Where Revelation invokes Egypt, it is warning of spiritual slavery dressed up as normal life.
Babylon the great — a corrupt global system. "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth" (Revelation 17:5). Revelation 18:3 describes the nations drunk on her, the kings entangled with her, and the merchants of the earth grown rich from her luxury. Political, economic and religious corruption, fused.
People ask which nation Babylon is. Many teachers see the pattern in modern Western economic power, and that reading is worth taking seriously — but hold it loosely. Revelation's own emphasis is on a system rather than a flag, and the description fits wherever wealth, empire and false worship are braided together. Read Revelation 18 and ask honestly how much of it describes the world you shop in.
That is what the two witnesses are sent against. Their testimony is not a general sermon — it is a direct confrontation with three specific strongholds. And Revelation promises the outcome: "a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, 'Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down'" (Revelation 18:21).
Where the 1,260 days sit on the timeline
The number given is 1,260 days — three and a half years on a 360-day prophetic calendar. That is half of Daniel's seventieth week: "he will make a firm covenant with many for one week, and in the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease" (Daniel 9:27). Seven years, split in half at the abomination of desolation.
So the witnesses' ministry fills one half of that week, and their death marks the transition into the other.
A word of caution on the day-for-year principle. Scripture really does use it — Ezekiel 4:6 ("I have appointed each day for a year") and Numbers 14:34 ("forty days, for every day a year") are explicit. But it is assigned there by God for those specific signs, and applying it to Revelation 11 would stretch the witnesses' ministry to 1,260 years, which breaks the three-and-a-half-year framework the same chapter depends on. Here, the plain reading of days as days is the stronger one.
Three and a half days in the street
This is the detail that tells you how the world will receive them. Their bodies are left unburied — a deliberate humiliation in that culture — and Revelation 11:10 says those who dwell on the earth rejoice, celebrate and send gifts to one another. A global holiday over two corpses.
And every eye is on them, from every people, tribe, language and nation. For most of history that was impossible. It isn't now.
The breath, the cloud, the earthquake
Then comes the most dramatic reversal in the book. "After the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. I heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up here!' They went up into heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them" (Revelation 11:11–12).
Two older scenes are deliberately echoed. Ezekiel 37, where God tells dry bones, "I will cause breath to enter into you, and you will live" — the same authority over death, at national scale. And Acts 1:9, where Yeshua is taken up and a cloud receives him out of their sight. The witnesses follow their Lord's pattern exactly: killed publicly, raised, taken up in a cloud.
The difference is who watches. The disciples saw Yeshua ascend. Here, their enemies see it. There is no room left for doubt, and none for a cover story.
Then: "in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven" (Revelation 11:13). Read that last clause again — the survivors give glory to God. Even here, in the middle of judgment, people turn. It echoes the crucifixion, where the earth quaked, the rocks split, the tombs opened, and a centurion said what he said.
Then the seventh trumpet
Their ascension leads straight into it: "The seventh angel sounded, and great voices in heaven followed, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. He will reign forever and ever!'" (Revelation 11:15).
That is where the whole chapter has been heading. Not to a tragedy in a street, but to an announcement — and then to a King who reigns, and a creation restored so thoroughly that a child can put a hand near what used to be lethal and come away unharmed.
Why this is not a spectator sport
Here is my own conviction, laid out in part one and worth repeating: I believe the two witnesses are a people rather than two individuals — the unified remnant, Messianic Jews and grafted-in believers, standing as one prophetic testimony. Weigh that in the Word; brothers I respect read it differently.
But whichever way you land, notice what Revelation 12:11 says about how this is overcome: "They overcame him because of the Lamb's blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn't love their life, even to death." Blood, testimony, and a loosened grip on self-preservation. That is the whole armoury, and it is available to you now.
So don't hold your salvation lightly and don't mistake attendance for relationship. Going to a building on Sunday saves no one; knowing him does. If the hour ahead is what Scripture says it is, the people who stand in it will be the ones who were rooted before it started.
Frequently asked questions
What powers do the two witnesses have?
Revelation 11:5–6 lists four: fire from their mouths against those who try to harm them, authority to stop the rain, power to turn water to blood, and power to strike the earth with plagues at will.
Who kills the two witnesses?
The beast that comes up out of the abyss (Revelation 11:7) — and only after their testimony is finished. Nothing cuts their assignment short.
How long is the ministry of the two witnesses?
1,260 days — three and a half years on a 360-day prophetic calendar, which is half of Daniel's seventieth week (Daniel 9:27).
What city is called Sodom and Egypt in Revelation 11:8?
The verse adds "where also their Lord was crucified," which points to Jerusalem, while the names Sodom and Egypt are given as spiritual diagnoses — moral collapse and spiritual bondage — rather than as geography.
Is Babylon in Revelation a real nation?
Revelation describes a system of political, economic and religious corruption that the nations and merchants of the earth are entangled with. Many teachers identify it with a modern power; the text itself keeps the focus on the system.
Do the two witnesses really come back to life?
Revelation 11:11–12 says the breath of life from God enters them after three and a half days, they stand up, and they ascend in a cloud while their enemies watch — the same pattern as Acts 1:9.
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