Joined in death

Two witnesses come to the city to breath fire, shut up the heavens, turn water to blood, bring plagues (Revelation 11). The people of the city kill them.

What lies on the street is “their body” ( ptoma , v. 8) and that’s what the peoples and tribes and nations gaze at (v. 9). Two witnesses, but one corpse, a corpse that belongs to “them” ( auton ). Like the man of God of Judah and the old prophet of Bethel who share a grave (1 Kings 13), the two witnesses are joined in death.

In martyrdom, the two become one flesh, one corpse of Christ.