Revelation (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture) by Peter S. Williamson

Author:Peter S. Williamson [Williamson, Peter S.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Catholic Church—Doctrines, REL006070, New Testament Bible—Revelation—Commentaries, REL006100, REL010000
ISBN: 9781441219640
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-10T04:00:00+00:00

[11:8]

The corpses of the two witnesses lie in the main street or square of the great city. The identity of this city is elusive. On the one hand, the seven other uses of this phrase in Revelation (16:19; 17:18; the rest in chap. 18) clearly indicate Babylon, which most interpreters understand to refer to Rome, as it does in 1 Pet 5:13. But here the great city is further identified as having the symbolic names15 “Sodom,” a city known for its wickedness, and “Egypt,” a nation famous for the judgments God executed against it. The city is further identified as where indeed their Lord was crucified, which of course was Jerusalem. What does this mean? Some have proposed that Rome was understood to extend as far as its imperial power reached, so that Jesus’ death at the hands of a Roman governor by a Roman mode of execution could be regarded as occurring in Rome. I, however, am inclined to think that the symbolic geography of 11:1–2 is extended here: the temple and the holy city Jerusalem refer to God’s people at worship; the outer court trampled by the †Gentiles symbolizes the world system that is opposed to God and his people and was embodied in Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, Rome, and the earthly Jerusalem that put Jesus to death.

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