Who Are the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11?

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Passage: Revelation 11:3-13 (ESV)

If you’ve ever read through the book of Revelation, you’ve probably ended your reading with more questions than answers. In Revelation 11, we find one of those questions Bible scholars and Bible readers have wrestled with for centuries: Who are the two witnesses in Revelation 11? They are powerful, devoted to Christ, persecuted, and yet unnamed. 

But as always, the Old and New Testaments offer context and clues that provide a plausible answer and, more importantly, help us “hear and keep” the prophecy written in Revelation (see Revelation 1:3).

Why are there only two witnesses?

In Revelation 11:3a, Jesus says, “And I will give power to my two witnesses,”

The Old and New Testaments are both clear that matters are to be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses:

• Deuteronomy 17:6: Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.
• Matthew 18:16: But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’
• 2 Corinthians 13:1: This will be the third time I am coming to you. “By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.”

Throughout Scripture, important matters are established by two witnesses. Consider the following examples:

• Numbers 14:6: Two of the spies commissioned by Moses correctly established that the promised land was good and that God would deliver it to His people.
• Joshua 2:1: Joshua sent two men into the land, especially Jericho, to spy it out.
• Mark 6:7: Jesus sent the twelve out in groups of two so they could preach and establish the truth of Jesus as Messiah “by the mouth of two witnesses.”
• John 20:12: Two angels were in the tomb to establish the truth of Jesus’ resurrection.
• Acts 1:10: Two men/angels were at Jesus’ ascension, telling the disciples that He’d return in the same manner as he went.

Jesus calls these men witnesses (11:2) because, by their mouths, they will establish that Jesus is the Messiah (or the Christ) and that the Antichrist is not. The witnesses will urge their listeners to repent, place their faith in Christ, and not take the mark of the beast.

What will the two witnesses do?

These two witnesses are granted special power and authority by God to preach about the existing and coming judgments and God’s gracious offer of the gospel for all who will believe. This will be a time of unprecedented judgment. However, the preaching of these two witnesses also demonstrates that even as God judges, He goes to extraordinary lengths to evangelize the Earth through them.

In Revelation 11:3b, Jesus says, “They will prophesy.” We generally think of prophesying as predicting the future, which it can mean, but more often, it refers to speaking forth God’s Word with authority. In 1 Corinthians 14:3, Paul says, “he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.” In a sense, these two witnesses will be discussing the future in that they’ll predict what will happen to unrepentant people. More importantly, they’ll speak forth God’s Word in a convicting manner.

How long will the two witnesses preach, prophesy, and bear witness?

Throughout Revelation, time is measured in years, months, and days. We read that these two witnesses will “prophesy for 1,260 days.” If you’re doing the math, that’s 3.5 years. However, there is some debate about which half of the seven years of the Great Tribulation this refers to.

Bible commentator H.A. Ironside believes it’s the first 3.5 years, while John MacArthur and others believe it’s the second half.

I believe it’s the second half for a couple of reasons.

First, I believe it refers to the same 3.5 years as the Gentiles “will tread the holy city underfoot” (11:2). It makes sense to me that, since this verse follows the previous one, it refers to the same period.

Second, these men experience terrible satanic opposition (Revelation 11:7-10), which would seem to take place only after the Antichrist’s true colors are revealed at the midpoint of the Great Tribulation.

Why do the two witnesses wear sackcloth?

In Biblical times, sackcloth (11:3) was worn by people to express penitence, humility, and mourning. You could also say it was the uniform of the Old Testament prophets. These two witnesses mourn because of the world’s terrible wickedness, including the desecration of the temple and, most significantly, their rejection of the Messiah.

Why are the two witnesses compared with olive trees and lampstands?

In Revelation 11:4, the witnesses are called “the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.”

Lampstands provide light, so these two should be pictured as lampstands spreading the light of the gospel or the light of God’s word to a dark world.

We also see the lampstand imagery taken from the Old Testament in Zechariah 4, where Joshua and Zerubbabel are associated with another literal rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.

And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” Zechariah 4:2-3

Zechariah is given a vision of the temple lampstand known as the menorah. It had seven branches, each with its flaming lamp. Since Zechariah was speaking to the people about rebuilding the temple, it makes sense that God would give him a vision involving an item used in the temple.

Zechariah’s lampstand vision represented the nation of Israel and the light they were meant to give to the world as the witness nation. While they were in Babylon, their witness (or light) was darkened. When the Jews returned to their land, they would rebuild the temple and be that witness to the world. Their lamp (meaning their nation) would resume burning and provide light.

But the lampstand in Zechariah’s vision also had a bowl above it, which served as a reservoir for oil. Seven pipes channeled oil from the bowl to the seven lamps.

Additionally, there are two olive trees beside the bowl, one on the right and the other on its left (Zechariah 4:3). When Zechariah describes the vision, he says two branches from the trees pour oil into the bowl (Zechariah 4:12).

Olives were a common fuel source in the Old Testament, and these two trees provide the olives for the oil that fills the bowl and runs through the pipes to the lamps.

Keeping the temple lamps burning required enormous work from the priests. The oil had to be produced by grinding and pressing olives in an oil press. Every morning, the priests would put out the lamps, clean them, and refill them with fresh olive oil. They had to be continually refilled. The soot had to be removed. Wicks had to be maintained. But in Zechariah’s vision, two beautiful truths are revealed.

First, this lampstand will have a limitless oil supply to keep it burning. Second, oil flows directly from the trees to the bowl to the lamps, and no effort is required from men to keep the lamps burning. So it’s no surprise that we read in the next verses, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

God’s inexhaustible spirit will fuel these two witnesses and burn bright with the light of the gospel. How? Miraculously.

Why do the two witnesses perform miracles?

Miracles seem to be one of the primary ways to identify God’s messengers.

In the New Testament, the apostles were identified as such because of the signs and wonders they performed (see 2 Corinthians 12:12).  Throughout the Old Testament, Moses, Elijah, and Elisha each performed signs and miracles as evidence that they were truly God’s messengers.

In the same way, miracles will accompany these two witnesses to authenticate their ministries as God’s messengers. Revelation 11:5 says, “And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner.” They seem to be invincible until their three-and-a-half-year ministry is done.

Devouring someone by fire is drastic, but this instance in Revelation is not the first time Scripture talks about it.

In 2 Kings 1:9-14, Ahaziah, King of Israel, sent three platoons of soldiers to arrest Elijah. When the first two platoons came, Elijah called down fire from heaven that destroyed them. When the third group came, their captain acted differently toward Elijah, and God told Elijah to go with him.

Just as the real fire came from heaven and destroyed Elijah’s enemies, I think the fire in Revelation is literal. It will destroy people who attack the two witnesses, but I don’t know if the fire proceeds from their mouths or if their mouths call it down from heaven as Elijah did. Either way, their dramatic supernatural protection is similar to the protection Elijah had.

We’ve talked a few times about the devil being the great imitator, and one way he imitates God is by the use of his false prophet, who serves as Antichrist’s witness. This false prophet performs the same miracle. “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men” (Revelation 13:13).

In another allusion to Elijah, the two witnesses “have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy” (Revelation 11:6).

You probably remember the story of Elijah, who told Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word” (1 Kings 17:1). What’s more, the amount of time Elijah stopped it from raining (3.5 years according to James 5:17) is the same amount of time the witnesses proclaim no rain. These similarities and allusions suggest that one of the two witnesses is the prophet Elijah!

Who might the other prophet be?

In Revelation 11:6b, we see that “they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire.”

Who else was given the power to strike the Earth with plagues, including turning water into blood? I’m sure you remember the story of Moses, who called down plagues in response to Pharoah’s disobedience and hardening of his heart (see Exodus 7:14-25).

But by the time we get to Revelation 11, Earth’s water will already have been devastated by previous trumpet judgments:

• In the 2nd Trumpet Judgment, 1/3 of the sea became blood.
• In the 3rd Trumpet Judgment, 1/3 of the freshwater became blood.

In yet another act of judgment, these two witnesses turn some of the remaining water into blood, which magnifies the suffering from the drought. This drought will add immeasurable torment to those already terribly suffering, and because the suffering will increase, the global hatred for God’s witnesses will greatly increase.

While modern believers look to these men as faithful witnesses of Jesus, the world will see them as the bad guys. The Antichrist will promise peace and seem to be trying to restore order to the world while these two are calling down fire, destroying people, and making the already scant water unusable. With that contrast at the fore, the witnesses will look even worse to the world, and the Antichrist will look even better.

So, who are the two witnesses in Revelation 11?

The three most common suggestions are Elijah, Moses, and Noah’s great-grandfather Enoch, and between these three, almost everyone agrees Elijah is one of them. This is based on a famous prophecy at the end of the Old Testament. Malachi 4 is the last chapter of the Old Testament, and that means these are the last two verses spoken by God before entering His “400 years of silence” until John the Baptist comes on the scene:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the Earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:5

These words, combined with the fact that Elijah and John the Baptist bore a resemblance to each other and shared similar ministries, explain why some people believed John the Baptist was Elijah. If the verses in Malachi contain a prophecy that Elijah will be sent back before Christ’s coming, and then Christ came, it would seem like John was Elijah. But John came before Christ’s first coming and Elijah before his second.

Some people think the other witness is Enoch because he never died; he was taken to heaven, as depicted in an Old Testament type or picture of the Rapture. Hebrews 9:27 states, “It is appointed for men to die once,” leading some people to believe that Elijah must return as one of the witnesses so that he can die.

However, that argument doesn’t hold much weight with me because we know Hebrews 9:27 is more of a generalization than an absolute. For example, people like Lazarus and Jairus’s daughter were both raised from the dead and died again later, and believers who are raptured will never die.

There’s much more evidence for one of the witnesses being Moses than Enoch. Moses and Elijah have a lot in common:

• They’re mentioned together at the end of the Old Testament in Malachi 4:4-5.
• Both used supernatural means to provoke repentance, just like the two witnesses in Revelation.
• Both parted waters.
• Both had strange ends to their lives:
  • Elijah was taken alive into heaven.
  • God buried Moses’s body where it couldn’t be found, possibly implying it would be needed later.
    • According to Jude 1:9, the devil seemed to want Moses’s body, possibly to prevent him from coming back as a witness.
    • Elijah’s body was taken to heaven and couldn’t be found.
• Both seemed to end their lives near the same place, on the east side of the Jordan (Deuteronomy 34:1, 2 Kings 2:8)
• Both appeared with Jesus at the Transfiguration, which was the preview of Christ’s second coming.
• Both met God on Mt. Sinai (1 Kings 19:8, Exodus 19:3-25).
• Both were chased out of their countries by pagan rulers (Pharaoh and Jezebel).
• Both were miraculously fed and watered.
• Both fasted for 40 days.
• Both were succeeded by close associations (Joshua and Elisha)
• Their successors both parted waters.

Are those commonalities enough to prove the two witnesses are Elijah and Moses?

To be clear, I don’t think Moses is the second witness because he has much in common with Elijah. We can believe Moses and Elijah are the witnesses because they represent the Law and the Prophets, and we believe Jesus is the Messiah because of the Law and the Prophets.

Consider this: People might say, “I believe Jesus is the Messiah because He changed my life.” While that sounds like a good answer, it isn’t because practitioners could say the same thing about every other religion. Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology,  or any other -ism could change your life.

We don’t merely believe Jesus is the Messiah because of the change we experience. He’s the Messiah because the Law and the Prophets testify that He is! We believe Jesus is the Messiah because He fulfilled all the Old Testament types, shadows, and, most importantly, prophecies.

Here’s another way to look at it: everything is supposed to be established by two or three witnesses. You can easily argue from the New Testament that the two witnesses identifying Christ as the Messiah are the Law and the Prophets.

Interestingly, Moses is the individual most associated with the Law; the Law is even called “The Law of Moses.” Elijah could represent the prophets. In some ways, he could be considered the greatest Old Testament prophet, considering the miracles he performed and how he almost single-handedly wiped out Baal worship from the land.

The New Testament provides many instances of the Law and the Prophets testifying of Jesus:

In John 5:39-40 Jesus said, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These Scriptures testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” Jesus was referring to the Scripture of the Old Testament. In those days, the common name for the Old Testament was “the law and the prophets.”

A little later in John 5:45-47, Jesus said, “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch or the Torah. Above all other Old Testament Scriptures, these five books held a highly esteemed and special place in the hearts of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day and Orthodox Jews today.

Moreover, Jesus clearly said that Moses wrote these books about Him.

• John 1:45: “Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
• Luke 16:16: “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John (the Baptist).” It is as though The Law and the Prophets, or Old Testament, was a treasure map to lead readers to the treasure, which is Christ. With Jesus’ arrival, the map had served its purpose, and now John could speak directly about Jesus.
• Luke 24:27:Luke tells us that on the road to Emmaus, Jesus talked to his disciples, “and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” When Jesus wanted to reveal Himself to these two, He used Moses and all the Prophets.
• Hebrews 10:1: “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason, it [the law] can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.” One of the main objectives of the author of Hebrews was to call Jews who were stuck in Judaism and get them to embrace Christ. They were obsessed with the “shadows,” and the author wanted them to become obsessed with the One who cast the shadows. He says that the shadow, in this case, the law, can’t make anyone perfect. Jesus, on the other hand, being superior to the shadow and the reality of the shadow, can make perfect those who draw near to worship (see Hebrews 10:14).
• To further draw these Orthodox Jews away from the shadows they were embracing ( the Judaism they were having trouble leaving for Christianity), the author of Hebrews records Jesus saying, “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”(Hebrews 10:7). This is a quote from Psalm 40:6-8, written by David, but it is attributed here to Jesus by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jesus says that the entire Bible is written about Him.

The Beautiful Conclusion

Right before Jesus returns to the Earth in His second coming, the Law and the Prophets come to life in the persons of Moses and Elijah, testifying that Jesus is the Messiah. Why were Moses and Elijah with Jesus at The Transfiguration? They stood by Him in the flesh as a testament that He is the Messiah.

The word for testimony means:

1. A testifying: the office committed to the prophets of testifying concerning future events
2. What one testifies, testimony, i.e., before a judge

Before His second coming, these two men will testify that Jesus is the Messiah; that will be their testimony. They will be testifying to a Christ-rejecting world that Jesus is, in fact, the Christ. They should do this before Christ returns, before it’s too late, before all these people are cast into hell.

They’ll likely also expose the Antichrist as the Antichrist, warn people not to take the mark, and warn them about the eternal judgment that awaits them if they do. We can be sure they’ll rebuke people for their sinfulness and urge them to seek forgiveness.

Why doesn’t Revelation tell us Moses and Elijah’s names?

There are two final points to consider regarding the two witnesses. First, the absence of their names in Scripture can be viewed in two ways. One perspective is that since their identities are not explicitly revealed, it may not be critically important for us to know who they are. On the other hand, some might argue that God intends for us to discern their identities because He provided numerous clues throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Second, while many speculate that the two witnesses are Moses, Elijah, or Enoch, it is also possible that they could simply be two individuals specifically chosen by the Lord during the Great Tribulation. However, this scenario is considered less likely.

Regardless of who the two witnesses are, our mission as witnesses living between Christ’s first and second comings is to remain faithful to our coming King, endure suffering patiently while we wait for him, and testify to the good news of the gospel to all who have ears to hear.

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