Revelation 11:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

REVELATION CHAPTER 11 Revelation 11:1,2 John is commanded to measure the temple, all but the outer court. Revelation 11:3,4 The two witnesses that shall prophesy, Revelation 11:5,6 their power, Revelation 11:7 the beast shall fight against them, and kill them, Revelation 11:8-10 they shall lie unburied three days and a half, Revelation 11:11,12 and then rise again, and ascend into heaven. Revelation 11:13 A great earthquake. Revelation 11:14 The second woe past. Revelation 11:15-19 The seventh trumpet sounded: the heavenly choir celebrate the glories of God's kingdom. And there was given me a reed like a rod; the next words tell us the use of this reed. It was a measuring reed, such a one as Ezekiel in his vision \Ezekiel 40:3\ saw in the man's hand. There, the measuring was in order to a rebuilding; here, in order to preserving. And the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God: we cannot well understand what followeth, without understanding the structure of the temple. The Jews, for the place of their worship, had first a tabernacle, then a temple. The tabernacle was a movable house, which they took down and carried about with them in their journeyings, and pitched down when in any place they pitched their tents. We read of it, Exodus 40:1-38. We read but of one court in that, into which only the priests and Levites entered; the people were without it, pitching their tents round about it. It had in it an altar of gold for incense, Exodus 40:5, which stood before the ark, Exodus 40:26,27; and an altar for burnt-offering, which stood by the door of the tabernacle, Exodus 40:29. The temple was built by Solomon, 1 Kings 6:1-38, and afterwards rebuilt by Zerubbabel, upon their return out of captivity. That was built with two courts; an inner court, 1 Kings 6:36, in which was the altar; and an outward court, which is called the great court, 2 Chronicles 4:9, and in Ezekiel, many times, the outward court. This is called the house, in 1 Kings 6:17. It was in length forty cubits; the oracle was within it, 1 Kings 6:19, where stood the ark covered with the cherubims. Into the inward court the priests and Levites only came; into the outward court came any of the Israelites. Herod, upon the additional building to the temple, added another large court, called the court of the Gentiles; but that not being of God's direction, nor in Solomon's temple, or Zerubbabel s, is not here mentioned. This temple was a type of the church under the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 3:17 2 Corinthians 6:16, and is so to be interpreted generally in this book: for the material temple at Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans more than twenty years before this prophecy, never to be built more; not one stone was left upon another; so that John here was bid to measure the church. And the altar, and them that worship therein; yet not the whole church, but that part of it which the inner court typified; the altar, and those that worshipped within that space where that was, which of old were only the priests and Levites; and under the New Testament signified those who were to be a holy priesthood, a spiritual house, those that should offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 2:5, who could endure a measuring by God's reed, the word of God.