What does Revelation 11:9 mean?
At times in the past, people doubted some of the incidents depicted in Revelation, claiming that there was no way for the "entire world" to literally see something as it happened. Today, through the media of television and hand-held devices, people can follow events around the globe in real time. It is not hard to believe, therefore, that for three and a half days, at least some people from virtually all tribes and languages and nations will gaze at the dead bodies of the two witnesses.Their morbid delight at viewing the dead bodies is matched only by their wicked refusal to grant the bodies of the two witnesses burial in a tomb. The people demonstrate by their despicable delight in the death of the two witnesses that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" (Jeremiah 17:9). When Jesus hung on the cross and would soon die, "the rulers scoffed at him, saying, 'He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One'" (Luke 23:35). The soldiers also mocked Him. However, both Jesus' adversaries and the two witnesses' adversaries would soon learn that evil cannot triumph over good.