Having ascertained the nature of the death to which the witnesses are appointed by the Lord of life, we now inquire as to the time of this mournful event.  The text informs us that their death is connected with the “finishing of their testimony.”  However the original may be translated,—­when they shall have finished,—­when they shall be finishing,—­or about to finish, affects not the question as to time.  While they live, their work is to prophesy, and their testimony is not completed.  Like their Master, to whose example they are conformed, their life and testimony are finished together.  These facts, briefly and obscurely hinted here, will be more satisfactorily presented in the next, but especially in the twentieth chapter, (vs. 1-4.) But inasmuch as many, if not most interpreters, have expressed the opinion that the witnesses are already slain, the following arguments in the negative are submitted to the reader.

The 1260 years are not yet terminated, during which,—­the whole of which time,—­the witnesses are to “prophesy,” (v. 3.) Their testimony is yet continued, and sensibly felt by the wicked.  They still more or less “torment them that dwell on the earth,” (v. 10.) Beyond the usual reproach attached to their names and their work, there has been no general reviling and deriding of them throughout Christendom, to render their memory infamous, (v. 9.)—­No opprobrious epithets such as, “These deceivers said, while they were yet alive,” (Matt, xxvii. 63,) that so they might be conformed to their Lord in his death.  Nor, lastly, have “they that dwell upon the earth” exulted as yet over these hated individuals, as no longer “hurtful to kings and provinces,”—­although there have been, often, partial but premature rejoicings by a part of the enemy.  But although from time to time, “some of them, have fallen, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white” as predicted, (Dan. xi. 35;) yet the time of “making merry, sending gifts,”—­is not yet come.

While we believe, on the grounds adduced,—­and much more might have been cited from the context,—­that the death of the witnesses is to be understood literally, we do not suppose that every individual will be personally put to death.  No, but as in the time of Elijah’s banishment, or of our Saviour’s lying in the grave, there will be no public body or individual standard-bearer, to bear testimony against the enemies of Jesus Christ, or boldly to assert and press his royal claims upon church and state.  In prospect of this dark time,—­darker than the “dark ages,” we may ask with Joshua,—­“What wilt thou do unto thy great name?” But though the witnesses die, the Faithful Witness lives, (ch. i. 18.)