Bible Strands
Revelation 11:8
Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city—figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where their Lord was also crucified.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — John reports a vision to the seven churches: the two witnesses have just been killed by the beast from the Abyss (v. 7), and their fate is now described.
The words — πτῶμα (ptōma) is the word for a corpse or carcass, not merely "body"; it marks the witnesses as discarded, unclean things left in the open.
The thread — The pairing "Sodom and Egypt" has no other occurrence in Scripture; Sodom as the archetype of sin appears in Genesis 19 and Ezekiel 16:46–58, while Egypt functions as a symbol of bondage throughout the Old Testament. The "great city" where the Lord was crucified identifies the location as Jerusalem (cf. Rev 18:10; Jer 23:14).
Why it lands — The verse forces the reader to hold the sacred and the corrupt in the same place: the city that witnessed the Lord's death is simultaneously a symbol of the world's moral failure, and the witnesses' unburied corpses are left in its public square.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 23:14 And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”
- Revelation 18:10 In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”
- Ezekiel 16:53 But I will restore Sodom and her daughters from captivity, as well as Samaria and her daughters. And I will restore you along with them.
- Hebrews 13:12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate, to sanctify the people by His own blood.
- Revelation 18:21 Then a mighty angel picked up a stone the size of a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be cast down, never to be seen again.
- Amos 4:11 “Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Matthew 10:15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
- 2 Peter 2:6 if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;
- Jude 1:7 In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.
- Revelation 11:9 For three and a half days all peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will view their bodies and will not permit them to be laid in a tomb.