Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Men from among (ek twn etc.). No word for "men" (anqrwpoi or polloi) before ek twn, but it is implied (partitive use of ek) as in Revelation 2:10 and often. See also Revelation 5:9; Revelation 7:9 for this enumeration of races and nations.
Do look upon (blepousin). Present (vivid dramatic) active indicative of blepw.
Three days and a half (hmerav treiv kai hmisu). Accusative of extent of time. hmisu is neuter singular though hmerav (days) is feminine as in Mark 6:23; Revelation 12:14. The days of the gloating over the dead bodies are as many as the years of the prophesying by the witnesses (Revelation 11:3), but there is no necessary correspondence (day for a year). This delight of the spectators "is represented as at once fiendish and childish" (Swete).
Suffer not (ouk afiousin). Present active indicative of afiw, late form for afihmi, as in Mark 1:34 (cf. afeiv in Revelation 2:20). This use of afihmi with the infinitive is here alone in the Apocalypse, though common elsewhere (John 11:44, John 11:48; John 12:7; John 18:8).
Their dead bodies (ta ptwmata autwn). "Their corpses," plural here, though singular just before and in verse Revelation 11:8.
To be laid in a tomb (teqhnai eiv mnhma). First aorist passive of tiqhmi, to place. Mnhma (old word from mimnhskw, to remind) is a memorial, a monument, a sepulchre, a tomb (Mark 5:3). "In a country where burial regularly took place on the day of death the time of exposure and indignity would be regarded long" (Beckwith). See Tobit 1:18 ff.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing Revelation 11:9:
Revelation 5:9
Revelation 7:9
Revelation 10:2
Revelation 11:1
Revelation 11:1
Revelation 11:8
Revelation 11:11
Revelation 12:6
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