For 1,260 days the two witnesses speak, and through their message the 144,000 Israelites are sealed. They follow the Lamb, which means being led by the Spirit of God, not walking behind Him in a physical sense. Many others will believe too, but these are the ones the Spirit leads.
When the witnesses' work is done, the middle of the seven years has come. This teaching follows what happens then: the death and rising of the two witnesses, the fourth trumpet and the fifth.
Why Dan is missing
A verse left over from last time explains why Dan is absent from the sealed tribes. Deuteronomy 29:18–20 warns of any man, woman, family or tribe whose heart turns from the LORD to serve the gods of other nations, and it ends:
…and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
— Deuteronomy 29:20
Dan took Micah's priest and idols and kept to idolatry, with priests from the family of Moses's son Gershom, until the exile in Babylon. So the LORD blotted out their name, and Manasseh stands in Dan's place.
The beast kills the two witnesses
When the witnesses have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit makes war on them, overcomes them and kills them (Revelation 11:7). He is the Antichrist, of whom Revelation 13 will say more.
Their bodies lie in the street of Jerusalem, where the Lord was crucified (Revelation 11:8). The Lord Himself said that a prophet cannot die outside Jerusalem, and the names Sodom and Egypt describe the city's wickedness.
For three and a half days the world looks on, through television, mobile phones, videos and news apps, and no one may bury the bodies. People rejoice and send gifts to one another (Revelation 11:9–10). They had blamed the witnesses for the plagues of the first three trumpets, such as water turned to blood, bitter water and fire from the sky, and now think the trouble is over.
Then the Spirit of life from God enters the witnesses, and they stand on their feet.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
— Revelation 11:12
The cameras are still running, so the world sees the dead rise and go up, alive in body. This shows they were from God, and many who fear God will be drawn to what they taught. At that hour an earthquake brings down a tenth of Jerusalem and kills 7,000; the survivors, terrified, give glory to the God of heaven (Revelation 11:13). It now falls to the 144,000, who learned from the witnesses, to teach those who come asking.
The fourth trumpet: darkness
The fourth trumpet belongs to the same moment. A third of the sun, moon and stars is struck, and a third of the day and of the night goes dark (Revelation 8:12). The darkness falls on the one-third of the earth in the Middle East. Physically, the heavenly lights may be hidden or dim there. Spiritually the darkness is plain: with the witnesses dead, God's voice, and the light of His word that came through them, has stopped.
Then an eagle flies through mid-heaven announcing three woes, which come through the three trumpets still to sound (Revelation 8:13). The eagle probably pictures a messenger, someone to whom God gives a word to tell everyone.
The fifth trumpet: spirits from the pit
A star falls from heaven to the earth and is given the key of the bottomless pit (Revelation 9:1). Since it carries a key, it is not a meteor but someone, acting by authority from Jesus Christ. Who he is we do not know.
The bottomless pit is the realm of the dead. When Korah and his company rebelled against Moses, the earth opened and they went down alive into it (Numbers 16:31–33). It has no bottom, and the Lord Jesus Christ holds its keys; it cannot be opened without His authority.
Smoke rises like that of a great furnace and darkens the sun and the air. Out of it come locusts with the power of scorpions, told to harm no grass or tree but only people without God's seal on their foreheads (Revelation 9:2–4). These are no ordinary locusts. They are the spirits of the wicked dead, shut up below. Like the legion of demons that could enter the pigs only when Jesus allowed it, they can come out only with God's permission. They cannot trouble anyone in whom is God's Spirit: the sealed 144,000, and perhaps Gentiles who have received the Spirit.
They may not kill, but for five months they torment with a scorpion's sting (Revelation 9:5). A scorpion's sting can mean a day or two of agony; five months is hard to imagine.
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
— Revelation 9:6
Today the sufferers would go to hospital, but doctors would find no infection or cause and could offer only painkillers; any attempt on their own lives would be stopped.
John's description of horse-like bodies with golden crowns, human faces, women's hair, lions' teeth, iron breastplates, wings roaring like chariots and scorpion tails (Revelation 9:7–10) is a vision. No such creatures exist. Spirits have no form, but a vision must be seen, so the forms picture their power: the sting is the pain, the lions' teeth strength, the horses speed.
Their king is the angel of the bottomless pit, Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek, meaning Destroyer (Revelation 9:11). The text does not call him Satan; he may be Satan, or another in Satan's kingdom, but nothing clear is written.
The fifth trumpet waits until the sealing is complete and the 1,260 days are over, so it falls after the midpoint, in the second half of the seven years. For five months hell is let loose on the earth. Whether the spirits then return below is not written.
Takeaway
The bottomless pit opens only by the Lord's authority, and the spirits leave the realm of the dead only by His permission, for a set five months. They cannot touch those in whom is the Spirit of God. The two witnesses are vindicated before the world, and their teaching goes on through the 144,000.