ISB ~ Revelation 11 v2

trample over the holy city:Taken literally, this would refer to the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, as in Lk 21:24. Though mass numbers of Jews perished in the calamity, the Christians of Jerusalem fled safely to the Transjordan town of Pella (Lk 21:20-21; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3, 5). Taken symbolically, this could refer to the persecution of the saints, whose destiny is the holy city above (Rev 21:2, 10).

• Jerusalem and its sanctuary were twice before trampled down by the Gentiles, once by the Babylonians (Is 63:18) and then again by the Syrians (1 Mac 3:45). forty-two months: A time of tribulation (13:5), also described as three and a half years (12:14) or 1,260 days (11:3; 12:6). Some interpret these figures literally; others read them figuratively, indicating a limited period of persecution or as representing the entire course of Church history.

• The time frame is drawn from Daniel’s vision of a tribulation to come upon the People of God in the future (Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7). This was foreshadowed by the Syrian desecration of Jerusalem from 167 to 164 B.C.