Revelation 11:8

And their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

And their dead bodies lie in the street ... This describes no literal event. "They that dwell on the earth" (Revelation 11:10), meaning "all men" shall see this; and to think of just two individual men remaining unburied in some specific city is ridiculous. Something of far greater import than this is depicted. "The word for street here signifies a broad street, such as the principal street of a city would be."[49] Thus, we may say that the unburied bodies of the dead, decorate Broadway!

Of the great city ... "This phrase never refers to Jerusalem."[50] What does it mean? "It is man in organized community and opposed to God."[51] "It is civilization utterly alien to the will of God."[52] "It is every city, and not city";[53] and therefore, it means all the cities of mankind. This is exceedingly important to the understanding of Revelation 11:13. Its allegorical names (note the plural) are Sodom, Egypt, and Jerusalem (where the Lord was crucified). There is just as much authority for restricting the meaning here to Sodom as there is for referring it exclusively to Jerusalem, and neither could be correct; and yet countless scholars have fallen into the error of reading this as a reference to literal, earthly Jerusalem. This type of literalism has destroyed the perception of many. For example, Beckwith declared that, "The details make clear that primarily the literal Jerusalem is meant."[54] Jerusalem is not even a "great city" in any sense. Lenski said, "I rode completely around its outer walls in just an hour on an ass, in 1925!"[55] Also, Eller said:

By the triple allegorical name, John has freed the city here of any physical or geographical limitations. It can be located anywhere at any time, just as Picasso's Guernica is at one and the same time, both Guernica, Spain, 1937, and also any and every other place where war has wreaked its destruction.[56]

The spiritual character of the world's great cities this very day lives up to the triple names assigned to them in this marvelous prophecy. Like Jerusalem, they are the headquarters of God's apostate peoples: "Like Sodom, they are corrupt; like Egypt, they are tyrannical."[57] This proper identification of "the great city" here will make the exegesis of Revelation 11:13 understandable.

The dead bodies left in the streets ... Returning to this aspect of the vision again, the bodily presence of dead churches on the principal avenues and "Broadways" of earth's cities all over the world is attested by their impressive buildings which are the principal adornment of many such streets; and their physical attractiveness explains why the dead are thus permitted to remain "unburied" for all people to see. This thought will be further elaborated under the following verse.

[49] Charles H. Roberson, op. cit., p. 73.

[50] James D. Strauss, op. cit., p. 156.

[51] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 143.

[52] Robert H. Mounce, op. cit., p. 218.

[53] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 143.

[54] Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1919), p. 586.

[55] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 75.

[56] Vernard Eller, op. cit., p. 113.

[57] Frank L. Cox, op. cit., p. 75.