My two cents Daniel 9:27 - after the abomination of desolation; After the seven trumpets Revelation 11:2, tells us that the nations of the world will be allowed to trample the holy city for forty-two months. Zechariah 14:2 also prophesied that this would occur. God says: “And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth” (Revelation 11:3). :unsure: Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: I just assumed this means Elijah and Moses will start their ministry the first 3 1/2 years before the 2nd half starts to get REALLY bad. :unsure: The thing is don’t they get killed right before the AC goes into the temple to defile it? If that is the case … then their ministry hast to happen the first half … Here is another interesting verse Matthew 17:11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. Per … J. Dwight Pentecost … “the entire Levitical system, which suggests that Israel will have restored that system in the first half of the 70th week.” Antichrist will replace the legitimate, God-honoring Jewish worship system, which only the two witnesses can inaugurate, with his own system, namely, the abominationof desolation. But the Antichrist cannot do this until the 1,260 days of ministry allotted by God to the two witnesses has been completed. Putting the two witnesses into the last half of the Week compromises the totality of Antichrist's dominion during that same period. How can he bring fire from heaven upon his enemies (through the False Prophet, Rev. 13:13)if the two witnesses are simultaneously bringing fire from heaven upon their enemies (Rev. 11:5)? We are clearly dealing with two different time periods: the first half of the Week with the over whelming power of the two witnesses, and the last half of the Week with the over whelming power of the Beast and the False Prophet. When the world asks the rhetorical question, "Who is able to make war with [the Beast]?" (Rev. 13:4), it seems obvious that no one can answer, "The two witnesses are able to make war with him," for their 1,260 days of ministry will have ended, and they will be gone. Immediately following the rapture of the church, there will be no believers left on this planet. Assuming that God never leaves Himself without a witness in the world, the two witnesses will suddenly appear in Jerusalem to begin their powerful work. In the words of Alva J.McClain, founder and president of Grace Theological Seminary, "The effect of their testimony is very impressive, appearing very early in the book of Revelation and probably accounting for the martyrs seen under the fifth seal (6:9). In chapter 7 the effect greatly expands, including 144,000 Israelites (vs.3-8), and also a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations" (vs. 9-14). His colleague and successor, Herman A. Hoyt, agreed that "The importance of their testimony cannot be overestimated (Rev. 11:4)By their testimony, it is my opinion, they bring about the conversion of the 144,000 who will become the witnesses during the final half of the tribulation period."In addition to my personal mentors, Alva J. McClain and Herman A. Hoyt, several others have concluded that the two witnesses will proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom (i.e., the true Gospel of the saving work of Christ as a pre requisite for entering the Kingdom) during the first half of the 70th week. - Fair Use - Yes, I believe the first half makes the most sense. For 1,260 days they will witness and then they will be murdered and then subsequently resurrected by God in front of the whole world. I think with the massive earthquake in the second half of the Tribulation (Think 12.0) that the communication systems worldwide would be knocked offline. Therefore, the whole world couldn't see the death and the resurrection of the two witnesses. I think it also one last chance for an unbelieving world before it is plunged into the Great Tribulation. Tammie pointed out how the timeline is laid out at the beginning of the chapter. The 1,260 days of the two witnesses' testimony is the same period as the 42 months. And if you pull back further, you will see that chapters 11-14 are all interludes of the same period of time that covers the last half of the Tribulation. The most often cited reason for placing the two witnesses' testimony in the first half is usually due to a misinterpretation of the phrase: "the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit." In the Greek, the phrase "that ascends" is an active participle, which means it is a continuing action or a verb used as a noun. Since the beast doesn't continually rise out of the pit it makes more sense as a title and not a continuing action. Another example of a present active participle verb used as a noun is in the following passage: John 6:33 - For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus had already come down from Heaven, but He describes Himself as the "bread...who comes down." Likewise, John calls the beast the one "that ascends out of the bottomless pit," which describes who the beast is; it is not a verb that describes an action at a point-in-time. Now, think about this logically. Why would God unleash 2/3 of the judgments on the earth in the first half of the Tribulation? And if He did, how would it be possible for any life to be left if all the drinking water on the earth was turned to blood shortly after the middle of the Tribulation? How could anyone survive another few years without water? If the two witnesses' ministry is in the second half then the Bowl judgments will be poured out in the final days of the Tribulation, and people can live days without water, but not years. I explain a lot more reasons in detail why this timeline fits the best in my commentary here: http://trackingbibleprophecy.org/revelation11A.php#3-6 I also discuss the typology, where the notable antichrist and false prophet types in Scripture all had prophets or servants of God that opposed them: Pharaoh and his magicians against Moses and Aaron (Exodus 7-9) Abimelech against Jotham (Judges 9) Saul against Samuel (1 Samuel 9-19, 28) Goliath against David (1 Samuel 17) Ahab and the prophets of Baal against Elijah (1 Kings 17-21) Ahab and false prophets against Micaiah (2 Chronicles 18) King Zedekiah and the false prophet Hananiah against Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 36, Jeremiah 28) False prophets against Ezekiel (Ezekiel 13) Nebuchadnezzar and his magicians against Daniel (Daniel 1-4) Haman against Mordecai (Esther 1-10) Herod against John the Baptist (Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9) This is not about restraining the beast... it is a showdown between the power of the enemy and the power of God. Incidentally, the Trumpet judgments parallel many of the plagues of Egypt, as I discuss in my commentary of Revelation 11:6 here: http://trackingbibleprophecy.org/revelation11A.php#6 
