Facepalm.
Just because you are reading, "dead bodies", you assumed that God is talking about physical dead bodies on a physical street? Nope... it is not like that at all!
The Church is the earthly representation of this great city, and that is why Jersualem is used as a SIGN, FIGURE, or TOKEN of this spiritual Jersualem. The believers being dead or lifeless in the streets [plateia] or wide space of this great city signifies their state in the midst of the Church! For example, the witness of God is no longer tolerated there and the power that these had to preach the Word of God there has been taken from them. This is why they have been overcome and silenced by the beast released from the pit by God. This does NOT affect their salvation, of course, ,and that is WHY Revelation 7 says they all had to be sealed FIRST before beast could be loosened from the pit. But the beast affects their witness or testimony in the Churches. They cannot effectively preach in the external covenant Church anymore because the spirit of Satan is ruling there through the false prophets and christs, and the leaders of the church have departed from the faith unto doctrines of devils. Look at Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyers, etc. This is why God says of this great city that, it is '
spiritually' called Sodom and Egypt. Because though the external Church still retains the name of Christ, spiritually speaking it has become as these two cities which were infamous for their abominations and bondage to Satan. When God's people turn from God and forsake His laws, God speaks of them in the spiritual sense as being in bondage of Egypt and in the abominations of Sodom.
Acts 7:39
- "To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,"
Jeremiah 23:14
- "I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah."
In Revelation the unfaithful congregation is signified spiritually as being Sodom and Egypt, Revelation 11:8, because the character of the Church is as it was in these wicked places! Sodom with all her abominations within her did all manner of evil, and in like manner the Church has also become an abomination to God just as Sodom was. The beast has come upon her and she is in apostasy, blatantly having no regard for God's precepts or the witness of truth. Egypt symbolizes a house of bondage. The freeing of Israel from Egypt was used as a figure of believers being redeemed from out of Satan's House of bondage.
So yes, it takes
spiritual discernment — not carnal reasoning — to understand what God is truly revealing here. You're quick to proclaim a literal interpretation, imagining physical corpses lying in the streets, but that misses the spiritual message entirely!
Moreover, do you even understand what
“the street of the great city” symbolizes in Revelation 11:8? This is not about a literal street in physical Jerusalem, but a
spiritual condition — place likened to
Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was spiritually crucified. This "great city" represents the apostate church — once the dwelling place of truth, now overtaken by worldliness and spiritual darkness (cf. Revelation 18:2; Isaiah 1:10; Ezekiel 16:49–50).
And why do the enemies
rejoice over the dead bodies and
exchange gifts? What does that mean? Do you honestly think God is describing people handing out Christmas presents over corpses in a literal street? Think again.
The
"gifts" signify a
mocking celebration — a counterfeit joy — as the world rejoices over the silencing of God’s true witnesses because their testimony is a torment to them of their sins! It reflects a time when the testimony of the Elect is despised, and false religion triumphs in its delusion (John 16:2; Amos 8:11–12). The death of the Two Witnesses symbolizes a spiritual suppression of truth, not physical murder.
If you read the text with spiritual eyes, you’ll see the deeper truth — and it’s far more sobering than what your literal lens is allowing you to grasp.