Elijah's ministry echoes Moses at several points. With a whack of his cloak Elijah divided the Jordan and crossed on dry land, just as Moses had done. When Elijah despaired after his great works and Jezebel's threat, the angel's food sustained him forty days and forty nights, a fast that only Moses had undertaken before, and Moses too had been sustained by God. Elijah journeyed to Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, the same mountain where Moses met God. There he lodged in the cave that tradition identifies as the one where Moses was hidden when God passed by. As God passed by Moses, so He passed by Elijah, though not in the wind, earthquake, or fire. God was in the still small voice. That voice shows that He does His most astounding work quietly, in the salvation of His people, and that spectacular miracles are not more important than that. God then sent Elijah back to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, and He reminded him of seven thousand faithful in Israel. Elijah's faith and hope were restored.

The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 will be given powers resembling those of Moses and Elijah, but they are not Moses and Elijah themselves. Fire proceeds from their mouths to devour anyone who tries to harm them, as with Elijah (II Kings 1:9-15). They will have power to produce drought and famine, as Elijah did (Luke 4:25; I Kings 17:1-7), and to smite the earth with plagues, as Moses did in Egypt (Revelation 11:6). Nevertheless, there is no biblical justification for believing that the two are Moses and Elijah returned, because God has never resurrected a prophet or apostle to do a work centuries or millennia later. God always uses people of the time to carry out His work. The Two Witnesses are two human beings of the end time, empowered for 3 1/2 years just before Christ's return. Their identity is not known now, but their appearance will signal that Christ's return is near. They will deliver a final warning of rebuke and repentance to the world, be martyred, and then rise and ascend in a cloud. As the two olive trees and lampstands (Zechariah 4:14; Revelation 1:20), they will also spiritually feed the church during the famine of the Word (Amos 8:11).

Moses and Elijah are the Old Testament pattern for the Two Witnesses' power to destroy enemies with fire from their mouths (Revelation 11:5). When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled, Moses declared that the Lord had sent him, and the instant he finished speaking the earth swallowed them and fire from the Lord consumed the 250 men offering incense. Moses spoke and God did the work, just as Jesus said the Father does the works through Him. Elijah did the same. When King Ahaziah sent captains of fifty to take him into custody, he said, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven," and fire consumed two companies, 102 men in all. Their intent was to stop the prophet's work, so the penalty was not merely harm to their persons. Moses and Elijah keep surfacing wherever the Two Witnesses are discussed. Elijah's repeated phrase "before whom I stand," shared with Elisha and Jeremiah, marks a servant who is in God's confidence and does His work, and it matches the Witnesses standing before the Lord of the whole earth. Like Moses and Aaron announcing the plagues on Egypt, the Witnesses will probably warn the Beast before each of the last plagues. Their words are a fire that will eventually devour all who resist them, and no one will stop them until their work is done.