Crowds from lands far and near had gazed at length at those two dead bodies, and so they had no doubt that these two men were dead, very dead (after three and a half days the decay of death would be unmistakable in Mediterranean climate). They also knew from experience, contrary to the irritating testimony they had heard from these two witnesses, that dead people do not arise from the dead. Yet now they “saw” with their own eyes that dead people do arise, and so they themselves were witnesses to the accuracy of what the two had told them over the span of 1,260 days! That means that their rejoicing had been grossly misplaced, as had also their rejection of the testimony of those two witnesses. They learned that there was more to reality than met their earth-centred eyes! Hence the panic.
11 But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.