"…42 months…"

Two references testify of this truth. 2TG15:8.3-9.1 

Rev. 11:2—But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. {2TG15:8.3} 

     The worshipers, the members of the church, the tribes of Israel, are to be numbered, but those who are to fill up the court, those of the Gentiles, are unnumbered: "After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." Rev. 7:9. {2TG15:8.4} 

     Seven times seven, forty-nine, determined the year of Jubilee, the liberation of the people and of the land, the type of the Kingdom complete.  Besides any other significance, the forty-two months being only six sevens, it signifies that the holy city, Jerusalem, will not be "trodden down" all the way up to the TIME of the antitypical Jubilee,—the Gentiles are to be driven out of it before the Mystery of God is finished, before the seventh angel begins to sound.—2TG15:8.3-9.1  (1947)

and 5Tr:110.2-111.3

     Rev. 11:2. "But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." {5Tr:110.2} 

     But why leave out the court?  Why not measure it also?  For since it is a part of the building, it, too, must be symbolical of saints.  Obviously because it represents the "great multitude, which no man could number [measure], of all nations, and kindreds,  and people, and tongues" (Rev. 7:9)—the last who come from among the Gentiles.  The "court," in other words, is symbolical of the immeasurable (innumberable) harvest of second fruits brought in after the measurable (numerable) harvest of first fruits—the 144,000.  It is not measured (investigated), because it represents those among whom there are no "bad" to be cast out; for they are gathered in after the cleansing of the heavenly temple (Dan. 8:14)—after the judgment of the dead—after the separation of "the bad" from among "the good" in the church, as illustrated by the parable of the net (Matt. 13:47, 48).  They are those who by name, "My people" (Rev. 18:4), are called to come out of Babylon, and who, with no unclean among them (Isa. 52:1), come into the already purified and living church of God.  (For more extensive treatment of the subject of the investigative judgment, see our Tract No. 3, The Harvest, third edition.) {5Tr:110.3} 

     The "forty and two months" (allowing thirty days to a month, and reckoning a day for a year—Ezek. 4:6), represent the 1260-year prophetic period; 538 A.D. to 1798 A.D. (See The Shepherd's Rod,  Vol. 2, pp. 142, 261.)  "The Gentiles" here mentioned are those who tread "under foot" the "holy city" (the church),—an act which calls our attention to the Master's prediction concerning the fate of the saints during this forty and two months period: {5Tr:111.1} 

     "And they [the church] shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away [from the promised land] captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24), the time that the Gentiles go out of Jerusalem and the Israelites go in. {5Tr:111.2} 

     The occupation of the Promised Land by the Gentiles today was typified by yesterday's Gentile occupation of it.  And when ancient Israel returned from Egypt to the land of promise the times of the Gentiles in those days were fulfilled.  Likewise now WHEN antitypical Israel, the 144,000 guileless servants of God, are sealed and TAKEN to Mt. Zion [[ 1TG11:13.2; 1Tr:40.1; EW:83.3 WHR:74.2 ]], there to stand with the Lamb, the "times of the Gentiles" in these days will be fulfilled.—5Tr:110.2-111.3  (1942)

There is no way this prophetic "42 months" of Rev. 11:2 is not literal.

However, we don't have a specific starting date when it begins only when it ends. Thus something literal should not be made figurative. Good that it has a specific end. If not, how then do some theorize to create a figurative intervening period of time between Ezek. 9 and the setting up of the kingdom in Palestine if "the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" at Ezek. 9 and not after?