Revelation 20:7

The Loosing of Satan, the War of Gog and Magog, the Judgement on the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet, Rev_20:7-10

7. Satan shall be loosed] “for a little season,” as we heard in Rev_20:3. The words are different from the “short time” of Rev_12:12, and we have no reason to understand that they refer to the same period: still the two passages to a certain extent illustrate one another.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev_20:7-15

When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed

Satan loosed

Notice what immediately follows this thousand years.

1. The devil is let loose. He who lets him loose is, of course, the same who bound him, and sealed him in the prison of the abyss. It seems like a great pity, after the world has rested for a thousand years, that this arch-enemy of its peace should again be let loose upon it. But there seems to be some sort of necessity for it. The statement to John was, that he must be loosed a little time (verse 3). Some interest of righteousness and moral government renders it proper that he should be allowed this last limited freedom. If for nothing else, it is not unimportant that he should have this opportunity to prove how little an imprisonment of a thousand years had served to change him, or reform his malignity.

2. He seduces Gog and Magog into rebellion. He does not send forth this time to the kings of the earth, for there are then no mortal kings to be led astray, but he goes direct to the people, insinuates his malice against the rule under which the King of kings has placed the nations, and seeks to persuade them into an attempt to overthrow it. To those who dwell in the outskirts and darker places of the earth, he wends his sullen way. Who Gog and Magog are we may not be able to tell. But the allusion to the corners of the earth as the regions whence these rebels come, sufficiently indicates that they are among the hindermost of peoples and the least advanced and cultured among the millennial nations. Satan succeeds in rendering them dissatisfied with the holy rule of Gods glorified saints, and induces them to believe that they can successfully throw it off and crush it out, as the deluded kings under the Antichrist were persuaded a thousand years before.

3. A terrible disaster ensues. A madder thing than Gog and Magogs attempt was never undertaken upon earth. It is simply a march into the jaws of death, for no rebellion against the kings who then hold the reins of government can be tolerated. The insane war is quickly terminated. There came down fire out of heaven and devoured them. Not a man of them escapes.

4. Satan meets his final perdition. He was imprisoned in the abyss before; but he is now cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also the Beast and the False Prophet [are]. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

Satan loosed from his prison after the thousand years

During the millennial period on earth, while the departed saints are living and reigning with Christ, evil will be subdued and restrained, but by no means will it be extinct. Had it been extinct it could not have broken out again, nor would there be any need for the παρεμβολή of the saints. The new uprising of evil after the thousand years rest is certainly not what we should expect or desire. But doubtless there is a Divine reason for permitting it so to be, or it would not be. Let us look at this matter closely in the light of Gods Word, and maybe we shall find more to instruct us on this theme than at first sight appears probable.

I. We gather from this passage some hints as to the state of the Church on earth during the millennial period.

1. There is no reason to doubt that the millennium, owing to the effective restraint then put upon evil through the Word of truth and the power of God, will be a period of very great blessedness. Satan is the active agent in so much evil, and when he is bound a large proportion of evil will cease to exist, and a far more rapid diffusion of good will be the blessed result.

2. There is no reason whatever to suppose, from any of the teaching of Scripture, that our Lord Jesus Christ will then be present on the earth in any other way than in the power of His Spirit.

3. It is equally clear that the millennium will not be a period of unmixed good, nor will it be a time when the saints can dispense with the παρεμβολή. Compared with things as they are now, the earth will be at rest; but it will not be heaven. Evil will be subdued, but far from extinct. The possibility of an outbreak will exist still.

4. There will also still be death in the world. The deathless state enters not in till the new heavens and the new earth appear, and Paradise is regained. Not till then will there be no more curse.

5. The Church will still have to be prepared for war. Obviously, if the state of things on earth during the millennium were one of universal righteousness, there would be no nations to be deceived. Still less can we suppose that, after the resurrection from the dead, the glorified saints are to go about, sword in hand, to the holy war.

II. What do we gather from Scripture concerning this onset of ill after the millennium?

1. It is necessary. There is a little word in the third verse of this chapter of which we are too apt to lose sight. It is the word must. After that, he must be loosed a little season. Must! Why? We are not told.

2. It will be a fierce onset. It will be after the old kind, by deception (verse 8). What will be the special form of deceit he will use we are not told, and conjecture is useless.

3. It will be a restricted struggle. Satan will be bound by time even when loosed as to space. The same hand that bound retains its power even when the evil one is loosed. Not even at the worst of times is the world given over to the devil.

4. It will be for a little season. Not only restricted, but within very narrow limits. The conflict may be sharp, but it will be short.

5. It will be suicidal. Satan will overshoot the mark, and fall into his own snare.

6. The struggle will be even serviceable to the Church; for not only will it reveal more and more the majesty of God in defending His own cause, but it will end in the hurling of Satan to a lower depth than before. In chap. 12:9 we read that the devil was cast down to earth. In Rev_20:3 he is cast into the abyss. But in Rev_20:10 he is cast into the lake of fire. Hence--

7. The struggle will be--the last. If the reader has followed the plan of the book, he will have noted how one after another of the foes of God and man are destroyed. They were four.

(1) The dragon--Satan.

(2) The beast.

(3) The false prophet.

(4) Babylon the great.

III. What are the related truths to which this passage points us?

1. In the light of the views of the millennium and of what is to follow, two sets of apparently conflicting passages fall into place. There is one set which indicates that, as the result of the first coming of Christ, all the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord; there is another set which indicates that there will be a fierce outbreak of evil before our Lord shall come. It is no small confirmation of the correctness of an interpretation of this passage if thereby apparently conflicting statements fall in place. The binding of Satan, which was and is effected through our Lord Jesus Christ, has become more and more stringent as souls are plucked from his grasp; and we are to see a time of peace and calm when he will be even more completely bound than he is now. But after that there is to be the new onrush of evil, so that before our Lord shall come a fiercer conflict than has ever been known will be fought, ere the great struggle shall be completely at an end, and then the Lord shall come.

2. We see that there are two ways in which evil is being dealt with. That of removal, when souls are being renewed; and that of restraint, when evil beings are kept with prescribed limits. And both these ways of working are going on now, and will do during this millennial age.

3. Be it ours to take heart as we get a fresh glimpse of the Divine plan, viz., that however oft the conflict with evil and the evil one may be renewed, yet in every case the issue is that of the defeat of evil, and its banishment to a lower depth of disgrace than before. Who hath ever hardened himself against God and prospered?

4. Finally, what God will ultimately do with evil and the evil one, no one can positively say. (C. Clemance, D. D.)

The age of moral reaction

I. The reaction is brought about in the manner in which mankind have ever degenerated.

1. Here is deception. Hell and heaven are acting on our world through thoughts--the one through the false, and the other through the true.

2. Here is deception employed by Satan. He hath blinded the minds of men.

3. Here is deception employed by Satan, first upon those who are most assailable, and afterwards through them upon others.

II. The reaction is of a character the most threatening.

1. The vast number of its agents.

2. The anti-Christian aim of its agents. They made efforts to assault the most central and vital part of religion.

III. The reaction terminates in the everlasting destruction of all its agents.

1. There is in the universe a distinct local scene, where the wicked of all classes are to receive their righteous retribution.

2. The retribution which the wicked will endure in this scene will be of a most terrible description. Fire is the emblem of suffering (Zec_13:9; 1Co_3:13-15; 1Pe_1:7); brimstone is the emblem of desolation (Job_18:15). (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Compassed the camp of the saints about.--

The saints compassed by evil

1. Whereas it is said that they compassed the camp of the saints about, we see that the saints and Church of Christ is still, and ever hath been, and shall be to the end, the butt of Satans malice, whereof she needs not to expect either intermission or mitigation.

2. We see the extremity that she may by Gods permission be brought unto, to be compassed about on all sides without any outget, as Israel was coming out of Egypt, or that boat wherein Christ was (Mat_8:1-34.); yet the Lord will never fail her, but her extremity will be seen to be His opportunity.

3. Whereas the Church is called the beloved city, this is a cordial to all the truly godly, that whatever their estate be here, hated of the world and persecuted, yet they are beloved of God, and shall be preserved by Him.

4. Whereas it is said that fire came down from heaven and devoured them, we see that full and final destruction at last shall be the end of all Gods enemies. (Wm. Guild, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev 20:7-10. The following verses of this chapter to Rev 20:11 inform us that the happy days of the church, prophesied of in the foregoing vision, will at length have their period, though they are to continue for a long time, and are not to expire till after one thousand years: yet then there shall be one attempt more against the purity of religion, and against the peace and prosperity of the church. Satan will be released for a little season, but in that little season he shall deceive many, and so far seduce them as to prevail upon them to join with him in his apostacy. This new attempt against truth and righteousness shall end in the utter ruin of the enemies of Christ and his religion; they shall be totally defeated, and their obstinate wickedness punished with everlasting destruction. This state of the church and world, so different from the preceding, deserves to be considered as a new period, which will therefore be the fifth in order. — Lowman. And when the thousand years are expired, &c. — “At the expiration of the thousand years the restraint shall be taken off from wickedness; Satan shall be loosed out of his prison — And make one effort more to re-establish his kingdom. As he deceived our first parents in the paradisiacal state, so he shall have the artifice to deceive the nations in this millennium kingdom, to show that no state or condition on earth is exempted or secured from sinning.

The nations whom he shall deceive are described as living in the remotest parts of the world; in the four quarters — Εν ταις τεσσαρσι γωνιαις της γης, in the four angles, or corners, of the earth; and they are distinguished by the name of Gog and Magog, and are said to be as numerous as the sands of the sea. Gog and Magog seem to have been formerly the general name of the northern nations of Europe and Asia, as the Scythians have been since, and the Tartars are at present. In Ezekiel there is a famous prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, and this prophecy alludes to that in many particulars. Both that of Ezekiel and this of St. John remain yet to be fulfilled; and therefore we cannot be absolutely certain that they may not both relate to the same event, but it appears more probable that they relate to different events. The one is expected to take place before, but the other will not take place till after, the millennium. Gog and Magog, in Ezekiel, are said expressly (Eze 38:6; Eze 38:15; Eze 39:2) to come from the north quarters and the north parts; but in St. John they came from the four quarters, or corners, of the earth. Gog and Magog, in Ezekiel, bend their forces against the Jews resettled in their own land; but in St. John they march up against the saints and church of God in general. It may therefore be concluded that Gog and Magog, as well as Sodom, and Egypt, and Babylon, are mystic names in this book; and the last enemies of the Christian Church are so denominated, because Gog and Magog appear to be the last enemies of the Jewish nation. Who they shall be, we cannot pretend to say with any degree of certainty: but whoever they shall be, they shall come up from the four corners of the earth, on the breadth of the earth, and shall compass the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city — The new Jerusalem, with the saints encamped around it, as the Israelites encamped around the tabernacle in the wilderness. But they shall not succeed in their attempts; they shall not be able to hurt the church and city of God, but shall be destroyed in an extraordinary manner, by fire from heaven: and the devil himself, the promoter and leader of this new apostacy and rebellion against God and his Christ, shall not only be confined as before, but shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where he shall be punished together with the beast and the false prophet, who were cast in before him, and shall be tormented for ever and ever.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The new rebellion of Satan—closed by his destruction, Rev_20:7-10.

7. Are expired—It is interesting to note how the seer bridges us over the period of the thousand years in less than an hour. His own position remains the same as in Rev_19:4, in presence of the royal state of Rev_4:11. In describing the millennium, he repeatedly changes the tense; sometimes predicting in the future, and sometimes describing or narrating as in the past.

Shall be—Will be; the simple future, as also in next verse. Why is Satan loosed? We might, also, ask, Why was he first permitted to enter Eden? Which resolves itself into the general question, Why is evil allowed in the universe? Why the possibility of, or the agent’s freedom to, sin? Why allow free agency, tried virtue, penalty for guilt, or reward for virtue? Because a system of free-agents, a moral system, a probationary system, is superior to and better than a system of pure moral machines. But, in the present case, doubtless, an age had arrived when the free tendencies to apostasy called for Satan, as apostate Israel called for a king, whom God granted in his wrath. And if it be asked how so pure an age could apostatize, we may ask in reply, How could the first angels rebel? and how could our first parents fall? The most perfect free-agent in a scene of temptation is one with whom it is easy to keep right with care. Hence we cannot be sure that in the millennium there will be no exceptions to the general rule of holiness.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTERS 20:7-22:5

After the Thousand Years and the New Jerusalem

1. Satan’s last revolt (Rev 20:7-10)

2. The great white throne (Rev 20:11-15)

3. The eternal state (Rev 21:1-8)

4. The vision of the holy city (Rev 21:9-27)

5. The glories of the redeemed (Rev 22:1-5)

Rev 20:7-10.

Satan who was put into the abyss a thousand years before, is now loosed out of his prison. God permits him to come forth once more. Who would have ever thought of such a thing! The archenemy who had done his vile and wicked work among the human race, for a thousand years put at least into the place of perfect restraint, and now loosed once more to continue, for a brief season, his work! And he finds nations ready for his deception, not a few, but a number “as the sand of the sea.” God permits Satan to come out of his prison, so that the absolute corruption of man might be demonstrated. Man has been tried and tested under every possible condition. He has failed in every age. He failed under the law and he failed even more in the grace-dispensation; and now, under the most glorious conditions, during the millennium, when the Lord Himself is known in all the earth and reigns in righteousness, when want and nearly all the sorrows of a ruined creation are banished, when there is peace on earth, man also fails and does not fully respond to a gracious Lord.

But here is a difficulty which many have. Many a sincere post-Millennialist, who has studied the pre-millennial coming of our Lord, has asked this question, “If the whole world is converted during the millennium, how is it then that Satan finds nations ready to side with him after the thousand-year reign of Christ and then leads them on to destructions?” The difficulty is far from being as great as it is generally made. In fact it is easily explained. As far as Israel is concerned, the “all Israel” living, when He comes, the trusting remnant of Israel, they will constitute the blessed nation in possession of all her promised blessings. They are not mentioned as siding with Satan. No more backsliding for that nation. Isa 59:20-21 vouches for this.

And the Gentile nations in the beginning of the millennium will also be converted. However, the human conditions of the earth will continue. The nations are not in a glorified state. Marriage will continue. Children will be born during the millennium. Indeed the earth will be populated as never before. Billions of human beings can be sustained upon our planet and they will come into existence by natural generation during the golden age of glory. Wars will be unknown. No longer will the flower of manhood be cruelly murdered by human passion in that legalized horrible thing called war. Earthquakes will no longer sweep thousands upon thousands into an untimely grave, nor can famines and pestilences claim their millions. Nor will there be the great infant mortality. Physical death will no longer be the universal rule, but rather an exception (see Isa 65:20).

Now every child born during the millennium of the converted nations comes into the world the same as the children in the present age, it is still true, conceived and born in sin. And it is equally true, they must be born again.

As many children of pious, godly parents in this age are gospel-hardened and live on in sin, though they hear the gospel and see its power, so in the millennium, an enormous multitude will see the glory, live under the best and most glorious conditions the earth has seen since before the fall of man, and yet they will be glory-hardened and only submit to the righteousness of that age and yield obedience through fear, for disobedience to the governing laws of the kingdom on earth, will mean sudden and certain judgment. It is not the obedience produced by a believing, trusting heart, but only a feigned obedience. Three prophetic Psalms which speak of these millennial conditions make this clear, if we consider the marginal reading. “As soon as they hear of Me, they shall obey Me, the strangers shall yield feigned obedience unto Me” (Psa 18:44). “Say unto God, How terrible art Thou in Thy works! Through the greatness of Thy power shall Thine enemies yield feigned obedience unto Thee” (Psa 66:3). “The haters of the Lord yield feigned obedience unto Him, but their time might have endured forever” (Psa 81:15). Study these Psalms in their millennial bearing. Thus many nations submit while sin is in their heart and in their blindness they long and hope for the day when they may cast off the restraint. And that day comes when Satan is loosed out of the prison to deceive these nations again.

It was the final attempt of the dethroned usurper to regain his lost dominion. For thousands of years, in the all-wise purposes of God, he was permitted to be the prince of the power of the air and the god of this age. We have followed his history in this book and seen how he was cast out of heaven upon the earth where he caused the great tribulation. Then we beheld him stripped of all his power. The kingdoms of the world became the kingdom of Christ and the old serpent was cast unto the abyss where he remained a thousand years. Loosed for a little season he tried once more to become earth’s master. And fire out of heaven devoured the nations who had revolted.

The devil receives his final doom. He is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. He goes to a fixed place, a locality where unspeakable and eternal torment is his portion. This place is prepared for the devil and his angels (Mat 25:41). And all the wicked will share that place. And he finds others there. The first beings who were cast into this final abode were the beast (the emperor of the Roman empire, the little horn of Dan 7:1-28), and the false prophet (the personal Antichrist, the second beast of chapter 13). They were put there a thousand years before, and as they are there as persons it shows they were not annihilated. And they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever--for the ages of ages--never ending--for all eternity. What a solemn truth this is! Yet men meddle with it and deny future, conscious and eternal punishment. Besides these three persons, the nations who were judged and condemned in the beginning of the millennium, when the Son of Man sat upon the throne of His glory (Mat 25:31), are also in the Lake of Fire.

Rev 20:11-15.

And now we reach the last great judgment scene of God’s holy Word. Much confusion prevails among Christians about this judgment. There is no such thing in the Word of God as a universal judgment, nor is there a universal resurrection. Every human being that has died will be raised at some time. Our Lord spoke (Joh 5:28) of two resurrections, a resurrection unto life and a resurrection unto judgment. The Revelation speaks of the first resurrection. “This is the first resurrection” (Rev 20:5). And previously the apostle wrote of a resurrection from among the dead (Php 3:11). The first resurrection was finished in the beginning of the millennium. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” The rest of the dead come now into view and they are of necessity the wicked dead, who died in their sins, and whose is the resurrection unto judgment.

Some, like “Pastor” Russell, who echoes the evil teachings of others, have invented a third resurrection, a resurrection of the unsaved for a second chance. In the light of this final Bible book there is no room whatever for such a resurrection, which would give the lost another opportunity. Nor does the rest of the Bible mention such a third resurrection. And this great judgment is not a universal judgment. It is taught that the entire human race, the living and the dead, will appear before this great throne. But this is incorrect, for it saith, “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.” No living people are there at all. Again the judgment-scene in Mat 25:31, etc., is spoken of as being the universal judgment and identical with the judgment here in Revelation. But this is another error. In the judgment of Mat 25:1-46 the dead are not there, but living nations are judged in the beginning of the millennium. And these nations are judged on account of the treatment of the Jewish preachers of the gospel of the kingdom heralded by them during the last seven years of the age. They did not accept the last offer of mercy and that is why they treated the messengers as they did.

Furthermore, the throne which the Son of Man occupies in Mat 25:1-46 is upon the earth; the throne in Rev 20:11 comes into view after earth and heaven fled away. The Church and the saints of God are not concerned at all in the judgment of Mat 25:1-46, nor in the great white throne judgment. They are at that time in His own presence glorified. Every Christian should have these things clearly defined and know that for him, as in Christ, there is no more judgment or condemnation (Joh 5:24; Rom 8:1). The judgment seat of Christ before which believers have to appear (2Co 5:10) does not concern their eternal salvation, but their works and rewards.

Who is the occupant of this great white throne? Not God the Father, but God the Son. “The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (Joh 5:22). The earth and heaven fled from His face. Sin-stained and defiled as they were they flee away from the face of the Holy One. The great conflagration of 2Pe 3:7-12 takes place. (See Annotations on 2Pe 3:1-18.) Fire of judgment swept the earth before the millennium, the day of the Lord, began; but the all consuming fire comes after the millennium. out of that great conflagration there arises a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1).

But what about the millions of saved Israelites and Gentiles who are on the millennial earth? Where are they during this great conflagration? What becomes of them? That they share the eternal blessings and glories in the eternal state is certain. But their abode between the burning of the earth and the calling into existence of the new heaven and the new earth is unrevealed. Speculation on it would be wrong. We should accept the silences of Scripture as much in faith as we accept the promises of God.

And John sees the dead standing before the throne. Books were opened and another book was opened, the book of life. “And the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.” The books are symbolical; conscience and memory will speak loudly. Twice we read that they are judged according to their works. And in the “book of life” none of their names were written, or they would not have been in that company. “All this would seem to show that, though a millennium has passed since the first resurrection, yet no righteous dead can stand among this throng. The suggestion of the ‘book of life’ has seemed to many to imply that there are such; but it is not said that there are, and the words ‘whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire’ may be simply a solemn declaration (now affirmed by the result) that grace is man’s only possible escape from the judgment” (Numerical Bible).

The second resurrection takes place. The sea gives up the dead and death and Hades give up the dead. Hades gives up the soul, and death, used here for the grave, gives up the bodies. Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. Both had come into existence because man had sinned, and, therefore, they are cast into the place where all belongs which is contrary to the holiness and righteousness of God. And then that solemn word! “And whosoever was not found written in the Book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” It corresponds to that other solemn statement in Joh 3:36. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him.” To be written in the “book of life” means to have life in Christ. Not our works, not our character, not our religiousness, not our tears, our prayers or our service can put our names in the “book of life.” Grace alone can do it, and grace does it, as we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Reader! is your name written there?

The saints of God are in eternal glory; the wicked dead, the lost, are in an eternal lake of fire and suffer conscious, eternal punishment. And how man, blind, presumptuous man, yea, even such who know God, rise up against this solemn truth, the eternal punishment of the wicked. They accuse God of injustice, as if the judge of all the earth would not do right. That the suffering of the lost differs is obvious. It is eternal, because the evil condition remains unchanged. There is no repentance, no faith, no new birth in hell. As there are different rewards for the faithful service of the saints, so are there different degrees of punishment for the unsaved (Luk 12:47-48). This is the second death, not blotting out of existence, but endless in a separation from God.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20:7-10 Satan’s all-out attempt to conquer God’s people is followed by his fiery demise. This passage has two major purposes: (1) to show God’s absolute justice, because Satan and his followers are worthy of punishment and will never change; and (2) to show the depravity of people who follow Satan. In spite of viewing the nature of Christ’s reign in the world for many years, they still flock to Satan’s standard when he is freed. These factors are the basis for the judgment at the great white throne (20:11-15).

20:7-8 When free to act (20:7), Satan still seeks to deceive. He will gather a mighty army (cp. Ezek 38–39) in a final attempt to overwhelm God’s people (Rev 20:9).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rev 20:7. Τα, those) Those thousand years only, during which Satan was bound; for now again Satan is treated of. The article so refers to the noun (thousand years) applied to two preceding subjects [the two distinct periods of a thousand years each], that it has reference to the former subject. Thus altogether τὸ θηρίον, that beast, ch. Rev 13:15, does not refer to Rev 20:11, but to Rev 20:1. Thus 2Sa 23:19; 2Sa 23:23, τρεῖς refers not to the nearest, but to the more distant, ternary, Rev 20:8, etc.—χίλια ἔτη, thousand years) The threefold expression of the former millennium (to which the threefold mention of the second millennium harmoniously answers) plainly makes a threefold opposition to the Non-chronus (which occupies the time between 1111 1/9 and 999 9/9 or 1000 years), to the short space [Rev 17:10] (888 8/9 years), and to the time 1, 2, ½ (777 7/9 years); for these three periods, which the dragon rendered particularly disastrous, are immediately followed by a thousand joyful years, while the dragon is bound, and these years are three times expressed [in Rev 20:2-3; Rev 20:7].—λυθήσεται ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς) An abbreviated expression: that is, shall be loosed from his chain, and sent forth from his prison.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev_20:7-10. After the completion of the one thousand years, Satan is let loose; then he leads the heathen nations, Gog and Magog, to an attack upon the saints. But fire from heaven consumes those nations, and Satan is cast eternally into the lake of fire.

λυθήσεται. Here and in Rev_20:8 (ἐξελεύσεται) the statement has the express form of prophecy, which also is repeated in Rev_20:10 b (βασανισθήσονται); in Rev_20:9 and Rev_20:10 a, however, the prophet speaks so as to report the revelation imparted to him concerning the events impending at the end.[4176]

τὰ ἕθνη. The difficulty that here the heathen nations once again enter into conflicts against the saints, after, Rev_19:21, all nations and kings (rendering allegiance to the beast) have been annihilated,to which also the other difficulty is added, that enemies to be found in the earthly life contend against believers who are partakers in the first resurrection,[4177]is not explained fully by emphasizing[4178] the fact that these ἔθνη, Gog and Magog, dwell at the extreme ends of the earth. Vitr., Ewald, De Wette, etc., are indeed right when in harmony with the prototype, Eze_38:3-9,[4179] and the idea of Rev_20:9 (ἈΝΈΒΗΣΑΝ ἘΠῚ ΤῸ ΠΛΆΤΟς Τῆς Γῆς), they regard the farthest ends of the earth as the abode of these nations;[4180] but in the entire description of ch. 8. it was presupposed that all unbelieving inhabitants of the earth without exception, all kings and nations, had served the beast, and with him had perished. It is also to be acknowledged that the introduction of ἔθνη in this passage is a similar inconsistency as was previously shown in that the winds prepared at Rev_7:1 for destruction do not afterwards come into activity; but this inconsistencywhich is in general a material, and that, too, an inexplicable difficulty, only when the entire description, Rev_20:1-10, is regarded in all its individual parts as a prophecy to be thus actually fulfilled, instead of distinguishing the ideal character of the Apocalyptic mode of representation, and the actual contents of the prophecy to be determined from the analogy of the Holy Scripturesis modified by the fact that the nations here presented, Gog and Magog, stand in no relation whatever to the beast, and dwell at such a distance that also, in this respect, they may appear with the dwellers on earth formerly found in the empire of the beast. For it is also in harmony with this, that these heathen nations are led to the conflict against the saints immediately by Satan himself.[4181]

τὸν Γὼγ καὶ τὸν Μαγώγ. Even in Jewish theology these two names occur, of which the first in Ezekiel, l. c., designates the king of the land and people of Magog[4182] as names of nations belonging together.[4183] Already, in Ezek., Magog appears, whose ethnographical determination,[4184] of course, nevertheless, lies in the background of the description[4185] as the representative and leader of the heathen nations in general, who rage against the people of God ruled by the Messiah, and are then destroyed by God. This prediction of Ezekiel was made use of already at Rev_19:17 sqq.;[4186] but only in this passage is it expressly interwoven in the description of the final catastrophe. Therefore the art. of the ΤῸΝ ΠΌΛΕΜΟΝ refers to the final attack to be made on the part of those heathen nations, as a conflict which is confessedly to be expected.[4187] [See Note LXXXIX., p. 473.] ἀνέβησαν εἰς τὸ πλάτος τὴς γὴς. From the ends of the earth (Rev_20:8) those nations come up to the broad plain of the earth,[4188] in order thus to reach the city in which the saints are encamped. The ἀναβαίνειν, which is a common expression for military expeditions,[4189] because the position of the attacked is naturally regarded as one that is to be found at an elevation,[4190] is here the more appropriate, because the going up of the nations is properly regarded against Jerusalem.[4191]

καὶ ἐκύκλευσαν τὴν παρεμβολὴν τῶν ἁγίων καὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἠγαπημένην. The expression first of all distinguishes between the camp of the saints and the beloved city, i.e., Jerusalem, of course not in the sense wherein, e.g., Grot. understands by the camp, the seven churches, chs. 13, and by the beloved city, Constantinople; but the saints are to be regarded as gathered in the camp, in order to defend the holy city against the attacks of the heathen.[4192] The camp possibly surrounds the city, so that enemies at the same time enclose both.[4193] That the beloved city is the earthly Jerusalem,not the new Jerusalem[4194] coming from heaven only at Rev_21:1 sqq., after the judgment of the world (Rev_20:15),is acknowledged with substantial unanimity; but it is an ordinary eluding of the context when Jerusalem is regarded as having the force only of a symbolical designation of the Church.[4195]

καὶ κατέβη πῦρ, κ.τ.λ. Already, even in Ezekiel (Eze_39:6), this means of destruction alone is mentioned,[4196] because it is represented in the most terrible manner as an immediate instrument of the Divine judgment of wrath.[4197]

ὁ πλανῶν αὐτοὺς. Here, where, with the final judgment upon the Devil, there is an allusion to his peculiar guilt, the pres.[4198] marks in a general way his seductive influence.

βασανισθήσονται, κ.τ.λ. Eternal torture; cf. Rev_14:11.

[4176] Cf. Rev_19:9 sq., 17 sq.

[4177] See on Rev_20:10.

[4178] Vitr.

[4179] Cf. especially Eze_38:15. ἀπʼ ἐσχάτου βοῤῥᾶ.

[4180] Against Hengstenb.: The corners comprise whatever lies within the corners, so that the four corners of the earth designate, in fact, the same as τὸ πλάτος τῆς γῆς.

[4181] Cf., on the other hand, Rev_16:13 sq.

[4182] Gen_10:2. Cf. Winer, Rwb., on this word.

[4183] At the end of the extremity of the days shall Gog and Magog, and their army, come up against Jerusalem; but by the hand of King Messiah shall they fall, and seven years of days shall the children of Israel kindle their fire with their weapons of war (Targ. of Jerusalem on Num_11:27). Avoda Sara I.: When Gog and Magog shall see war, the Messiah will say to them, Why hast thou come hither? They will reply, Against the Lord and his Christ. Cf. Wetst.

[4184] Cf. Joseph., Ant. Jud., I. Revelation 6 : Μαγώγης δὲ τοὐς ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ Μαγώγας ὀνομασθέντας ᾥκισε, Σκύθας δὲ ὑπʼ αὐτῶν (sc. Ἑλλήνων) προσαγορευομἑνους [Magog colonized those named from him Μαγώγαι, but called by them (sc. the Greeks) Scythians]. M. Uhlemann (Zeitschr. für Wissenschaftl. Theol. herausg. von Hilgenfeld, 1862, p. 265 fl.) has in an exceedingly instructive way shown that Magog originally meant nothing but dwelling-place, the land of Gog. But the name of the people, Gog, means mountain. All etymological and geographical marks show that we are to recognize the actual people of Gog in the inhabitants of the Caucasus, as also the Greek καυκάσιον οὖρος in Herodotus really says nothing else than the Asiatic Kauk (Gog), or the Asiatic high mountain (p. 283).

[4185] Cf. Eze_38:15.

[4186] Cf. Rev_16:13 sqq.

[4187] Cf. Rev_16:14 : τὸν πολ. τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκέιν, κ.τ.λ.

[4188] Cf. Hab_1:6.

[4189] 1Ki_22:4; Jdg_1:1.

[4190] Hengstenb.

[4191] Cf. Luk_18:31.

[4192] De Wette.

[4193] ἐκυκλ. Cf. Luk_19:43.

[4194] Cf. Andr., who, indeed, if the text is correct, says expressly τὴν νέαν Ιερουσ., but in his other remarks presupposes the earthly Jerusalem.

[4195] Augustine, Beda, Andr., Vitr., Hengstenb. Likewise Klief.: The essential meaning is that finally also the peripheral nations shall in a mass arise somewhere against the Lord and his people, and that thereby, at some place, the Divine judgment of destruction shall occur (p. 280).

[4196] Cf., on the other hand, Eze_38:22.

[4197] Cf. Gen_19:24; Lev_10:2; Num_16:35; Luk_9:54.

[4198] Cf. Rev_14:13.

With respect to what is said Rev_20:1-10, we must distinguish between the unprejudiced establishment of the exegetical results, and the theological judgment of what is found based upon the analogy of Scripture; and only from the former can we arrive at the latter. The exegetical comprehension of Rev_20:1-10, as a whole and in its details, has its most essential condition in the recognition of the fact that what is here described lies immediately before the proper judgment of the world (Rev_20:11 sqq.) and after those judicial acts of the entire final catastrophe which are described in Rev_19:19-21; i.e., in other words, every exposition must utterly fail which in Rev_20:1-10 maintains a recapitulatio,[4199] which can occur only if the interpretation here be also allegorical. This false mode of exposition is expressly applied by Augustine,[4200] and that, too, from polemical interests against the Chiliasts.[4201] But the exegetical principle determining it is followed also by all those who[4202] have found in Rev_20:1-10 predictions whose fulfilment could be recognized in certain historical events and states of the Church or the world, i.e., such as still occur within the present development of time. That mode of exposition must be comprehended as allegorizing, which necessarily is most arbitrary in points of the text that most clearly demand another mode of explanation. Augustine, e.g., in order to be able to recognize the one thousand years reign in the present state of the Church,[4203] must find its beginning, viz., the binding of Satan, in the earthly life of Christ, and interpret the ἜΒΑΛΕΝ ΑὐΤῸΝ ΕἸς ΤῊΝ ἌΒΥΣΟΝ: The innumerable multitude of the godless is signified, whose hearts are very deep in malignity towards the Church of God. The resurrection, Rev_20:5, he interprets in the sense of Col_3:1; and on Rev_20:4 remarks: It must not be thought that he speaks concerning the final judgment, but the thrones of rulers and the rulers themselves, by whom the Church is now governed, are to be understood. He accordingly explains Rev_20:8 sq., since Gog means roof, and Magog from a roof: They are, therefore, nations in which we understand the Devil enclosed, as it were, from above, and he himself proceeding in some way from them, as they are the roof and he, from the roof. As to the declaration also: They went up on the breadth of the earth, they are indicated not at all as having come, or about to come, to one place, as though the camp of the saints and the beloved city were in one place, although this is nothing but the Church of Christ spread abroad throughout the whole world. Similar misconceptions occur in Victorin.,[4204] Beda,[4205] Luther,[4206] Hammond, Grot., etc.,[4207] Wetst.,[4208] Hengstenb,[4209] and others.

[4199] Introduction, p. 13 sq.

[4200] De Civ. D., XX. c. 9, Revelation 2 : Afterwards by recapitulating what the Church is doing in those thousand years. Cf. Beda: Recapitulating from the origin, he explains more fully as he said above: The beast, etc. Cf. Rev_17:8.

[4201] Id., XX. c. 7, Revelation 1 : They call them χιλιαστάς from a Greek word, whom we, by a literal rendering, may call millenarians. It is tedious, however, to give a refutation in details, but we ought rather to show how this scripture is to be received.

[4202] As especially also Hengstenb.

[4203] l. c., c. 7, Revelation 2 : The thousand years, moreover, may be understood in two ways, either because in those last years, this is done: i.e., in the sixth millennium of years, as on the sixth day, whose later spaces are now passing, and finally on the sabbath that shall follow, which has no evening, viz., during the repose of the saints which has no end; or he certainly represented the one thousand years as all the years of this age.

[4204] Who, regarding the number 1000 as composed of 10 which is to be interpreted as indicating the Decalogue, and 100 as intended for the crown of virginity, explains: He who has maintained with integrity his purpose of virginity, and has faithfully fulfilled the commandments of the Decalogue, is a true priest of Christ, and, perfecting with integrity the millenarian number, is believed to reign with Christ, and for him the Devil is bound aright.

[4205] Who, e.g., refers the first resurrection, to baptism.

[4206] Who reckons from the time of John to the Turks.

[4207] Who put the binding of Satan in the time of Constantine, and by Gog and Magog understand, like Luther, the Turks.

[4208] Who understands the thousand years as the times of the Messiah, whose duration also is specified as forty years, occurring in the forty years from the death of Domitian, and, by Gog and Magog, understands Barcocheba.

[4209] Who finds the beginning of the thousand years reign in the coronation of Charlemagne in the year 800.

More correct than the interpretations of all these allegorists is that of the chiliasts, inasmuch as they do not maintain the recapitulation, so greatly cherished by the former, but rather leave the thousand-years reign in the place in which it occurs in the Apocalyptic description of the entire end. Nor have all who upon the basis of the Apoc. seriously believed in the future entrance of the thousand-years reign,[4210] indulged in such sensuous portrayals of the Apocalyptic picture, as were peculiar to Cerinthus[4211] and Papias,[4212] and in general to heretics regarded as chiliasts. In accordance with the text, Justin and Irenaeus especially maintain the points, that the thousand-years reign follows the first resurrection, that of the righteous, and that it occurs upon earth, as they properly regard the beloved city as Jerusalem. The thousand years, both these Fathers take literally.[4213] Their interpretation of the former reference is more correct than that of Auberlen, who upon the presumption that the earth, as yet not glorified, could not be the place for the glorified Church,[4214] infers that believers coming forth with Christ from the invisibility of heaven shall be invested with glorified bodies (Ἡ ἈΝΆΣΤ. Ἡ ΠΡ., Rev_20:5), and then are to return with Christ to heaven, in order thence to rule over the earth[4215]in connection with which the contradictory Rev_20:9 is not at all taken into consideration. In regard to the second, viz., the chronological reference, the ancients have seen more correctly than Bengel, who even traced two periods of one thousand years each, of which the former was to begin in the year 1836, with the destruction of the beast (Rev_19:20) and the binding of Satan, and the second was to begin with the loosing of the Devil, and to cease immediately before the end of the world (Rev_20:11).

[4210] Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, c. 81. See Introduction, p. 74 sq. Cf. Iren., Adv. Haer., V. c 36: John, therefore, with delight foresaw the first resurrection of the just, and their inheritance in the kingdom of the earth. Cf. V. c. 34 sq.

[4211] Euseb., H. E., III. 28.

[4212] Iren., V. 33.

[4213] Cf. Psa_90:4; Gen_2:17; Gen_5:5. Adam is regarded as dying on the day of his eating, because he was not fully a thousand years old.

[4214] p. 381.

[4215] p. 378 sqq.

The biblical-theological discussion of Rev_20:6, which John Gerhard[4216] directs against the chiliasts,[4217] he opens by recalling the fact that the expressions of the Apoc. must be explained the more certainly from the analogy of Holy Scripture, for the reason that it is a deutero-canonical book. Moreover, from this analogy it is maintained,[4218] first, that the kingdom of Christ on earth never, even not at the end of days, is to be one that is to prevail externally; then that all the dead are to arise on one day; that there will be only one general resurrection of the dead at the coming of the Lord; thereforeso Gerhard evades by incorrectly interpreting what stands written, Rev_20:1-10the beginning of the thousand-years reign is probably to be discerned in the time of Constantine, Gog and Magog are to be taken as Turks, etc. It is, however, rather to be decided, that neither the distinction made by the writer of the Apoc. between a first and a second resurrection, nor the insertion of a thousand-years reign in the space of time thus obtained, nor the binding and loosing of Satan, and the attack of the heathen, coincide with the eschatological statements of the Holy Scriptures in such a way that this Apocalyptic description could be understood in dogmatical seriousness; but the text itself makes us acquainted with an ideal description, whose particular features appear in harmonious connection only when the ideal character of the entire poetical picture is correctly estimated. What according to the real doctrinal prophecy of Scripture fall upon one day of the coming of the Lord,viz., the resurrection of all the dead (among whom believers have indeed the priority,[4219] but in no way in the sense as though a special period of time, as the thousand-years reign, intervened between the resurrection of believers and that of other men) and the judgment of the world,appears in the Apocalyptic description distributed into a long series of special, but coherent, acts. Upon this depends the vivid beauty of the Apocalyptic drama; but this poetical beauty is not only destroyed, but also perverted to a chiliastic want of judgment, if the ideal representation be taken as a theological statement of doctrine. The ideal character of the entire description is unambiguously presented, especially in that the risen saints have their camp in the earthly Jerusalem, and are attacked by earthly heathen nations; and yet the presence of heathen enemies, after all the dwellers on earth have been slain (Rev_19:21), is an inoffensive inconsistency, only if the treatment be neither in the one case nor the other of actual things. Klief. also approximates this view by avoiding the extension of time, and finding in the symbolical number only the idea indicated that the Lords victory is one that is absolute.

A vain attempt to put in a favorable light chiliasm, supposed to be based upon the analogy of the Holy Scriptures, has recently been made by L. Kraussold.[4220] He denies that in Rev_20:4-5 a resurrection of dead believers is indicated, and says:[4221] The souls of the righteous live before God and with God,that is their first resurrection. But by thus ascribing to the righteous a twofold resurrection, he emphatically asserts that the souls of the righteous, after the first resurrection, are still without glorified bodies, and at the same time understands the thousand-years reignof which these righteous souls are participantsas referring to a finally impending, actually historical time of the peaceful development of the kingdom of God on earth.[4222]

[4216] Loci Theol., T. XX., p. 124. Ed. Cotta, Tüb., 1781.

[4217] Cf. also Aug. Conf., Art. XVII.

[4218] l. c., p. 121.

[4219] 1Co_15:23; 1Th_4:16; cf. Introduction, p. 85.

[4220] Das Tausend-jährige Reich u. die Offenb. Joh. Erl., 1863.

[4221] p. 72.

[4222] p. 75.

At all events, Luthardt is in better agreement with the text, when correctly estimating Rev_20:4-5, he finds the hope pledged of the future dominion of Christ and his glorified Church, over the rest of mankind, but is content with not being able to determine that which lies beyond the present order of things. [See Note XC., p. 474.] If the ideal character of the entire description be acknowledged, the numerical designation of a thousand years can be stated only in a schematical sense,[4223] and can give no occasion, as even in Hengstenb., for an Apocalyptic reckoning. For there is no reason for ascribing to John the play-work by which the Talmudists and the Church Fathers, combining such passages as Isa_63:4, Zec_14:7, Genesis 1, with Psa_90:4, have inferred that the Messianic reign will last a thousand years,[4224] or that the world will stand for six millenniums, and in the seventh millennium the eternal sabbath will follow.[4225] [See Note XCI., p. 474.]

[4223] Cf. Psa_90:4.

[4224] Cf. De Wette.

[4225] Barnab., Epistl. c. 15.

NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR

LXXXIX. Rev_20:8. τὸν Γὼγ καὶ Μαγώγ

Gebhardt: Christianity has a period before it, and, indeed, a long one, of unimpeded, powerful, and blissful extension and authority in this present world; but this period must one day come to an end; the earth, in its present sin-ruined form, or rather state, cannot become the eternal or absolute state or manifestation of the Christian ideal world. Evil, though so long and so extensively kept in abeyance, will once more arouse itself for the struggle with the kingdom of God. After the course of a thousand years, the personal principle of all ungodliness will be loosed from his prison, and, according to the purpose of God, will again become active on earth; the Devil has still a footing there; evil yet exists, and must show its activity in opposition to God and his kingdom. Christianity has spread and triumphed even to the end of the earth; but there are yet heathens who are not subject to it, but who, enslaved and led by the Devil, seek to destroy it.

NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR

XC. Rev_20:1-10

Luthardts very words, in the passage here alluded to by Düsterdieck, are important: Not a carnal dominion (cf. Augsburg Conf., xvii.), but a spiritual heavenly dominion of peace, and state of blessedness on earth, whereof, since it does not belong to the present order of things, we neither have nor can frame any idea, but should be content in that we shall always be with Christ, and this his Church shall be glorified before the world.

NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR

XCI. Rev_20:1-10

A condensed summary of the modern historical relations of this doctrine is found in Cremer and Zöcklers Dogmatik (in Zöcklers Handbuch, vol. ii. p. 762 sq.): Neither Roman nor Greek Catholicism acknowledges a thousand-years reign as still impending. In the grosser Judaizing sense in which the Anabaptists (Denk, Hetzer, Münzer, etc., recurring to the sensuous, voluptuous ideas of a Cerinthus, etc.) comprehended the chiliastic idea, it is rejected by the fundamental confession of the Reformation (see Augsburg Confession, art. xvii.; also the Helvetic Confession, ii. 11). The orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, as well as, in modern times, Hengstenberg (who makes the spiritually interpreted millennium coincide with the period 8001806), Althaus, H. O. Kohler, Thomasius, Diedrich, Philippi, Kahnis, the Missourians, consider each and every form of chiliasm incompatible with Scripture and Church doctrine. To them, all such doctrines are to be condemned: the chiliasmus crassus of the Anabaptists, as well as the moderate and refined types of doctrine of the two last centuries, viz., the chiliasmus subtilissimus of a Spener (the hope of better times), Vitringa, A. Hahn, Rothe, Löhe, Vilmar, v. Hofmann, Flörcke, Schoeberlein, Volck, Auberlen, Beck, Franck, Dorner, etc. [post-millennarians]; and the chiliasmus subtilior of a Petersen, Bengel, Crusius, Oetinger [pre-millennarians].

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As Baligant, lord of the pagans, issues from the East to challenge Charlemagne and be crushed, Satan emerges from his prison for a short period (3) after the millennium, musters an enormous army of pagans to besiege the holy capital, but is decisively routed and flung into the lake of fire to share the tortures of his former agents. The tenses shift from future (Rev 20:7-8 ; Rev 20:10 b ) to aorist (Rev 20:9-10 a ) the latter ( cf. Rev 11:11 ) being possibly due to the influence of Semitic idiom.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Of which I spake, verse 2. Then therefore shall be given unto him liberty to rage against the Church, and to molest the Saints for the sins of men: unto whom the faithful shall have associated themselves more than was meet, tasting with them of their impurity of doctrine and life.

The second history, of the latter victory of Christ, as was said verse 1. In which are summarily described the work, overthrow and eternal punishment of Satan.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

expired--Greek, "finished."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. Satan shall be loosed] How can this bear any kind of literal interpretation? Satan is bound a thousand years, and the earth is in peace; righteousness flourishes, and Jesus Christ alone reigns. This state of things may continue for ever if the imprisonment of Satan be continued. Satan, however, is loosed at the end of the thousand years, and goes out and deceives the nations, and peace is banished from the face of the earth, and a most dreadful war takes place, &c., &c. These can be only symbolical representations, utterly incapable of the sense generally put upon them.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

THE LOOSING OF SATAN AND HIS FINAL OVERTHROW.

(7) And when the thousand years are expired.—Rather, And when the thousand years have been finished. The binding of Satan implied restraint put upon his power and freedom of action; the loosing means the removing of these restraints. The reign of Christ with His saints has been a witness to the power of our Master over the wicked one. This witness has been an opportunity also to the world. It was the earthly approximation to the ideal picture. It testified how completely “all power in heaven and in earth was given to Christ,” and how there lay, therefore, within the reach of men the power of Him who would tread down their true enemies, and turn His hand against their adversaries (Psa_81:13-14). But the time of opportunity must end. “O that Israel would have hearkened,” is a cry that might have its counterpart over the history of earth’s lost opportunities. Christendom is planted in the world to be a framework of regenerating power to mankind, just as the Law and its adjuncts were designed to be in Israel. But, as there the old idolatrous influences broke in upon the rule of God’s covenant, so here do we find the vision picturing to us how Christendom will be invaded by the influences of the evil one, when mankind has let slip this splendid opportunity of a really golden age.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when the thousand years are expired,.... Which are not yet expired; not in the year 1000, or 1033 or 4, reckoning from the birth or death of Christ, when Paganism, which had been destroyed in the Gentile world, was introduced into the church, which bore the Christian name, through the man of sin; for this had been bringing in by degrees more or less from the times of Constantine; whence it appears, that Satan in this respect was loose before, and therefore this was not the time of his loosing; nor in 1073, reckoning from the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying and spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles, in which year Hildebrand came to the popedom, who may be truly called the brand of hell; Damianus, a brother cardinal, who lived at the same time with him when he was archdeacon of Rome, calls him the holy devil; he was an impostor, sorcerer, and necromancer, and by wicked arts got into the Papal chair; this pope raised the Papal power over princes to a very great height, and made the see of Rome absolutely independent, and all bishops dependent on it; he forbid bishops receiving their investiture from the emperor, or any lay person, under pain of excommunication: this is the pope that made the emperor, with his empress and child, wait three days barefoot at his gates, in the depth of winter, before they could be admitted to him; that doctrine of devils, forbidding priests to marry, was established by him; and in his days that monstrous and absurd notion of transubstantiation began to prevail, though he himself used his breaden god but very roughly; for taking it to be really God, he required an answer from it against the emperor; but it not speaking, he threw it into the fire, and burnt it. Now it will be allowed, that the devil was loose at this time, but then so he was before: there had been popes before this who were conjurers, necromancers, and had familiarity and confederacy with the devil; and near five hundred years before this time, the pope was declared universal bishop by Phocas; and the forbidding priests marriage was started in the council of Nice, and was approved of by Pope Siricius, long before this time, though it was now more firmly established; add to this, that if the expiration of the 1000 years and the loosing of Satan were at this time, he must have been loosed near 700 years, which can never be called a little season, as in Rev 20:3 especially in comparison of the 1000 years, the time of his binding; when it is two thirds of that time: nor did these years expire in or about 1300, reckoning from Constantine, about which time Pope Boniface the Eighth lived, of whom it is said, that he came in like a fox, railed like a lion, and died like a dog; upon his accession to the popedom, he instituted a jubilee, and on the first day he appeared in his pontifical habit, and gave the benediction to the people, and on the next day he clothed himself with an imperial habit, and put on a rich diadem, and sat on a throne, with a naked sword bore before him, when he uttered these words, "Ecce hic duo gladii", "Behold here are two swords", referring to Luk 22:38 which the Papists would have understood of the temporal and spiritual power which Peter and his successors are possessed of; at the same time Ottoman was crowned emperor of the Mahometan nations, who founded the Turkish empire, and spread the Mahometan religion in Asia and Greece; and by both these, great disturbances and wars were occasioned, both in the east and west: but still this does not make it appear that now was the time of Satan's loosing; since before this time the Papal power was at its utmost height, and the Mahometan religion had been hundreds of years in the world, and had greatly prevailed; and therefore Satan must be loosed before; and indeed it is in vain to seek after the expiration of these years, and the loosing of Satan, when as yet the years are not begun, nor has Satan been bound, as has been shown on Rev 20:2 but however, when they will be ended,

Satan shall be loosed out of his prison; during the thousand years he will be in a state of confinement, being bound, shut, and sealed up in the bottomless pit, which is therefore here called a prison, as is the place of damned spirits, in Pe1 3:19 but when these will be at an end; his chain will be taken off, at least will be lengthened; the seal upon him will be broken off, the bottomless pit will be opened, and he let loose; which will be done not by himself, but by him that bound him, or by divine permission.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

Ver. 7. Satan shall be loosed] i.e. Suffered to rise up in open rage against the open professors of the truth, and to make havoc of them, as he did of the Waldenses, Hussites, Huguenots, professors in Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, England, &c. He hath laid about him lately to purpose; besides those seas of Christian blood shed by the Turk, since the thousand years expired.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when the thousand years are expired - See Rev 20:2.

Satan shall be loosed out of his prison - See Rev 20:3. That is, a state of things will then occur as if Satan should be for a time let loose again, and should be permitted to go as formerly over the world. No intimation is given “why or how” he would be thus released from his prison. We are not, however, to infer that it would be a mere arbitrary act on the part of God. All that is necessary to be supposed is, that there would be, in certain parts of the world, a temporary outbreak of wickedness, as if Satan were for a time released from his chains.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

When the long time expressed under the notion of a thousand years shall be expired, God shall take off his restraint from the devil, so as he shall influence the wicked of the earth once more to make opposition to his church.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison; are finished; that is, the power of the devil having been in principle completely overthrown by our Lord (see on preceding verses), Satan is still permitted to wage war and exercise sway on the earth. "His prison" is the "abyss" of vers. 1, 3 (cf. also ver. 3).

Vers. 7-10. Satan loosed from his prison after the thousand years.

During the millennial period on earth, while the departed saints are living and reigning with Christ, evil will be subdued and restrained, but by no means will it be extinct. Had it been extinct it could not have broken out again, nor would there be any need for the parembolh of the saints. The godless ones dispersed abroad, who will at the close of the thousand years break out afresh, are mentioned here under the peculiar names "Gog and Magog." If any one will examine the account of the dispersion of the nations in Genesis 10, he will find that one of Japheth"s sons was named Magog. "Magog," says Josephus, "founded those that are after him called Magogites, but the Greeks call them Scythians." There is little or nothing more to call attention to these people till we come to the Book of Ezekiel, where the name Magog is again used, but not in the sense of a people so much as of a land, the syllable Ma-being equivalent to land or district. Since, then, Magog is the land of Gog, Gog is the name of a prince supposed to rule over that territory; obviously, ideally so, since he is commander over a group of peoples covering a much greater space of ground than the Scythians, and also peoples who were at a great distance from each other, viz. the Scythian hordes, the Persians, the Ethiopians and Libyans of Africa, Gomer or the Cimmerians; Togarmah or the Armenians,. and the multitude that peopled the regions beyond them. Now, in Ezekiel we have a prophecy that, after the restoration of Israel, this Gog, with all his bands, shall come against that people, and that his onset shall only issue in his own destruction. We have so often seen and observed how largely the symbolism of the Apocalypse is based on the facts and symbols of the Old Testament, that it can be no surprise to us to find that it is so when we are approaching the theme of the Divine treatment of sin in its final onset on God"s people. Even the names Gog and Magog turn up again, not, however, as the names of a prince and his land, but as "the nations which are in the four corners of the earth," who, after the millennium, wilt emerge from their retreat, and come in full force against "the camp of the saints." The new uprising of evil after the thousand years" rest is certainly not what we should expect or desire. But doubtless there is a Divine reason for permitting it so to be, or it would not be. Let us look at this matter closely in the light of God"s Word, and maybe we shall find more to instruct us on this theme than at first sight appears probable.

I WE GATHER FROM THIS PASSAGE SOME HINTS AS TO THE STATE OF THE CHURCH ON EARTH DURING THE MILLENNIAL PERIOD.

1. There is no reason to doubt that the millennium, owing to the effective restraint then put upon evil through the Word of truth and the power of God, will be a period of very great blessedness. Seeing that Satan is the active agent in so much evil, it is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that, when he is bound, a large proportion of evil will cease to exist, and a far more rapid diffusion of good will be the blessed result. During, or possibly even before this period, we may expect the restoration of the Jews, and, consequent upon that, the bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles, and the fulfilment of the glowing vision of the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah.

2. There is no reason whatever to suppose, from any of the teaching of Scripture, that our Lord Jesus Christ will then be present on the earth in any other way than in the power of his Spirit. The chapter before us, which is supposed to teach the reign of Christ with his risen saints on earth, teaches only, as we have already seen, that the departed saints are seen living and reigning with Christ.

3. It is equally clear that the millennium will not be a period of unmixed good, nor will it be a time when the saints can dispense with the parembolh . Compared with things as they are now, the earth will be still and at rest; there will be a sabbatic calm, but it will not be heaven. Evil will be subdued, but far from extinct. The possibility of an outbreak will exist still.

4. There will also still be death in the world. The deathless state enters not in till the new heavens and the new earth appear, and Paradise is regained. Not till then will there be "no more curse.

5. The Church will still have to be prepared for war. Obviously, if the state of things on earth during the millennium were one of universal righteousness, there would be no nations to be deceived. Still less can we suppose that, after the resurrection from the dead, the glorified saints are to go about, sword in band, to the holy war. It is a trial to our faith to read of an inrush of evil after a prolonged period of comparative calm. Scripture puts no such strain upon us, however, as that which is involved in the premillennial theory, viz. that, even after Paradise is regained, Satan will rush in and lead on in person the hosts of evil to a final attack. ()

II WHAT DO WE GATHER FROM SCRIPTURE CONCERNING THIS ONSET OF ILL AFTER THE MILLENNIUM?

1. It is necessary. There is a little word in the third verse of this chapter of which we are too apt to lose sight. It is the word "must." "After that, he must be loosed a little season." Must! Why? We are not told. But we ought to take note of the word "must" for all that. What this hidden necessity in the government of God may be for the permission of such a disaster, is all dark to us. But we believe it, because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

2. It will be a fierce onset. It will be after the old kind, by "deception" (ver. 8). What will be the special form of deceit he will use we are not told, and conjecture is useless. But it will be so successful that, with a strange unanimity, a great host will band together, and attack the saints of God. We do not dream of a material struggle, but one resembling that which we are waging every day with principalities, with powers, with the world-rulers of this darkness.

3. It will be a restricted struggle. Satan will be bound by time even when loosed as to space. The same Hand that bound retains its power even when the evil one is loosed. Not even at the worst of times is the world given over to the devil, No! nor ever will be. Even when the water floods are at their height, and the billows are angry, Jehovah rides upon the storm.

4. It will be for a little season. Not only restricted, but within very narrow limits. The conflict may be sharp, but it will be short.

5. It will be suicidal. Satan will overshoot the mark, and fall into his own snare. He aims at deceiving the nations, and succeeds in leading them on to a guilty war; and lo! when engaged therein, we read that "fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them.

6. The struggle will be even serviceable to the Church; for not only will it reveal more and more the majesty of God in defending his own cause, but it will end in the hurling of Satan to a lower depth than before. In Rev_12:9 we read that the devil was cast down to earth. In Rev_20:3 he is cast into the abyss. But in ver. 10 he is cast into the lake of fire. This would seem to mean extinction, if such a conclusion were not forbidden by the closing phrase of the tenth verse. What it means we dare not presume to say, except that it certainly conveys the impression that his power for evil over mankind is brought to an end. Hence:

7. The struggle will be the last. If the reader has followed the plan of the book and our exposition of it, he will have noted how one after another of the foes of God and man are destroyed. There were four.

a. The dragon Satan.

b. The beast.

c. The false prophet.

d. Babylon the great.

We have noted the fall of the fourth, the third, the second. Only the first was left, and now he is thrown into the lake of fire. After this, no foe is seen outside of man. Only men have now to be dealt with, and these have, whether they be good or bad. "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love thee be as the sun when he cometh forth in his might!

III WHAT ARE THE RELATED TRUTHS TO WHICH THIS PASSAGE POINTS US?

1. In the light of the views of the millennium and of what is to follow, two sets of apparently conflicting passages fall into place. There is one set which indicates that, as the result of the first coming of Christ, all the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord; there is another set which indicates that there will be a fierce outbreak of evil before our Lord shall come. It is no small confirmation of the correctness of an interpretation of this passage if thereby apparently conflicting statements fall in place. The binding of Satan, which was and is effected through our Lord Jesus Christ, has become more and more stringent as souls are plucked from his grasp; and we are to see a time of peace and calm when he will be even more completely bound than he is now. But after that there is to be the new onrush of evil, so that before our Lord shall come a fiercer conflict than has ever been known will be fought, ere the great struggle shall be completely at an end, and then the Lord shall come. So that we can at once look forward to the fulfilment of the seventy-second psalm as the result of the forces already at work; and yet see the harmony of that with words that declare that "that day shall not come, except there be a falling away first; ... and then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming.

2. We see that there are two ways in which evil is being dealt with. That of removal, when souls are being renewed; and that of restraint, when evil beings are kept within prescribed limits. And both these ways of working are going on now, and will do during this millennial age. If it were not for these renewals of souls, no such time of calm could ever come in; and if it were not that there is much evil slumbering, as it were, that is only restrained, obviously it could not rush forth again. However much we may wonder at evil breaking out once more, even on the post-millennial view of our Lord"s coming, yet on the pre-millennial view it would be impossible, since there would be none. And so severe is the pressure of this upon premillennialists, that one of them ventures on the supposition that God wilt create some wicked men for the purpose out of the slime and the mire!

3. Be it ours to take heart as we get a fresh glimpse of the Divine plan, viz. that however oft the conflict with evil and the evil one may be renewed, yet in every case the issue is that of the defeat of evil, and its banishment to a lower depth of disgrace than before. "Who hath ever hardened himself against God and prospered?" "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!

4. Finally, what God will ultimately do with evil and the evil one, no one can positively say. We do not find the possibility of extinction shut out. At the same time, it is by no means so clear that such will be the issue that we feel warranted in saying it will be so. In our homily on the after state of the ungodly, we deal with this question as concerns man. Here we have to do with it as regards Satan. We think that no one can help seeing that his fate is here set forth as that of utter, hopeless, final defeat. But we demur to the phrase, "eternal torment," as so applied yea, more, we eschew it, on two grounds:

(1) That our English word "eternal," as now understood, goes far ahead of the expression, "to ages of ages." The English word means an infinite duration; the Scripture phrase points to indefinite duration. In the former case an ending is negatived; in the latter no end is disclosed.

(2) The word "torment" has a gross, material, carnal significance. It is used in the narrative of Dives and Lazarus, and in the symbolism of this book. It is a material figure to indicate spiritual issues. Where there is rebellion and final impenitence, there must be defeat; and where there is detent, there must be "weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth." There will be nothing contrary to perfect equity in the fate of the evil one; we may be quite sure of that. And we are such inadequate judges of the guilt of any yea, even of our own and of what a righteous penalty requires, that it is far better for us that we should leave the matter in the hands of God, knowing that he will do only what is right, than that we should know beforehand what the precise issue will be. Surely it is not without reason that we say We can rest more completely in uncertainty than in a certainty, when we rest absolutely in God. He will do what is right.

Vers. 7-10. The third scene in the history of redeemed humanity: the age of moral reaction.

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison," etc. The long ages of earth"s millennial glory described arc run out. The harmony which had reigned through indefinite centuries is broken into tumult; the sun of absolute truth and blessedness, under whose genial and unclouded beams unnumbered generations had come and gone, getting new vigour and catching new inspiration in every successive step of their mortal life, is veiled in clouds again; the arch foe of humanity has burst his moral chains is "loosed out of his prison," and is once more deceiving the nations "which are in the four quarters of the earth." There is a tremendous reaction. This age is here presented under a veil of imagery, if possible, more variously coloured and thickly folded than either of the preceding epochs already noticed. My work is not to describe the veil, but gently to draw it aside, in order to discover the great facts which lie beneath. Disrobing this passage of its highly symbolic garb, I discover three facts which mark this age of moral reaction.

I THE REACTION IS BROUGHT ABOUT IN THE MANNER IN WHICH MANKIND HAVE EVER DEGENERATED. Let us mark the process.

1. Here is deception. "The nations" are deceived (ver. 8). Certain ideas, directly opposed to the eternal principle of truth, the settled conditions of virtue, and means of true blessedness, but at the same time most plausible to the reason, prompting to the lusts, and gratifying to the selfhood of the human heart, are put into circulation; men receive, follow them, and fall. Sin came first into the world through deception, and it has been propagated and nourished by it ever since. Men fall by error, and rise by truth. Hence the seducer and the Saviour alike deal with the judgments of men. Hell and heaven are acting on our world through thoughts; the one through the false and the other through the true.

2. Here is deception employed by Satan. "Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out come forth to deceive the nations" (vers. 7, 8). Christ, who knows his entire history, has declared that he "abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him;" and that "he is a liar, and the father of lies." He has filled the world with lies charged our atmosphere with lies political, social, moral, and religions. "Every man walketh in a vain show." Who can "fathom the depths of Satan"? He "beguiled" our first parents; he prompted Ananias "to lie to the Holy Ghost." He "hath blinded the minds" of men.

3. Here is deception employed by Satan, first, upon those who are most assailable, and afterwards through them upon others. "He goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters corners of the earth, Gog and Magog," etc. (vers. 8, 9). No one has been able to determine with certainty who Gog and Magog are. I am inclined to believe, with Bloomfield, "that no particular nations are meant, but that these are only names designating bodies of men inimical to the gospel." Probably, through all the ages of the millennial period, there had always continued some disaffected towards Christ, some who loved darkness rather than light, some "Gog and Magog." Upon these Satan now acted. By his suggestions he evoked their latent depravity, kindled into a flame the long-smouldering fires of their rebellion against heaven. The more evil there is in a man, the more accessible that man is to Satan, and the more susceptible to his influence. The more virtue in the heart, the stronger its safeguard. Hence he ever begins his work with the most assailable with those who are morally the most remote from Christianity, who dwell "in the four quarters of the earth." And through them he goes on to propagate his cause. From Eve he proceeds to Adam; from Gog and Magog he proceeds to the very "camp of the saints" (ver. 9).

II THE REACTION IS OF A CHARACTER THE MOST THREATENING. There are two things in the passage which suggest this.

1. The vast number of its agents. Those whom Satan enlists in his cause from the "four quarters of the earth these moral tribes, called Gog and Magog, constitute a great multitude, "the number of whom is as the sand of the sea" (ver. 8) a figurative expression indicating their numerousness. It is not necessary to suppose that these unbelievers had been numerous through all the centuries of the millennial times. Nor is it necessary to suppose that any genuine Christians had really and finally been tempted to renounce their principles. It seems to me highly improbable that a man whose nature has been thoroughly Christianized will ever finally degenerate into a life of sin. We may suppose that for many ages there were but few whose spirits did not flow with the clear and majestic stream of Christian truth and practice. If, however, at one time there were only a dozen, or even fewer, sinners among the teeming millions of saints, it is easy to see how they could multiply in the course of time, without causing any of the really good to apostatize. These twelve, we will suppose, become parents; their children, on the principle of filial love and dependence, will catch their spirit and be moulded by their example; they, in their turn, become parents; and thus, according to the common law of generation, in a few years these few may multiply to thousands. Amongst the angels, who do not probably derive their existence from each other, between whom there is not this relation of parent and child, there is not this character propagating power.

2. The anti-Christian aim of its agents. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city" (ver. 9). The idea, symbolized, I take to be this they made efforts to assault the most central and vital part of religion. They sought, perhaps, to argue away the being of God, the doctrine of human responsibility, the necessity of mediation, and the existence of a future life of rewards and punishments. There are minor attacks which unbelievers make upon Christianity, but the attempt to disprove these fundamentals is a blow aimed at the most vital part it is to compass "the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.

III THE REACTION TERMINATES IN- THE EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION OF ALL ITS AGENTS. "And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire," etc. (vers. 9, 10). From this language we learn the following truths:

1. That there is in the universe of God a distinct local scene, where the wicked of all classes are to receive their righteous retribution. This is implied in the expression, "lake of fire." There are other scriptural expressions which imply it; such as "Gehenna," "furnace of fire," etc. Reason would also suggest this.

(1) All existence implies place. You may think of space apart from being, but you cannot think of being apart from space. You think of an infinite being in connection with infinite space, and finite being in connection with limited locality.

(2) A wicked existence implies a miserable scene. Antecedently, we should infer that the outer scene of a moral being"s existence would resemble his moral character and mood. This world was made for innocence, and it is beautiful, etc. It seems fitting that a dark, inharmonious, deformed spirit should have a sunless, tumultuous, and horrid world as its residence.

(3) Moral beings, of directly opposite sympathies, habits, and aims, as are sinners and saints, imply separate local homes. There is a mutual repugnance to each other"s society here, and it is natural to suppose that, when retribution comes, they shall have their "own place." We know not where this place is, whether in the depths of the earth or in regions far beyond this planet. There may be, perhaps, in some district of the creation, a scene without a streak of beauty, a gleam of light, or a drop of goodness, on which justice frowns and thunders.

2. That the retribution which the wicked will endure in this scene will be of a most terrible description. "Fire and brimstone" (ver. 10). The allusion here is most likely to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah; (Gen_19:24-28) fire is the emblem of suffering; (Zec_13:9 1Co_3:13-15 1Pe_1:7) brimstone is the emblem of desolation (Job_18:15). Nothing will grow on any soil that is covered with sulphur. The Bible employs other figures equally terrible, such as "outer darkness," "blackness of darkness," "prison," etc. Here, then, is the end of the enemies of Christ. Redeemed humanity, henceforth, will be freed from "Gog and Magog," from the beast and the false prophet, and from the devil, the prince of darkness, forever and ever. Glorious day! Though countless ages in the future, this faint glimpse of thee adds energy to our faith and brightness to our hope! But how long will this reaction continue? We have an answer to this in the third verse of the chapter, "And after that he must be loosed for a little season." Its duration will be short compared with either of the two following periods:

(1) Compared with the preceding period of almost universal holiness. The period of millennial holiness continued for a thousand yearsi.e. either three hundred and sixty-five thousand years, or some immense period of duration. This period of reaction is called a "little season" in relation to that.

(2) Compared with the succeeding period of perfect holiness to be enjoyed by the redeemed in the heavenly world. In the twenty-second chapter of this book it is said of the state and residence of the redeemed that "there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign forever and ever." "Forever and ever." What arithmetic can compute the ages contained in this "ever and ever"? All the preceding periods in the world"s history are but as "little season" compared with this "ever and ever;" less than an hour to the geological cycles that are gone; less than a spark to the central fires that light and warm the unnumbered worlds of space. D. T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when the former thousand years are fulfilled, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison - At the same time that the first resurrection begins. There is a great resemblance between this passage and chap. xii, 12. At the casting out of the dragon, there was joy in heaven, but there was woe upon earth: so at the loosing of Satan, the saints begin to reign with Christ; but the nations on earth are deceived.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The release of Satan and the coming of Gog and Magog:

v. 7. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

v. 8. and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

v. 9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

v. 10. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.

According to this description, the final period of the earth’s history and of that of the Church on earth will be one in which the faithfulness of the saints will be sorely tried: And when the thousand years will have come to an end, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go forth to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to muster them for the battle, whose number was like the sand of the sea. That is the last act in the world’s drama: Satan loosed from his confinement of a thousand years and going forth with rage and bloodthirstiness to wage war against the army of the Lord, against the Christian Church. To this end he musters Gog and Magog, the innumerable host of all the enemies of the people of God, no matter under what name they may appear in the world. Satan marshals all the anti-Christian forces—and their number is beyond calculation—for a last terrible onslaught.

This combat and its outcome are next pictured: And they went up on the broad places of the earth, and they surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And there fell down fire from God out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where also the beast and the false prophet are; and they were tormented day and night forever and ever. From all sides the enemies of the Lord and of His believers come, equipped with every form of weapon to take the beloved city of God, to overcome the Church of Jesus Christ. But even this last supreme effort is futile against the power of the Lord, who sends down fire from heaven to destroy them, since He Himself is a devouring fire, Psa 18:8; Eze 15:7; Heb 12:29. God; in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early, Psa 46:5. It was the end also for Satan, for he was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, to join those whom he had inspired before, the beast and the false prophet, Anti-Christ and his representative, the Pope. In this place of torment they shall forever remain. There will be no more loosing and delivering. Satan will be bound forever at the return of Christ on the last day.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. A prophetical prediction, that when the long time of the church’s liberty and peace shall be expired, which is here expressed and set forth under the notion of a thousand years; God will then take off his restraint from the devil, and he shall influence the wicked world once more to make opposition against his church: When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. Behold here Satan’s restless malice against mankind, and particularly against the church of Christ.

Observe next, That Satan is first said to deceive the nations, and then to gather them together to the battle against the saints: the same saints, either in their persons or in their successors, who did formerly reign, will now suffer But by whom? Gog and Magog; where is probably an allusion to these two names mentioned often in the Old Testament, who were the last enemies of the Jewish church before Christ’s first coming.

In like manner the last enemies of the Christian church are here set forth by that name, who shall be utterly destroyed a little before Christ’s second coming to judgment. Satan with all his united power, and combined force, will attempt the whole body of the Christian church before his last and fatal overthrow.

Observe lastly, That after the destruction of these agents and instruments of Satan’s fury, his own full and final destruction is declared; which may be called his second imprisonment in that lake of fire and brimstone, which is both easeless and endless, there to keep company with the beast and false prophet to all eternity.

Behold here the dceiver and the deceived plagued together; the devil that deceived, and the beast and false prophet that were deceived by him, and were his instruments to deceive others, are cast together into the lake of fire, to be tormented for ever. Satan was indeed condemned to this before, and reserved thereunto, but the actual and final execution thereof is suspended until the end come.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7–10. When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed. The earth shall have its golden age but it shall not last forever. Satan shall, when many ages have rolled away, be loosed for a little season. From some cause, that is wrapped in the darkness of the future, righteousness shall wane; wickedness shall revive; the great adversary shall in part regain his influence over our race. But it is cheering to know that his triumph will be short. He shall be loosed only “for a little season.”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Satan will be released from his prison

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God will release Satan from his prison" (See: Active or Passive)

at the four corners of the earth

This is an idiom that means "all over the earth." See how you translated this in Revelation 7:1. (See: Idiom)

Gog and Magog

These are the names that the prophet Ezekiel used to represent faraway countries. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and How to Translate Names)

They will be as many as the sand of the sea

This emphasizes the extremely large number of soldiers in Satan's army. (See: Simile)

translationWords

Satan

prison

deceive

nation

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

7–10. THE LOOSING OF SATAN, THE WAR OF GOG AND MAGOG, THE JUDGEMENT ON THE DEVIL

The order of events in the last three chapters in this Book corresponds, with many additions, to that in the closing chapters of Ezekiel. The first Resurrection answers to the Vision of the Valley of dry bones. The War of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel is to be the last great trial of the restored theocracy (as the old theocracy had been tried and for a season purified by the terror of the Scythian invasion in the days of Josiah); after the War of Gog and Magog both in Ezekiel and here comes the full description of the final glory of Zion.

7. ὅταν τελεσθῇ. B2 reads μετά.

7. λυθήσεται. As we heard in Rev 20:3. We cannot with any certainty identify the μικρὸν χρόνον there with the ὀλίγον καιρὸν of Rev 12:12; still the two passages to a certain extent illustrate each other.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7-10.] Loosing of Satan at the end of the millennium: gathering together and destruction of the nations: final condemnation of Satan.

And when the thousand years are completed, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison (see ver. 3. The prophetic future is here used: but in ver. 9 the historic form with aorists is resumed) and shall go forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth (there will be nations on earth besides the saints reigning with Christ, who during the binding of Satan have been quiet and willing subjects of the Kingdom, but who on his being let loose are again subjected to his temptations, which stir them into rebellion against God), Gog and Magog (compare Eze_38 and 39 throughout. This which is here prophesied is the great final fulfilment of those chapters. And the names Gog and Magog, taken from there, had been used in the rabbinical books to signify the nations which should in the latter days come up to Jerusalem against the Messiah. So the Jerus. Targum on Num 11:27, in Wetst., “In fine extremitatis dierum Gog et Magog et exercitus eorum adscendent Hierosolyma et per manus regis Messiæ ipsi cadent et vii. annos dierum ardebunt filii Israel ex armis eorum:” and Avoda sara, 1: “quando videbunt bellum Gog et Magog, dicet ad eos Messias: ad quid huc venistis? Respondebunt, Adversus Dominum et adversus Christum ejus.” This name Magog occurs Gen 10:2, as that of a son of Japhet, in company with brethren whose names mostly belong to northern and north-eastern nations: Gomer (Kimmerians), Madai (Medians), Meshech (Muscovites), &c. With these however are joined in Eze 38:5, Persians, Ethiopians, Libyans. Josephus renders the word Σκύθαι (Antt. i. 6. 3), Μαγώγης δὲ τοὺς ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ Μαγώγας ὀνομασθέντας ᾤκισε, Σκύθας δὲ ὑπʼ αὐτῶν (τ. Ἑλλήνων) προσαγορευομένους, and so Jerome: Suidas, “Persians (Μαγώγ, ὁ Πέρσης).” It seems to be a general name for the northern nations, and Gog, if at least we may follow the analogy of Eze 38:2, is their prince), to gather them together to the (well-known) war: of whom the number (of them) is as the sand of the sea. And they went up (the historical aor. is here resumed) upon the breadth of the earth (i. e. entirely overspread it; see ref.) and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the beloved city (by these two is probably meant one and the same thing, the καί being epexegetical; or at all events the camp must be conceived as surrounding and defending the city. The πόλις ἡ ἠγαπημένη is Jerusalem (reff.): not the new Jerusalem, but the earthly city of that name, which is destined yet to play so glorious a part in the latter days). And there came down fire out of heaven (so in reff. Ezek.), and devoured them: and the devil that deceiveth them (the pres. part. merely designates: the devil their deceiver) was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet (ch. 19:20). And they shall be tormented by day and by night to the ages of the ages.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.