Revelation 20:3 - Printer Friendly

ESV: and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

NIV: He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

NASB: and he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.

CSB: He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time.

NLT: The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a little while.

KJV: And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

NKJV: and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.

The descending angel captures the Devil, throws him into the bottomless pit, and seals the entrance to the pit. In this verse, we learn that the Devil will not be allowed to deceive the nations during the thousand-year period. His deceptive influence began in the garden of Eden and then manifested itself in the hearts and minds of human beings to lead them into imagining all kinds of evil. God judged this evil by bringing a flood on the earth. Soon after the flood, however, humans congregated at Babel to build a name for themselves and construct a high tower on which they proposed to worship the heavenly bodies. God judged them decisively.

The Devil has continually influenced nations to oppose God's will, and Ephesians 2:2 identifies him as "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience." When the Devil offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world if He would fall down and worship him (Matthew 4:9), Jesus did not deny that the Devil possesses the kingdoms. But someday, the Devil will be unable to deceive the nations until he is released from the pit at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ. Then he will be "released for a little while."

The purpose of this release seems to be so that God can prove a point: that no amount of evidence will ever be enough for those determined to reject God. Human sin, and our sin nature, will override everything else if we allow it. During the end times, nonbelievers will react to prophecy and miracles with anger and hate, not repentance. After a millennium of Christ's rule, people on earth will still choose to follow Satan, proving that the excuse "if God had just given me more evidence…" is a lie.

Revelation 20:1–3 describes the Devil's punishment, following the doom of the Antichrist and the False Prophet we read about in Revelation 19:20–21. Satan is enclosed in the bottomless pit, to be released at the end of a thousand years. Matthew 24:29–31 reports the coming of Christ at the end of the tribulation, and Matthew 25:31–46 describes the judgment of the nations that takes place when Jesus inaugurates His kingdom on earth.

Revelation chapter 20 represents the final lesson, final judgment, and final victory of the end times. Satan is bound, but not destroyed, and released after a thousand years of peace and righteousness. Proving that no evidence or reason to believe in and follow Jesus is enough for those determined to rebel, some follow Satan and are destroyed in a rebellion. Those who died without faith in Christ, through all of history, are resurrected to face the great white throne judgment. There, they are sentenced for sin and consigned eternally to the lake of fire.

This chapter comes between the account of our Lord's decisive victory at Armageddon and the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven to earth. It focuses on the beginning of Jesus' reign on the earth and the great white throne judgment when unbelievers from all periods of history are judged and sentenced to eternal suffering in the lake of fire. Daniel 7:18, Isaiah 11, Joel 3:16–21, Obadiah 1:21, and Micah 4:2 are just a few of the Old Testament references to the reign of Jesus on the earth. After this point in the end times, evil has been entirely and completely defeated.

The word ''revelation'' means ''an unveiling or disclosure.'' This writing unveils future events such as the rapture, three series of judgments that will fall on the earth during the tribulation, the emergence of the Antichrist, the persecution of Israel and her amazing revival, as well as Jesus' second coming with His saints to the earth, the judgment of Satan and his followers, and finally, the eternal state. This content, combined with the original Greek term apokalypsis, is why we now refer to an end-of-the-world scenario as ''an apocalypse.''