Revelation 20:9 - Printer Friendly

ESV: And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them,

NIV: They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

NASB: And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

CSB: They came up across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

NLT: And I saw them as they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God’s people and the beloved city. But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them.

KJV: 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.

NKJV: They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.

In prior verses, Satan was bound for a thousand years prior to being released. The point of this release seems to be to prove an important point. Namely, that those who reject God do so out of stubbornness and pride—not a lack of information or evidence. Even after ten centuries of peace and righteousness, people will still choose to rebel against God.

Satan's duped followers march to the camp of the saints, which is most likely Jerusalem. It is called "the beloved city" because God set His love there in a special way. When Jerusalem rejected Jesus during His first visit to earth, Jesus cried out to the city in a display of His love: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing" (Matthew 23:37). The fact that Jerusalem is the object of God's love might be sufficient reason for Satan's assault on her, but there is another reason. During the millennial reign of Christ, Jerusalem serves as His capital. Isaiah 2:2–3 prophesies that during the millennium all nations shall flow to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem and the Word of the Lord shall proceed from Jerusalem. The Devil's massive assault on Jerusalem fails, because fire comes down from heaven and consumes the assailants.

Revelation 20:4–10 focuses on the reign of Christ during the millennium: the thousand years of Christ's rule on earth, as well as what happens at the end of that era. The millennial reign begins after the Devil is imprisoned in the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1–3) and before the unrighteous dead of all periods of history are judged and consigned to the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11–15). These events precede the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven (Revelation 21).

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.''