Revelation 20:3

Revelation 20:3. And east him into the abyss, i.e into the place to which he naturally belongs.

And shut it. The angel closed the door of which he has the key, doubtless at the same time locking it, so that Satan should no longer continue the mischief he had done.

And sealed it over him, not only locking the door, but sealing it in order to make it doubly fast (Daniel 6:17). In each of the acts thus described, the laying hold of Satan, the binding him, the putting him into the abyss, the closing and sealing the abyss, we have a mocking caricature of what was done to Jesus in the last days of His passion (John 18:12; Matthew 27:60; Matthew 27:66).

That he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be finished. ‘The' thousand years, as shown by the use of the article, are the same as in Revelation 20:2, and nothing more therefore need be said of them at present. But who are ‘the nations'? They are mentioned again in Revelation 20:8, as being in the ‘four corners of the earth,' as being ‘Gog and Magog.' One distinguished commentator (Bleek) regards them as ‘the heathen nations still remaining on the earth, which are also supposed to remain there during the thousand years' kingdom, but at its most extreme and minutest points, so that the citizens of the Messianic kingdom do not come in contact with them, nor is their power disturbed by them.' Another (Alford) has the same general idea, but with this difference, that he considers them to be, during the thousand years, ‘quiet and willing subjects of the kingdom,' who are again seduced by Satan after he is let loose. A third (Dusterdieck) makes them simply the heathen. A fourth (Kliefoth) draws a distinction between them and those meant by the ‘whole world' or the ‘whole inhabited world' (chaps. Revelation 3:10; Revelation 12:9; Revelation 16:14). These latter expressions are referred to the civilized and cultured nations of antiquity, while the more distant and barbarous peoples, living as it were upon the confines of the globe, are comprehended under the former. Over the one ‘the beast' had exercised his sway, and they alone were destroyed at chap. Revelation 19:17-21. The other, ‘the nations,' were not involved in that destruction, but were still left upon the earth. The distinction thus drawn between cultured and uncultured peoples seems, however, to be inconsistent with various direct statements of the Apocalypse. Thus at chap. Revelation 3:10 not only is there nothing to suggest the thought of only cultured peoples, but the ‘whole inhabited world' spoken of must be understood in a sense as wide as that belonging to the words ‘them that dwell upon the earth' which immediately follow. At chap. Revelation 12:9, where the rule of the dragon is described, it is impossible to limit the expression ‘the whole inhabited world' in the manner proposed, for chap. Revelation 13:7 gives the beast, the vicegerent of Satan, universal power, and the influence of Babylon, with which that of the beast and therefore of Satan must be coextensive, extends to ‘all the nations,' including the ‘kings' and ‘merchants' of the earth (chaps. Revelation 14:8; Revelation 18:3; Revelation 18:23). Again, the words ‘the nations' are used in a much wider sense than that of barbarous tribes in Revelation 11:18, where they have their part in history; in chap. Revelation 11:18, where they must refer to the wicked in general in contrast with the good; in chap. Revelation 16:19, where they have ‘cities;' in chap. Revelation 19:15, where they embrace all the enemies of Christ; and in chap. Revelation 21:24, where they cannot be limited to one section only of the heathen. In short, there does not appear to be a single passage of the Apocalypse in which ‘the whole inhabited world' means the polished, or ‘the nations' the unpolished, undeveloped, nations of the globe. The only admissible interpretation, therefore, of the phrase ‘the nations' is that which understands by it the unchristian godless world.

These nations Satan is to ‘deceive' no more until the thousand years are finished. The word ‘deceive' is again used in Revelation 20:8, where we have a further description of that in which the deception consists. In the meantime it is enough to say that the word ‘till' employed by the Seer takes us forward to the deception practised at the end of the thousand years as that which he has in view. What the dragon will then do he does not do till then. It is thus not a general but a particular deception that is contemplated. We are not necessarily to think of a cessation of Satan's misleading of the world; but the ‘deceiving' which he does not practise till the thousand years are finished is definite and special.

After this he must be loosed a little time. The word ‘must' expresses, as usual, conformity to the purposes of God, who will certainly carry out His own plan.