Revelation 20


Revelation 20 is the twentieth chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter contains the notable account of the "Millennium" and the judgment of the dead.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 15 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are among others:
  • Codex Sinaiticus
  • Codex Alexandrinus

    Old Testament references

  • : ;

    New Testament references

  • :

    The Millennium (20:1–10)

This passage is the basis for various tradition of Christian 'millenarianism'.

Verse 1

Jesus Christ says in the writer's vision at Revelation 1:18, "I hold the keys of Hades and of Death", leading some interpreters to suggest that the angel observed here is actually Christ. The 17th-century theologian John Gill refers to a suggestion that the prophesied angel was fulfilled in Constantine the Great. The Ethiopic version reads "the key of the sun".

Verse 2

  • "The dragon" is the 'ultimate principle of evil', which appeared before the narrative of the two beasts, and continues after both of them have perished.

    Verse 3

  • "Cast him into the bottomless pit": In chapter 12 the dragon was 'thrown from heaven to earth, where he deceived the nations' and now is thrown into the imprisonment in the abyss, prevented to deceive the nations for a long time.

    Verse 4

It is not explicit or clear who was seated on the thrones. "The natural construction is that 'judges' sat on them. The New International Version presents the text as:
American theologian Albert Barnes notes the "considerable resemblance, in many respects, between this and the statement in ":
Daniel's vision continues:
and so the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges argues that those seated on the thrones are these saints of the Most High.

Verse 5

  • "Lived … again": from Greek: ἀνἔζησαν, ' or ἔζησαν, ', in the sense of "not only when restored to life, but when in the act of reviving".

    Verse 6

  • "Of God and of Christ": This provides a strong proof for "the doctrine of Christ's coequal Deity" with God.

    Verse 8

and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea.
Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Kyle Greenwood sees the "four corners" referenced in this verse as referring to, not squared edges, but rather, an idiom related to the four cardinal directions, as seen in the four points of a compass. This expression is also seen in Revelation 7, as well as Isaiah 11 and Ezekiel 7.

Verse 10

The Judgement of the Dead (20:11-15)

Verse 12

The reference to "judgment based on works" is repeated in verse 13. The phrase is in Tischendorf's critical edition. Biblical commentator Andrew Robert Fausset stresses that "we are justified by faith, judged according to our works".

Verse 14

Verse 15

The "lake of fire" is referred to in, in verses 10 and 14-15 in this chapter and in.