Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Revelation 20:1-6, Satan bound and the thousand years
An angel with the key to the Abyss and a great chain seizes the dragon, binds him for a thousand years and seals him in the Abyss so that he cannot deceive the nations. Those beheaded for their witness, who refused the beast and its mark, come to life and reign with Christ for the thousand years, the first resurrection, over which the second death has no power.
Revelation 20:1-6, in every translation this tool compares.
An angel comes down with a key and a chain, seizes the dragon, Satan, and locks him away in the Abyss for a thousand years so that he can no longer mislead the nations, though he will later be released briefly. John then sees thrones of judgment and the martyrs who refused the beast brought back to life to reign with the Messiah for that thousand years. This is called the first resurrection, and those who share in it are blessed, serve as priests and are safe from the second death. When the thousand years fall, and what the binding means, are read in several ways.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-abyss-and-bound-angels\/","n":"The Watchers, the flood and the bound angels","s":"Most Jews of the period read the sons of God of Genesis 6:1-4 as angels who took human wives before the flood. Their books, above all 1 Enoch, had the guilty angels bound under the earth in darkness until the judgment, and 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude speak of that prison.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-thousand-years\/","n":"The thousand years","s":"Several Jewish apocalypses expected an in-between kingdom, a reign of the Messiah or an age of peace between the present age and the final judgment, of varying length. Revelation 20 gives it a thousand years, and Christians have read that span in three main ways ever since.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-citizenship\/","n":"Roman citizenship","s":"In the eastern provinces few people outside the colonies were citizens of Rome. A citizen could not be beaten or chained without trial, could appeal to Caesar, and outranked almost everyone around him.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/martyrs\/","n":"Martyrs","s":"Jews remembered those who died rather than break God's law, above all the Maccabean martyrs tortured under Antiochus, and the prophets said to have been stoned or sawn in two. Their hope was the resurrection.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/resurrection-of-the-dead\/","n":"The resurrection of the dead","s":"Most Jews, with the Pharisees, expected God to raise the dead to bodily life at the end of the age. The Sadducees denied it. Nobody expected one man to rise ahead of everyone else.","r":""}
Jewish texts bound wicked angels until judgment: in 1 Enoch 10 Raphael and Michael bind them under the earth (Arnold; Beale), Jubilees 48 binds Mastema, and Isaiah 24:21-22 shuts the host of heaven in a pit (Beale). Chapters 20-22 follow Ezekiel 37-48 (Keener). Papias and Irenaeus expected a reign on earth, but by Eusebius's day such readers were a minority (the cultural backgrounds article The Millennium), and Dionysius denied apostolic authorship to discredit the literal reign (Carson, Moo and Morris). For a future reign, "it follows the logic of the narrative": Satan is not bound in chapters 12-13, and the beast is still in the lake at 20:10; against it, no such interim appears elsewhere in the New Testament, and Revelation retells its judgments in cycles (the article). Beale reads the binding as restraint of Satan's deceiving since the cross (Mark 3:27, where Arnold too sees Satan tied up at the cross). Heiser, after Kline, takes the binding's thousand years as the church age, granting that the reign of verse 6, after the first resurrection, does not fit it; he rejects Beale's binding: Satan is kept only from what he does when loosed, when "he leads the nations against Zion".
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Revelation 20:1-6, and on 20:1-3 and 20:5-6
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 20:2-3, 20:3, 20:4 and 20:5
- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, on Revelation 20:1-3
- Michael S. Heiser, Reversing Hermon, ch. 11, section The Lake of Fire, the End of the Watchers
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 20:1-6
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 34, The Story of the Book of Revelation, section 11
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Revelation 20:1-6, 20:1-3 and 20:4-5
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Revelation 20:1-3 and 20:4-6
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 4, Judaism, The Angelic Fall, and ch. 5, The Teaching of Jesus, Jesus on the Attack-Exorcism
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article The Millennium
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, chapter on Revelation, Author (Early Christian Testimony)
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 20: Satan's Final Defeat and the Great White Throne Judgment, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- Michael S. Heiser, Naked Bible Podcast, Revelation series, audience question-and-answer episodes (about 401-406)
