Revelation 20:1

King James Version (KJV)

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

An angel came down from heaven - One of the executors of the Divine justice, who receives criminals, and keeps them in prison, and delivers them up only to be tried and executed.

The key of the prison and the chain show who he is; and as the chain was great, it shows that the culprit was impeached of no ordinary crimes.

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Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

And I saw an angel come down from heaven - Compare the notes on Revelation 10:1. He does not say whether this angel had appeared to him before, but the impression is rather that it was a different one. The whole character of the composition of the book leads us to suppose that different angels were employed to make these communications to John, and that, in fact, in the progress of things disclosed in the book, he had contact with a considerable number of the heavenly inhabitants. The scene that is recorded here occurred after the destruction of the beast and the false prophet Revelation 19:18-21, and therefore, according to the principles expressed in the explanation of the previous chapters, what is intended to be described here will take place after the final destruction of the papal and Muhammedan powers.

Having the key of the bottomless pit - See the notes on Revelation 1:18; Revelation 9:1. The fact that he has the key of that underworld is designed to denote here, that he can fasten it on Satan so that it shall become his prison.

And a great chain in his hand - With which to bind the dragon, Revelation 20:2. It is called great because of the strength of him that was to be bound. The chain only appears to have been in his hand. Perhaps the key was suspended to his side.

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Uriah Smith
Daniel and the Revelation, 687

Verse 1

The event with which this chapter opens seems to follow, in. chronological order, the events of the preceding chapter. The inquiries that here arise are, Who is the angel that comes down from heaven? what are the key and chain which he has in his hand? what is the bottomless pit? and what is meant by binding Satan a thousand years?DAR 687.2

1. The Angel. â€” Is this angel Christ, as some suppose? â€” Evidently not. A bright ray of light is thrown from the old typical service directly upon this passage. Thus, Christ is the great High Priest of this dispensation. On the day of atonement, anciently, two goats were taken by the priest, upon which lots were cast, one for the Lord, and the other for the scape-goat. The one upon which the Lord's lot fell, was then slain, and his blood carried into the sanctuary to make an -atonement for the children of Israel, after which the sins of the people were confessed upon the head of the other, or scapegoat, and he was sent away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, or a place not inhabited. Now, as Christ is the priest of this dispensation, so by arguments, a few of which we here introduce, Satan is shown to be the antitypical scape-goat.DAR 687.3

(1.) The Hebrew word for scape-goat, as given in the margin of Leviticus 16:8, is Azazel. On this verse, Jenks, in his Comprehensive Commentary, remarks: â€œScape-goat. (See diff. opin. in Bochart.) Spencer, after the oldest opinion of the Hebrews and Christians, thinks Azazel is the name of the devil; and so RosenmÃ¼ller, whom see. The Syriac has Azzail, the angel (strong one) who revolted.â€ The Devil is here evidently pointed out. Thus we have the definition of the Scripture term in two ancient languages, with the oldest opinion of the Christians, in favor of the view that the scape-goat is a type of Satan.DAR 688.1

Charles Beecher, in Redeemer and Redeemed, pp. 67, 68, says: â€œWhat goes to confirm this is that the most ancient paraphrases and translations treat Azazel as a proper name. The Chaldee paraphrase and the targums of Onkelos and Jonathan would certainly have translated it if it was not a proper name, but they do not. The Septuagint, or oldest Greek version, renders it by ??????????? (apopompaios), a word applied by the Greeks to a malign deity sometimes appeased by sacrifices. Another confirmation is found in the book of Enoch, where the name Azalzel, evidently a corruption of Azazel, is given to one of the fallen angels, thus plainly showing what was the prevalent understanding of the Jews at that day.DAR 688.2

â€œStill another evidence is found in the Arabic, where Azazel is employed as the name of the evil spirit. In addition to these, we have the evidence of the Jewish work Zohar, and of the Cabalistic and Rabbinical writers. They tell us that the following proverb was current among the Jews: â€˜On the day of atonement, a gift to Sammael.' Hence Moses Gerundinensis feels called to say that it is not a sacrifice, but only done because commanded by God.DAR 688.3

â€œAnother step in the evidence is when we find this same opinion passing from the Jewish to the early Christian church. Origen was the most learned of the Fathers, and on such a point as this, the meaning of a Hebrew word, his testimony is reliable. Origen says: â€˜He who is called in the Septuagint ???????????, and in the Hebrew Azazel, is no other than the Devil.'DAR 688.4

â€œIn view, then, of the difficulties attending any other meaning, and the accumulated evidence in favor of this, Hengstenberg affirms with great confidence that Azazel cannot be anything else than another name for Satan.â€DAR 689.1

(2.) In the common acceptation of the word, the term scapegoat is applied to any one who has become obnoxious to the claims of justice; and while it is revolting to all our conceptions of the character and glory of Christ to apply this term to him, it must strike every one as a very appropriate designation of the Devil, who is styled in Scripture the accuser, adversary, angel of the bottomless pit, Beelzebub, Belial, dragon, enemy, evil spirit, father of lies, murderer, prince of devils, serpent, tempter, etc., etc.DAR 689.2

(3.) The third reason for this position is the very striking manner in which it harmonizes with the events to transpire in connection with the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, as far as revealed to us in the Scriptures of truth.DAR 689.3

We behold in the type, (a) the sin of the transgressor transferred to the victim; (b) we see that sin borne by the ministration of the priest and the blood of the offering into the sanctuary; (c) on the tenth day of the seventh month we see the priest, with the blood of the sin-offering for the people, remove all their sins from the sanctuary, and lay them upon the head of the scape-goat; and (d) the goat bears them away into a land not inhabited. Leviticus 1:1-4; 4:3-6; 16:5-10, 15, 16, 20-22.DAR 689.4

Answering to these events in the type, we behold in the antitype, (a) the great offering for the world made on Calvary; (b) the sins of all those who avail themselves of the merits of Christ's shed blood by faith in him, borne, by the ministration of Christ while pleading his own blood, into the new-covenant sanctuary; (c) after Christ, the minister of the true tabernacle (Hebrews 8:2), has finished his ministration, he will remove the sins of his people from the sanctuary, and lay them upon the head of their author, the antitypical scape-goat, the Devil; and (d) the Devil will be sent away with them into a land not inhabited.DAR 689.5

This we believe to be the very event described in the verses under notice. The sanctuary service is, at the time here specified, closed. Christ lays upon the head of the Devil the sins which have been transferred to the sanctuary, and which are imputed to the saints no more, and the Devil is sent away, not by the hand of the High Priest, but by the hand of another person, according to the type, into a place here called the bottomless pit. Hence this angel is not Christ. For a full exposition of this subject, see the work, Looking unto Jesus; or Christ in Type and Antitype.DAR 690.1

2. The Key and Chain. â€” It cannot be supposed that the key and chain are literal; they are rather used merely as symbols of the power and authority with which this angel is clothed upon this occasion.DAR 690.2

3. The Bottomless Pit. â€” The original word signifies an abyss, bottomless, deep, profound. Its use seems to be such as to show that the word denotes any place of darkness, desolation, and death. Thus in Revelation 9:1, 2, it is applied to the barren wastes of the Arabian desert, and in Romans 10:7, to the grave; but the passage which specially throws light upon the meaning of the word here is Genesis 1:2, where we read that â€œdarkness was upon the face of the deep.â€ The word there rendered deep is the same word that is here rendered bottomless pit; so that passage might have been translated, â€œDarkness was upon the face of the abyss, or bottomless pit.â€ But we all know what is meant by the word deep as there used; it is applied to this earth in its chaotic state. Precisely this it must mean in this third verse of Revelation 20. At this time, let it be borne in mind, the earth is a vast charnel-house of desolation and death. The voice of God has shaken it to its foundations; the islands and mountains have been moved out of their places; the great earthquake has leveled to the earth the mightiest works of man; the seven last plagues have left their all-desolating footprints over the earth; the burning glory attending the coming of the Son of man has borne its part in accomplishing the general desolation; the wicked have been given to the slaughter, and their putrefying flesh and bleaching bones lie unburied, ungathered, and unlamented from one end of the earth to the other end thereof. Thus is the earth made empty and waste, and turned upside down. Isaiah 24:1. Thus is it brought back again, partially, at least, to its original state of confusion and chaos. (See Jeremiah 4:19-26, especially verse 23.) And what better term could be used to describe the earth thus rolling on in its course of darkness and desolation for a thousand years than that of the abyss, or bottomless pit? Here Satan will be confined during this time, amid the ruins which indirectly his own hands have wrought, unable to flee from his habitation of woe, or to repair in the least degree its hideous ruin.DAR 690.3

4. The Binding of Satan. â€” We well know that Satan, in order to work, must have subjects upon whom to work. Without these, he can do nothing. But during the thousand years of his confinement to this earth, all the saints are in heaven, beyond the power of his temptations; and all the wicked are in their graves, beyond his power to deceive. His sphere of action is circumscribed, he being at this time confined to this earth; and thus is he bound, being condemned throughout this period to a state of hopeless inactivity. This, to a mind that has been so busy as his has been for the past six thousand years in deceiving the world, must be a punishment of the most intense severity.DAR 691.1

According to this exposition, the â€œbindingâ€ of Satan means simply the placing beyond his reach of the subjects upon whom he works, and his being â€œloosedâ€ means their being brought again, by a resurrection, to a position where he can again exercise his power upon them. Over this exposition some assume to grow merry, telling us that we have mistaken the parties, and have the wicked bound, not the Devil. Yet how often do we hear, in the daily transactions of life, such expressions as these: My way was completely hedged up; my hands were completely tied, etc. But do we understand, when persons use such expressions, that some insurmountable obstacle was literally thrown across the path they were traveling, or that their hands were literally confined with ropes or cords? â€” No; but simply that a combination of circumstances rendered it impossible for them to act. Just so here; and why will not people grant to the Bible the same liberty of speech that they give, without question and without ridicule, to their fellow men in the common intercourse of life? But more than this, there is here a great limitation of Satan's power, which may well be called a â€œbinding.â€ He no longer has the power of traversing space, and visiting other worlds; but like man he is confined to this earth, which he nevermore leaves. The place of the ruin he has wrought now becomes his gloomy prison-house, till he is led out to execution, at the end of the thousand years.DAR 691.2

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Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary

Here is a vision, showing by a figure the restraints laid on Satan himself. Christ, with Almighty power, will keep the devil from deceiving mankind as he has hitherto done. He never wants power and instruments to break the power of Satan. Christ shuts by his power, and seals by his authority. The church shall have a time of peace and prosperity, but all her trials are not yet over.

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SDA Bible Commentary (limited)
Volume 1-7

1. I saw. The events described in ch. 20 follow immediately upon those portrayed in ch. 19.

Come down. Literally, “coming down.” John saw the angel not already on the earth, but in the act of descending.

Key. The fact that an angel carries the key shows that Heaven has complete control of events. The dragon will be unable to avoid being cast into the pit.

Bottomless pit. Gr. abussos (see on ch. 9:1). This is a symbolic vision. The bottomless pit is not some subterranean cavern or some yawning chasm elsewhere in the universe. John is describing the prophetic picture that unfolded before his wondering eyes. In vision he saw an actual pit, but the shutting up of the dragon in the pit was merely a symbolic way of showing that Satan’s activities would be brought to a halt. This is made clear by the statement showing the purpose of his confinement, “that he should deceive the nations no more” (ch. 20:3).

How Satan’s activities will be brought to a halt is clear from the context and from other scriptures, which show that the earth will be utterly depopulated at the second coming of Christ. According to ch. 19:19-21 the wicked are all destroyed in connection with the coming (see comment there). At the same time the righteous are “caught up … in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17). Paul’s language shows that at His second coming Christ does not establish His kingdom on earth; else why would He remove the saints from the earth? Its establishment takes place after the close of the millennium, when the New Jerusalem comes down (Rev. 21:1-3). That Jesus removes the saints from the earth at His coming is further implied in John 14:1-3. In comforting His disciples in their sorrow concerning His departure, Jesus informed them that He was going to His Father’s house, where He would prepare dwellings for them. Then He would return and take them to be with Him. Compare John 13:36; 17:24. The dwellings are doubtless in the New Jerusalem, which is not transferred to this earth until the close of the millennium (see on Rev. 21:1-3).

The group that is caught up to meet the Lord in the air includes both the righteous dead, who are raised at the time of the advent, and the righteous living, who are “changed” (1 Cor. 15:51; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17). The company of resurrected saints thus includes all the righteous who have ever lived upon the earth. There are but two main resurrections, the “resurrection of life” and the “resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29; Acts 24:15). At these resurrections, “all that are in the grave … shall come forth” (John 5:28, 29). Some have insisted that the phrase “dead in Christ” (1 Thess. 4:16) includes only the Christians who have died, and that the OT saints are not included. But the above scriptures show that all the righteous come forth in the resurrection of the just. The phrase “dead in Christ” need not exclude the OT saints, for they died with their hope fixed on a Messiah to come. Their resurrection is dependent upon the resurrection of Christ, for only “in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). The resurrection of the righteous is further described as the “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:5, 6).

Much confusion has been brought into the millennial doctrine by those who fail to recognize that promises to ancient Israel were conditional on obedience. Many fanciful theories are advanced by those who attempt to fit a fulfillment of these ancient promises into the eschatological picture of the NT. This is more than the NT writers attempt. Inspired by the Spirit of God, they present a consistent picture of last day events. They show how events that might have met a different fulfillment had the Jewish nation accepted their divine destiny, will be fulfilled with respect to the NT church. They show the true position of the Jew in NT times and accord no special place to the Jews as a nation. In one of His parables Jesus clearly revealed that when the Jewish nation rejected Christ “the kingdom of God” was taken from them “and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (see on Matt. 21:43). The Jew now stands in the same relationship to God as the Gentile (see on Rom. 11). For an extended discussion of the role of the Jews in Bible prophecy and of the conditional nature of the prophecies made concerning them see Vol. IV, pp. 25-38. A careful survey of all the evidence shows that the Jews as a nation play no special role in millennial events. As individuals, those who through the centuries of the Christian Era have accepted Jesus Christ are saved as members of the Christian church. Along with other saints they rise in the first resurrection and are translated. Those who persist in their rejection of the Messiah rise in the second resurrection (see on Rev. 20:5).

The removal of all the saints to heaven and the destruction of all the living wicked (see above) leave the earth totally depopulated. Furthermore, the fearful convulsions of nature connected with the seven last plagues (see on ch. 16:18-21) leave the earth a scene of utter desolation. Dead bodies lie strewn over its surface (see on ch. 19:17-21). It is not unreasonable to see in the abussos a symbol of the desolated earth to which Satan will be confined during the millennium. In the LXX of Gen. 1:2 abussos translates the Heb. tehom, “deep,” the word that describes the surface of the earth as it appeared on the first day of creation, “without form, and void.”

Chain. A symbol of restraint. No literal binding with a literal chain is here prefigured.

In his hand. Or, “upon his hand,” perhaps indicating that the chain was hanging from the angel’s hand.

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Ellen G. White
The Faith I Live By, 353.1

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. Revelation 20:1, 2. FLB 353.1

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Ellen G. White
Maranatha, 307.1

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Ellen G. White
This Day With God, 14.5

By this course of action Satan has forged a chain by which he himself will be bound. The heavenly universe will bear witness to the justice of God in punishing him. Heaven itself saw what heaven would be, if he were in it.... TDG 14.5

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