Revelation 20:2

Four titles make the identity of the bound creature certain. The dragon is his most frequent name in Revelation (Revelation 12:3-4; Revelation 12:7; Revelation 12:13; Revelation 12:16-17; Revelation 13:2; Revelation 13:4; Revelation 13:11; Revelation 16:13). This title alludes to the serpent of old (cf. Genesis 3). This is an anacoluthon or parenthetical reference (cf. Revelation 1:5; et al.) [Note: Robertson, 6:257.] The Devil (Revelation 20:10; Revelation 2:10; Revelation 12:9; Revelation 12:12) and Satan (Revelation 2:9; Revelation 2:13; Revelation 2:24; Revelation 3:9; Revelation 12:9) are his more common biblical names.

There is no reason to take this thousand-year time period as symbolic. All the other numbers in Revelation make sense if we interpret them literally, and this one does too. It is impossible to prove that any number in Revelation is symbolic. [Note: Smith, A Revelation . . ., p. 269; Walvoord, The Revelation . . ., p. 295; Hoehner, p. 249.] The repetition of this number six times in this pericope stresses the length of Satan’s confinement. God did not reveal the length of the Millennium (from the Latin mille, thousand, and annum year) before now. Neither did He reveal many other details about the future before He gave John these visions (cf. Revelation 17:5).

Morris offered the following reason for taking the thousand years as symbolic.

"One thousand is the cube of ten, the number of completeness. We have seen it used over and over again in this book to denote completeness of some sort, and this is surely the way we should take it here. Satan is bound for the perfect period." [Note: Morris, p. 235. Cf. Vern S. Poythress, "Genre and Hermeneutics in Revelation 20:1-6," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36:1 (March 1993):41-54.]

Morris acknowledged that God will release Satan at the end of this period (Revelation 20:8). [Note: Morris, p. 236.] To him the thousand-year reign is a reign of martyrs in heaven that has no relation to the Second Advent. [Note: Ibid., pp. 234, 237.] However, there is no reason in the text or context to assume that we should interpret 1,000 symbolically. In fact, in view of the other numbers in this book, we would expect another literal number here.

"If 1,000 is a symbol, what about 7,000 (Revelation 11:13), 12,000 (Revelation 7:5), or 144,000 (Revelation 7:4)? Are these symbols also? If 1,000 years is a symbolic term, what about 5 months (Revelation 9:10), 42 months (Revelation 11:2), and 1,260 days (Revelation 11:3)? To ask these questions is to show the absurdity of regarding the numbers as figurative, for on what ground could one consistently hold that one, 1,000, is figurative, and the others, including where multiples of 1,000 are used, are literal?" [Note: Smith, A Revelation . . ., p. 269.]