Revelation 20:3

3. Bottomless pit See note on Revelation 9:1. Why are the beast and false prophet (Revelation 19:20) said to be cast into the lake of fire, the final doom of all the wicked, and Satan only into the “bottomless pit?”

The reason we would suggest is this: The former two are not real personages, but only principles or organisms which arise in human history, (really originating from that bottomless pit, see notes on chap. ix,) and so are consigned to their finality; whereas, the latter is a real being, whose life-history commences before the creation of man, who procures the human fall, and is, therefore, destined by the divine order to receive his finality when the period of human history is closed at the final judgment.

Set a seal upon So that he cannot break out without breaking the seal.

Deceive the nations no more Hence, the nations are still in existence, and blessedly exempt from all infernal influences. The bottomless pit of chapter 9 is closed up, and the demon-locusts fly no more. The prince of the power of the air no longer works in the hearts of men, rendering them children of disobedience. A blessed negation of evil forces an abolition of depraving influences is now established. So that whereas a Christian civilization of an impure kind has heretofore been extending itself over the world, that Christian civilization is itself now becoming purer and far holier. This is, however, to a great degree of a negative character. Great oppressions, injustices, impurities, falsities, and corruptions, are disappearing. But there are needed yet the positive blessed influences of the reign of Jesus and his paradise over the earth to kindle the heart of the world with the glow of a sublime piety. Those come in the next paragraph.

Must be loosed It is the divine order that he be permitted to show himself worthy of his final doom.