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

Verse 1

Jesus Christ says in the writer's vision at, "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

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

Verse 12

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

Verse 15

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