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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Revelation 20:5 - 20:5
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The rest of the dead (hoi loipoi tōn nekrōn). “All except the martyrs, both the righteous and the unrighteous” (Beckwith). But some take this to mean only the wicked.
Lived not until the thousand years should be finished (ouk ezēsan achri telesthēi ta chilia etē). See Rev 20:4 for the items here. “To infer from this statement, as many expositors have done, that the ezēsan of Rev 20:4 must be understood of bodily resuscitation, is to interpret apocalyptic prophecy by methods of exegesis which are proper to ordinary narrative” (Swete). I sympathize wholly with that comment and confess my own ignorance therefore as to the meaning of the symbolism without any predilections for post-millennialism or premillennialism.
This is the first resurrection (hautē hē anastasis hē prōtē). Scholars differ as to the genuineness of this phrase. Accepting it as genuine, Swete applies it to “the return of the martyrs and confessors to life at the beginning of the Thousand Years.” According to this view the first resurrection is a special incident in the present life before the Parousia. It has no parallel with 1Th 4:16, where the dead in Christ are raised before those living are changed. Some think that John here pictures the “Regeneration” (palingenesia) of Mat 19:28 and the “Restoration” (apokatastasis) of Act 3:21. No effort is here made to solve this problem, save to call attention to the general judgment out of the books in Rev 20:12 and to the general resurrection in Joh 5:29; Act 24:15.