more, till the thousand years that he must be loosed a little season. should be fulfilled; and after coming to a right understanding of this matter is, they seem to show that the number, a thousand, was used proverbially for many. Hence we read of a thousand generations for many generations, and one chasing a thousand for chasing many. Again, God says, "The cattle on a thousand hills are mine," where no one will pretend that the exact number of a thousand is intended. We read also, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand," to which the same remark will apply. It will be remembered, that in determining what time was intended by the twelve hundred and sixty days, (Rev. xi. 3; xii. 6,) we maintained that all we could learn about it was, that it was the time of the church's depression and of the triumph of the Roman power. The thousand years, on the contrary, is the time of the church's prosperity, and of the dragon's restraint. It is not probable that the exact number, a thousand, was intended. The season described was what would appear to men to be a long time, although in the eye of God it might be a very short time, for a thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday; Psa. xc. 4. The two events which particularly distinguish the thousand years are the restraining of the dragon, and the spiritual reign of the Christians (of whom the martyrs were made the representatives) with Christ upon the earth; though it is not certain that the reign | of the Christians was to close when the thousand years closed. Sir Isaac Newton supposed that what St. Peter said, about the thousand years, 2 Ep. ii. 4, he was led to say from what he had read in the Apocalypse; and he believed for this, and many other reasons, that the Apocalypse was written before that epistle. (p. 243.) We apprehend that the revelator borrowed his idea of the thousand years from the Rabbins. Lightfoot says: "The Jews counted the days of the Messias a thousand years. The Babylon Talmud doth show their full opinion about the days of the Messias; and amongst other things they say thus, as Aruch speaks their words: It is a tradition of the house of Elijah, that the righteous ones whom the blessed God shall raise from the dead, they shall no more return to the dust; but those thousand years that the holy blessed God is to renew the world, he will give them wings as eagles, and they shall flee upon the waters.' The place in the Talmud is in Sanhedrim, fol. 92, where the text indeed hath not the word thousand, but the marginal gloss hath it, and shows how to understand the thousand years.' And Aruch speaks it as a thing of undeniable knowledge and entertainment. And so speaks R. Eliezer, 'The days of the Messias are a thousand years.'" -(Lightfoot's Works, Pitman's ed., London, 1825, vol. iii., p. 361.) Observe the particulars of this tradition. During the thousand years, the righteous were to revive and fall no more; they were to mount up with wings as eagles and flee over the waters. not these the facts which the revelator incorporates into that section of the Apocalypse which we are now considering? Hence Lightfoot says: "John all along this book doth intimate new stories by remembering old ones; and useth not only the Old Testament phrase to express them by, but much allusion to custom, languages, and opinion of the Jews, that he might speak, as it were, closer to them and nearer their apprehensions, so doth he here and forward." (Idem, 361.) John uses the traditions of the Jews, in regard to the prosperity of the kingdom of the Messias, to describe the coming prosperity of the church during the dragon's restraint. He speaks of it as a thousand years, not at all for the Are 4 And I saw thrones, and ment was given unto them: and they sat upon them, and judg- I saw the souls of them that purpose of describing the length of it, lives, all the faithful and perseverbut because such had been the Rab-ing, who had the spirits of the marbinical expression. After that he tyrs, and who had been redeemed by must be loosed a little. The dragon, the blood of Christ, - these all lived or pagan power, was in the first place and reigned with him on the earth. to be restrained; after that it would The thrones, therefore, were the symbe slightly revived; but it would be bols of the Christians reigning with finally overthrown throughout the Christ, coöperating with him, by their empire; ver. 10. example and influence; and this they 4. I saw. - Here the revelator be- did whether they had been slain or gins a new subject. The previous not; for if they had been slain, they verses refer to the restraint of the still lived among men by their examdragon; - this verse refers to the ples. Paul so lives, and reigns with martyrs as representatives of the Christ, on the earth, even to this day; faithful Christians, living and reign- and so do all the early Christians, ing with Christ. And here let it be and the faithful everywhere, the observed, once for all, that this chap-knowledge of whom has reached us. ter is not to be regarded as a contin- The revelator drew his metaphor uous narration in point of time. The from Daniel vii. 9, 10, and especially revelator relates parallel occurrences, and not consecutive ones. From verses 1-3, he describes a certain series of events. At verse 4, he goes back to first events, and traces another series, which is continued to the end of the 10th verse. At verse 11, he goes back again to first events At the first verse he says: "I saw an angel," &c. At verse 4, he goes back again to the same time, and commences in the same manner: "I saw thrones," &c. And at verse 11, we find him adopting anew the same form of speech,-"I saw a great white throne." These are not consecutive but simultaneous occurrences. Thrones. - What thrones were these the revelator saw? A throne is a place of power. The "great white throne," mentioned verse 11, was the mediatorial throne. The faithful Christians (especially the martyrs, who surrendered up their lives for the truth, and who are therefore used as representatives of the faithful, who were ready to die for Christ) were to be honored by living and reigning with him upon the earth. This applies, let it be remembered, not only to the actual martyrs, but to all who loved the truth more than their St. 22, 27. But more on this subject were beheaded for the witness of | Jesus, and for the word of God, ual. &c. works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father;" Rev. ii. 26, 27. And again, to the church at Laodicea: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne;" iii. 21. The New Testament is full of these figures. The thrones which John saw were metaphorical, and so was the "great white throne," mentioned verse 11. The kingdom of Christ itself was not real and outward, but metaphorical and spiritAnd I saw the souls of them, We do not suppose that the revelator actually saw the souls, or spirits, of those who had been beheaded; for a spirit cannot be seen. His meaning was, he saw that those who had been faithful amidst all the persecutions, and had suffered death for the cause of Christ, were still, in an important sense, here on the earth. He saw their spirits here, invigorating their successors; he saw the influences of their lives; he saw that these men, although absent in body, like their Master, (for he also had suffered martyrdom,) still remained on the earth, in precisely the same sense in which Jesus remained on the earth, although they were not so eminent as he; and thus Jesus, (though absent,) and the martyrs who had been beheaded, lived and reigned on the earth. Christ lives and reigns on the earth now, and so do the martyrs, and every faithful Christian the knowledge of whom has reached us. How little is there of the good that can really die. Abel "being dead, yet speaketh;" Heb. xi. 4. The poet has forcibly expressed this idea on slightly different subject: a Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, -to wit, the Christians who had not and which had not worshipped | the beast, neither his image, reigns, all faithful Christians reign, us. yet passed away from the earth; and the martyrs. The revelator refers to the first class in the following words: "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment (or the power to reign) was given unto them." These were the Christians who had not suffered death. They reigned with Christ on the earth; for, although Christ had suffered death, he still remained, by his spirit, on the earth; he reigned here in the gospel kingdom, and the Christians reigned with him, as mentioned Matt. xix. 28, and Rev. v. 10. The other class who lived and reigned with Christ were the martyrs, who had been "beheaded for the witness of Jesus." But they did not reign personally. The reve-live and reign on the earth with Jesus, lator does not contemplate them as reigning personally. He does not speak of the form of their existence in the same manner in which he spoke of that of the others. Of the first he says, "I saw thrones, and they sat on them," as if speaking of persons on the earth; but of the other class he says, "I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus," as if they were not present in body, but in spirit. 2d. Let it be remembered, that Christ continued to reign on the earth, after his crucifixion, and after his ascension. He was not present in body, but in spirit; and that is the same sense in which those who had been beheaded for bearing testimony of him were present. Jesus had all power in heaven and earth; and he promised his disciples that he would be with them alway, even unto the end of the world; Matt. xxviii. 18-20. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them;" Matt. xviii. 20; not surely in body, but in spirit. It is by the power of his spirit and his truth that he now reigns in the church on earth; for "he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet;" 1 Cor. xv. 25. In the same sense in which he who is not present in body any more than they. 3d. Observe that it is no new reign of Jesus which is mentioned in the passage before There is but one reign of Christ, and that is the gospel reign, so to speak. What other reign of Christ is ever mentioned in the Bible? And this reign goes on, wherever or whenever the influence of the gospel is felt. When it is said of any, therefore, that they reign with Christ, it is because they are co-workers or co-sufferers with him; for, "if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him ;" 2 Tim. ii. 12. The beheaded martyrs lived on the earth by their spirits, and participated in the reign of Christ. Their spirits were seen in their successors. The revelator did not intend that they were raised from the dead bodily, and lived on the earth again in that form for the resurrection from the dead, in the literal sense, is never described in such terms as he here employs. 4th. The reign of Jesus was the same thing, substantially, as the binding of Satan. The triumph of the gospel brought down the powers of heathenism; the descent of the New Jerusalem crushed pagan Rome; the reign of Jesus overthrew the reign of idols, of oppression, of deception, and of sin, 5 But the rest of the dead from the ancient prophets, and partly Rabbinical, and it is from the Jewish use of those terms that we are to look for their interpretation.” — (Com. on xx. 2.) * * * 5. Rest of the dead. It is evident, from these words, that the revelator had been speaking of the dead; and also of one section of the dead in contradistinction from the rest of them. He now wished to speak of the rest. What dead had he spoken of? Look back into the 4th verse. "I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus, they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." This was one part of the dead; and they lived and reigned with Christ during the blessed state of the church called the thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live until the time denoted by the thousand years was finished. To find the previous mention of these, we must look back to the last verse of the preceding chapter, " And the remnant [or rest, oi neither had received his mark | reigned with Christ a thousand upon their foreheads, or in years. their hands; and they lived and We may learn what was the reign of Jesus, and the reign of his faithful servants, dead and living, by considering it as the opposite of the reign of the dragon. Hence, when the angel came down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, and laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him for a season, then the reign of Christ prospered in the empire. Afterward, the dragon should be loosed a little season, and the power of the gospel should decline; but still, subsequently, and at no very distant day from that of the revelator, the dragon would be utterly destroyed throughout the empire; xx. 10; and then the gospel reign would go on in great glory; 11; the nations would be judged by Christ's truth; 12, 13; death and hell, and all the power of the enemies of the gospel, would be put down; 14, 15; and the holy city, New Jerusalem, or the kingdom of God, would come with power throughout the empire, as it had in Judea, at the over-loipoi, the same phrase as in the verse throw of the city of Zion. [Those who wish to see the following phraseology explained, "Worshipped the beast; neither his image; neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands," are referred to pp. 157-159, 216, 218, 227, 232, 233, 260, 287, of this Commentary.] TA thousand years.· See our remarks on this phrase, under verse 3. The time is not to be understood strictly. It was called a "thousand years" from a tradition that had existed among the Jews. See the quotation from Lightfoot under 3. It was the time of the dragon's restraint, and of the triumph of Christianity. Adam Clarke says, "It is not likely that the number a thousand years is to be taken literally here." And again, he adds, "The phraseology of the Apocalypse seems partly taken before us] were slain with the sword of him that sat on the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh;" xix. 21. This was the rest of the dead. They had received the mark of the beast and worshipped his image; xix. 20; but the other section of the dead had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark; xx. 4. The latter section lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; but the others, viz., the worshippers of the beast, "the remnant," or "the rest," lived not until the thousand years were finished. Thus we have seen that the first section of the dead, whom the revelator had named, were the martyrs — those who manifested such constancy and faith, and willingness to suffer in the cause of Christ, that it appeared to |