What Does Revelation 20:3 Mean?
And he throws the dragon into the pit without floor, shuts him in, and presses a seal upon him, so that he leads the nations off the path no more until the thousand years are finished. After that he must be loosed for a little while.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.THE KEY
The seal makes restraint a bounded interval: the same sentence that shuts the deceiver away already names his release.
THE MEANING
The deceiver leads whole nations astray, and here his reach is shut off by confinement and a seal. That restraint has a stated limit: when the thousand years are complete, he is released for a brief season.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that sealing the deceiver means permanent removal: the passage gives the restraint an end and names release afterward.
THE ROOT
πλανήσῃ
planēsē
GROWS FROM
πλαν- (from πλανάω, planáō)
To wander, or to lead someone astray.
“lead off the path” in this verse is planēsē. English “deceive” can sound like making someone believe a false statement; πλανάω (planáō, “lead astray”) carries the motion of being made to wander. The figure is restrained from disorienting whole peoples.
ALSO GROWS
planē: Wandering; error or delusion.
πλάνη
The same family names error as movement off course, revealing the motion inside “deceive.”
planētēs: Wanderer; the source of English “planet.”
πλανήτης
This branch preserves the image of wandering, making the passage’s deception a leading away from the path.
λυθῆναι
lythēnai
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, unbind, or release.
“loosed” in this verse is lythēnai. The final verb belongs to λύω (lyō, “loosen, release”), so the sequence ends by reversing confinement in its own vocabulary. The restraint is real, but its limit is built into the sentence: after the span, the captive is unbound briefly.
ALSO GROWS
lysis: Loosening, release, or dissolution.
λύσις
It carries the same image of something bound being loosened.
apolyō: Release, dismiss, or send away.
ἀπολύω
This compound verb keeps λύω’s sense of letting go, clarifying the release named at the end of the verse.
ἔκλεισεν
ekleisen
GROWS FROM
κλεί- (from κλείω, kleíō)
To close or shut.
“shuts him in” in this verse is ekleisen. The Greek word behind “shut him up” is κλείω (kleíō, “close, shut”), whose family also gives κλείς (kleis, “key”). The shared image places enclosure within the logic of opening and closing; the next clause explicitly says this confinement ends.
ALSO GROWS
kleis: Key; an instrument for opening or closing.
κλείς
Its relation to the verb for shutting links this confinement with controlled opening and release.
kleistós: Closed or shut.
κλειστός
It names the resulting closed state that the verse later says will be undone.
THE PATTERN
Deception is pictured as being led off course, not merely receiving a false statement.
I wander like a sheep that loses the way; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commands.My brethren, if anyone among you wanders away from the truth, and someone turns him back.You therefore, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, guard yourselves, lest you also, carried off by the wandering of the lawless, fall from your own steadiness.THE THREAD
And when the thousand years are finished, the Adversary is loosed out of his prison.The next scene repeats λύω (lyō, “loosen, release”) in λυθήσεται (lythēsetai, “will be loosed”), the same root as λυθῆναι (lythēnai, “to be loosed”) here. It then says he goes out to deceive the nations, so the brief release becomes the return of the very deception the seal suspends.
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