What Does Revelation 20:7 Mean?
And when the thousand years are finished, the Adversary is loosed out of his prison.
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 when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,THE KEY
The Adversary’s release marks the end of his restraint, not a change in his nature.
THE MEANING
The verse places a boundary around the Adversary’s confinement: the thousand years reach completion, and he is released. His restraint changes; his identity does not. The verse keeps release distinct from transformation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that release itself makes the released one harmless: the one released remains the Adversary.
THE ROOT
λυθήσεται
lythēsetai
GROWS FROM
λύω
To loosen, untie, or release.
“loosed” in this verse is lythēsetai. The verb names a loosening of restraint, not a change in the one being released. The wording makes clear that the Adversary’s confinement ends while his identity remains the same.
ALSO GROWS
apolyō: Release, dismiss, or send away.
ἀπολύω
This compound carries the same loosening root into release from or departure away from something.
katalyō: Dismantle, dissolve, or overthrow.
καταλύω
The same root can describe undoing what holds something together, showing how closely release and the removal of restraint are joined.
φυλακῆς
phylakēs
GROWS FROM
φυλάσσ-
phylassō
To guard, keep, or watch over.
The word for prison belongs to the same family as guarding and keeping watch. The verse’s movement is from custody to release from custody: confinement is an active restraint, not simply a place.
ALSO GROWS
phylassō: Guard, keep, or watch over.
φυλάσσω
This verb reveals the guarding held inside the word for prison.
phylax: A guard or watcher.
φύλαξ
The related noun names the one who keeps watch, linking the prison to its guarding function.
THE PATTERN
Scripture marks release as a transition when confinement or restraint reaches its limit.
Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they ran him out of the pit. He shaved himself, changed his garments, and came in to Pharaoh.When the Slanderer had ended every testing, he stepped away from him until a fitting time.And suddenly there came a great shaking, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the doors were opened, and every one's bonds were untied.THE THREAD
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.John uses the same verb when Jesus tells them to unbind Lazarus from his graveclothes. The shared root names loosening itself; the context shows whether release is restoration or exposure.
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