Reexamine Six Occurrences of “Thousand Years” in Greek in Revelation 20

Author: Baruch

After reading all six books of the “End Time Series” no single other word but “shock” could be used to describe my reaction. I have always believed that there is only one interpretation for “one thousand years” that occur 6 times in Revelation 20. I felt the need to check the Greek for myself as I know the inerrancy of the Bible refers to the inerrancy of the Scripture in its original languages, Hebrew for the OT and Greek for the NT.

Direct reading of the Interlinear Greek text with grammar notes (click here for an internet version) verifies the validity of the correct understanding of “Millennium” in “End Times Series,” especially the second book “The Sword for the End Times (I): Dividing Truths in Daniel & Revelation.” The Greek grammar concerning the six occurrences of “one thousand years” in Revelation 20 tells me two basic facts: (1) No Greek word for “one” in all six cases and (2) the Greek for “thousand” is all plural, not singular.

Interesting enough, how come so many seminary schools, theologians and Bible scholars/translators with the highest degree of scholarship could have missed these two basic facts? How could they have translated the Greek equivalence “thousands of years” to “one thousand years” or “a thousand years,” not just for the English translations, but also for other language translations of the Bible?

Apparently, as long as we wrongly catch the whole picture of the Bible, our theology about the Bible will be in error. As a result, a wrong doctrine concerning a certain teaching will cause us to ignore the obviously black and white words in the Bible. Therefore, no matter how people look down the “spiritual interpretation” and how they focus on the “literal interpretation” of the Bible, wrong capture of the Bible’s integrity will cause us to fall into the pit of an incorrect “spiritual interpretation.”Thus we say, a true “spiritual interpretation” means one’s rightly comprehending the integrity and wholeness of the Bible.

A deeper pursuit of the issue reveals more things that are thought provoking, one of which is the fact that the Greek language, unlike English, does not have an indefinite article like “a” or “an” in English. Like English, Greek does have the definite article like “the” in English. As pointed out by the 7/07’s message in “The Sword for the End Times (I): Dividing Truths in Daniel & Revelation” there are four cases out of the six occurrences of the “thousands of years” in which the Greek definite article are used; Revelation 20:2 and 20:4 are the only two exceptions where no definite article is used in front of the phrase “thousands of years”– for this the book explains well in saying that the “thousands of years” during which Satan is bound are different from the “thousands of years” during which the saints’ spiritual lives are restored.

Amazingly enough, a further study points me to an article on this very topic written by Ken Fortier – his article is entitled “A Preliminary Study of the Greek Words Xilias and Xilioi” (click the title to download Ken’s article). His article shows that those handlers of the Greek texts, respected by many for their scholarships, somehow changed the plural Greek word from χίλιoι to the present χίλια – such a subtle change makes the Greek word study on it almost fruitless. This is because most Greek words that have countable numbers for “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” etc. in front of the Greek word for “thousands” have χίλιoι rather than χίλια as the suffix. Beside studying the Greek words for various quantities of “thousand,” for the purpose of comparisons, Ken Fortier also studies the various forms of the Greek word μυριoι (meaning “ten thousands”) — the conclusion of the latter study is equally thought provoking.

With the above facts in our hands, we can have a more thorough understanding of God eternal plan for mankind. For those who have truly lived out the new life in Jesus during the period of almost two thousands years between His first and second comings, “thousands of years” is a better term to describe their spiritual realities. Because by holding fast to their faith in Jesus till death, they had become “the first fruit” that God intended to harvest since creation. For this reason, they already had the share in the first resurrection of mankind upload Jesus’ second coming.

However, there is also good news for those who cannot have a part in the first resurrection of mankind: Out of God’s mercy, God has reserved another thousand of years for the rest of His believers after the second coming of the Lord. Although they are not fit for being “the first fruit” upon the Lord’s coming, they still have the privilege to enter into the “Jubilee Millennium” kingdom that will be set up by the Lord upon His second coming. Because of this extra mercy of the Lord, the left-over believers can be spared from being wiped out during the Great Tribulation years and gain a second opportunity to complete their walking with the Lord on earth and enter into the maturity stage of their lives. As a result, their names can still stay in the Book of Life after the final judgement (corresponding to the second resurrection of mankind).
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Note 1: This article was received from a reader after reading the book “Numbers and Roots of Numbers in the Bible” published by TheoLogos Publications. To encourage readers to share more of this type of articles but at the same to allow them to remain anonymous, any reader can choose to use a pseudonym or number to represent him or her.

Note 2: To find out how the unprecedented discovery of the three-element circulating “numerical root” (217_352_160) was made, please read Taichuan Tongs’ new book “Numbers and Roots of Numbers in the Bible.” published by TheoLogos Publications.