And when the thousand years are ended, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Read Chapter 20
Andreas of Caesarea
AD 637
It must be known that Ezekiel also prophesied that thèse nations will come in the end times with great power to fall upon the land of Israël and that their weapons are to be burnt for seven years through a great fire, which on the one hand, some of the interpreters took (to mean) the fall of the Assyrians with Sennacherib having occurred many years ago at the time of Hezekiah during the prophecy of Ezekiel (2Kgs 19:35), but on the other hand, some (interpret it as) the destruction of the nations attacking those who undertook to rebuild Jérusalem after her capture by the Babylonians,(Theodore) first Cyrus the Persian, and after him Darius having commanded so to the governors of Syria. And some see it as meaning the powers of Antiochus having been defeated by the Maccabees.
From the Hebrew language some interpret Gog as "one who gathers" or "gathering" and Magog "proud." Through the names is to be signified either the gathering of the nations or arrogance.
And thus the reign of the saints with Christ shall last longer than the bonds and imprisonment of the devil, because they shall reign with their King the Son of God for these three years and a half during which the devil is no longer bound. So that we understand either that the thousand years of the reign of the saints does not terminate, though the imprisonment of the devil does,— so that both parties have their thousand years, that is, their complete time, yet each with a different actual duration approriate to itself, the kingdom of the saints being longer, the imprisonment of the devil shorter, — or at least that, as three years and six months is a very short time, it is not reckoned as either deducted from the whole time of Satan's imprisonment, or as added to the whole duration of the reign of the saints, as we have shown above in the sixteenth book regarding the round number of four hundred years, which were specified as four hundred, though actually somewhat more; and similar e...
For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world, whether the Getæ; and Massagetæ;, as some conclude from the initial letters, or some other foreign nations not under the Roman government. For John marks that they are spread over the whole earth,
seduce. He will then seduce them, to the end that he may gather them together to this battle. For even before he used to seduce them in whatever manner he was able, through many different evils. And "he will go out" means, he will burst forth into open persecution from the hiding-places of his hatred.
By Gog, which means ‘roof.’ Antichrist is understood, who will be the dwelling place of the Devil. By Magog, which means ‘from the roof,’ those who follow Antichrist are understood, as has been said more fully in Ez. 39.
He links Gog to the rest of the nations who fought with the Antichrist. The blessed prophet Ezekiel also told us about Gog and Magog, describing the evil end of evil men. These will be some of the nations and their leaders at the end of the age, (Ez. 38-39) but they do not now exist, or they are some of the present nations called by other names in holy Scripture. So these will be allies of detested Satan in his fight against the slaves of Christ.
