Revelation 19:20,21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And The issue was such as might be expected: Christ and his saints obtained a full and entire victory; a victory as complete as when the generals and all the chief officers of an enemy's army are made prisoners of war, and the rest are cut to pieces in the field of battle. For the beast The idolatrous persecuting power represented thereby; and the false prophet, that wrought miracles before him That, by pretended miracles and false doctrine, had supported the apostacy; that is, the antichristian tyranny, and the corrupt clergy, were taken, were made prisoners, and condemned to suffer the most exemplary punishment by the hands of justice. These both were cast alive Without undergoing bodily death; into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone And that, it seems, before the devil himself, chap. Revelation 20:10. Here is the last of the beast and of the false prophet. After several repeated strokes of divine vengeance, they are represented as delivered to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. They are plunged at once into the extremest degree of torment, without being reserved in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day. Surely none but the beast and false prophet of Rome, the persecutors and deceivers of that antichristian kingdom, could have hardened themselves thus against the God they pretended to adore; or refused to have repented under such dreadful and repeated visitations. And the remnant Those of inferior rank and power, who had aided and abetted the apostacy, and concurred in opposing the truth and religion of Christ; were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which proceeded out of his mouth That is, with the word of Christ, like the common soldiers of a conquered army, who fall in the field of battle, and are left there unburied, a prey to the fowls of the air, which feed on them, and are filled with their flesh Their substance being seized for other persons, and other uses. A most magnificent description this of the final overthrow of the beast and false prophet, and all their adherents. It has, in particular, one exquisite beauty, that, after exhibiting the two opposite armies, and all the apparatus for a battle, (Revelation 19:11-19,) then follows immediately (Rev 19:20) the account of the victory, without one word of an engagement or fighting. Here is the most exact propriety; for what struggle can there be between Omnipotence and the power of all the creation united against it? Every description must have fallen short of this admirable silence. The intelligent reader will easily observe, that the description is not only incomparably sublime, but strongly figurative; and that, speaking in plain language, its design is to show, in the most expressive manner, the complete downfall of Popery, with all its delusive and destructive abominations, and the triumphs of the pure and genuine religion of Jesus; the true word of God will in the end prevail over every species of superstition and idolatry: all the powers of antichrist shall be completely subdued: and the religion of Rome, as well as Rome itself, be totally destroyed.