Revelation 12:8 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

Prevailed not. So 'Aleph (') B C, Vulgate; but A, Coptic, read, 'He prevailed not.'

Neither. 'Aleph (') A B C read, 'not even' х oude (G3761)]: a climax. Not only did they not prevail, but not even their place was found anymore in heaven. There are four gradations in Satan's ever deeper downfall:

(1) He is deprived of his heavenly excellency, though having still access to heaven as man's accuser, up to Christ's ascension. As heaven was not fully yet opened to man (John 3:13), so it was not yet shut against Satan. The old dispensation could not overcome him.

(2) From Christ to the millennium, he is judicially cast out as accuser of the elect, and shortly before the millennium loses his standing against Israel, and has expulsion fully executed on him and his by Michael. His rage on earth becomes the greater, his power being concentrated on it, toward the end, when "he knoweth that he hath but a short time" (Revelation 12:12).

(3) He is bound during the millennium (Revelation 20:1-3).

(4) Having been loosed for a while, he is cast forever into the lake of fire.

Revelation 12:8

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.