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And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

New Defender's Study Bible Notes

20:7 Satan shall be loosed. The events described in Revelation 20:7-9 take place only after there have been a thousand years of enforced peace and righteousness. In Revelation 20:3, it was said that Satan must be loosed a little season, evidently to give men an opportunity to reveal the basic rebellion still simmering in their human natures, and in order to see openly whether they will choose Satan over God, as their ancestors had done a thousand years before. Those entering the millennial period, of course, will be genuine believers, but their descendants will evidently drift away from the faith of their fathers as the generations accumulate and the population grows. Open rebellion, as well as crime and warfare, will be impossible. Satan and his hosts will all be bound in Hades, but men and women will still be born with sinful natures and will need to receive Christ as personal Savior by faith, just as was always true. If they do not, they will still be vulnerable to Satanic deception when Satan is released to tempt them.


20:8 Gog and Magog. Despite the duplication of names, this Gog-and-Magog incursion after the thousand years does not seem to be the same as the invasion of Israel by Gog and Magog before the thousand years, as described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. The combatants in the two battles are quite different from each other and the outcomes are drastically different, as is obvious from even a casual reading of the two accounts. It may be that the names are the same because the new leaders of the rebellion (human leaders, that is) come from the same northern regions of Eurasia as the leaders of that earlier invasion of Israel. They may even have deliberately appropriated these Biblical names as a statement of their intent to avenge the defeat and death of their ancestors when they invaded Israel.


20:8 sand of the sea. The world population, with the benefit of increased longevity, as well as an almost perfect environment and societal conditions, will grow so much as actually to fulfill God’s ancient command to “fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1,7). But it is a sad commentary on the perverse depravity of human nature that, even after a thousand years of peace and prosperity, and even while experiencing the personal reign of Christ on the earth, men will still follow Satan when they have a chance, and do so in great multitudes! Truly, the human heart in its natural state is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).


20:9 camp of the saints. “The saints” here are probably not just the Israelites in Jerusalem but also the resurrected and raptured saints of the previous ages, all coming to rally around “the beloved city” as the hosts of darkness and their multitudes of human followers surround them for one last desperate attempt to defeat and dethrone the Lord Jesus Christ. This will be impossible, of course, for God (not Satan!) is the Creator of all things, and this time His patience and longsuffering will finally reach an end. In a foretaste of the lake of fire which the rebels will all soon inhabit, God will send from heaven a vast ring of fire around the holy city which will quickly “devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27), “for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).


20:10 brimstone. “Brimstone” was the Old English name for sulphur (“brim” developed into “burn,” sulphur being the “stone” that burns). When sulphur ignites, it burns with a very bright light and with the noxious odor of sulphur dioxide. This smell was noted by the ancients both in lightning storms and volcanic storms, so both came to be known as “fire from God”—hence the Greek words for brimstone came to be theion or theiodes. Whether or not the lake of fire and brimstone will actually incorporate burning sulphur, the use of the term indicates that the fiery lake will always be associated with the fiery judgment of a holy God on willful sin.


20:10 are. The beast and the false prophet are thus still imprisoned in the lake of fire over a thousand years after first being cast into it (Revelation 19:20). These two are actually men, of course, even though Satanically controlled men. Presumably their human bodies will be consumed by the flames when they are first cast into them, but their souls will still be there a thousand years later when Satan joins them, and they will all continue there forever. It is probable, though not explicitly so stated, that all Satan’s demonic hosts will be cast there simultaneously with him (note Matthew 25:41).


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