The chaining of Satan for a thousand years to allow some freedom from diabolical plotting and deception and tormenting is one of the most familiar aspects of the Day of Atonement. The passage most easily relating to this event is a familiar one, and it can be found in Revelation 20:1-3: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.” While it is common to understand Satan as being bound up and imprisoned, it is less easily understood how rare imprisonment is seen as a biblical punishment. Given that I have some interest in the area of penology, I would like to examine briefly why this is the case given the ubiquity of imprisonment as a punishment in our world [1].

The Bible itself speaks often on punishment among its many laws, but the punishments given tend to fall into a few related groups. A large number of crimes are to be punished by the death penalty, including rape and kidnapping and even prolonged and serious disobedience to parents [2]. Other crimes, including fornication with an unmarried virgin and theft, were punished with fines that were designed to provide restitution to the innocent party who was harmed, the person stolen from and the parents of the young woman, who would receive the bride price in a less than ideal situation. Once the restitution was paid, though, the wrongdoing was considered over and done with, and was not held against the guilty party. There were even crimes, including manslaughter, that were punished with a form of “house arrest” in a city of refuge until the death of the current high priest, but even this was not imprisonment even if it did lead to a curtailing of freedom. There was also temporary holding while a trial was going on [3], but this was not designed to be a long-term punishment, because once the crime was adjudicated the punishment previously given would take effect.

Why, then, would Satan be imprisoned? To answer this question, let us examine the point of punishment. Where crimes were committed that were of a sufficiently serious degree that they would corrupt the people or cause massive damage (or deliberate death) to someone, the punishment of death was done to rid society of such dangerous individuals to preserve society as a whole. Other crimes were judged to be worthy of payment for the crime, and something that would, once repaid, lead to no lasting sanctions or limitations against the one convicted. This stands in stark contrast to our criminal systems, which routinely make it difficult (if not impossible) for someone to be fully restored to their freedoms and rights with a clean slate after having committed a crime, which tends to make it difficult for people to stay on the straight and narrow. Those criminals that could be rehabilitated, once they had paid their literal debt to the victim (not an amorphous debt to society) were freed of the stigma of their deeds and allowed to return to their full rights and privileges as citizens. Those criminals whose deeds were too heinous were put to death, pending resurrection and a chance to be restored by God in the world to come. The Bible seemed to view imprisonment, with its waste of resources and the psychological damage it would inflict, as being inhumane, and the apostles themselves were famously sprung out of imprisonment in one way or another fairly often in the book of Acts.

Why would Satan be different though? It appears, and I say this only as an implication or a speculation, that imprisonment is precisely the sort of behavior that would be deserved by a being whose sole purpose appears to be causing as much drama and chaos and unhappiness as possible to attempt to drag down as many other beings before his inevitable judgment. There appears to be no belief in the efficacy of rehabilitating Satan. It would also appear that part of the punishment would be enforcing restraint, possibly while Satan is able to see the happiness of mankind that he has sought consistently to ruin and destroy for thousands of years. For such wrongs, imprisonment seems precisely the sort of punishment that has been richly earned. I think we use it so casually in our world, though, that we often fail to recognize just how unusual it is where the Bible is concerned. If any being deserved to be locked up for a thousand years, though, it is Satan, without question.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/prisoner-of-chillon/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/the-prisoner/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/a-prison-of-the-mind-a-musing-on-education/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/prison-towns/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/somaliland-update-student-ambassadors-and-pirate-prisons/

[2] See, Deuteronomy 21:18-21.