Right Reading of Revelation 20:5

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
Q. Revelation 20:55But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (Revelation 20:5) (3).-In the late W. Kelly's " Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews " appears the following sentence in a footnote on page 129, " Compare the absurd reading of the excellent Alex. MS. in Revelation 20:55But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (Revelation 20:5)." Will you please enlighten me as to what the reading is, and why it is absurd? G. P. B.
A. Ver. 5 in the passage referred to is a misprint for ver. 3, where the Alexandrian Codex stands alone (so far as I know) in reading ἐσφἀγισεν ἐμμἐνως αὐτὀν-“and sealed him abidingly " (!). If only (as the verse shows) sealed for a limited period, is it not false as well as absurd to add the word " abidingly "?