“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.”
King James Version (KJV)
20:5 The rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years - Mentioned, verse #4|. Were ended - The thousand years during which Satan is bound both begin and end much sooner. The small time, and the second thousand years, begin at the same point, immediately after the first thousand. But neither the beginning of the first nor of the second thousand will be known to the men upon earth, as both the imprisonment of Satan and his loosing are transacted in the invisible world. By observing these two distinct thousand years, many difficulties are avoided. There is room enough for the fulfilling of all the prophecies, and those which before seemed to clash are reconciled; particularly those which speak, on the one hand, of a most flourishing state of the church as yet to come; and, on the other, of the fatal security of men in the last days of the world.
Re 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not. If "the souls of the martyrs" live again spiritually and morally upon the earth in the millennial period, as I have explained, then this statement is to be explained in harmony (see PNT "Re 20:4"). The rest of the "dead lived not" until the thousand years were finished. Until the end of the thousand years. The sublime faith of the martyrs pervades the saints during this period, and other men, wicked or less noble, sleep in silence, unseen and unknown, without influence upon the earth, until the millennial period is ended. They have no part of the first resurrection, of the spirits of the martyrs.