How Can “Death and the Unseen” Be Cast Into the Lake of Fire?

In Revelation 20:14 we read:

And death and the unseen were cast into the lake of fire.

That objects or people (see 20:15) can literally be cast into the lake of fire is understandable. But how can that be the case with abstract (=non-tangible) concepts such as “death and the unseen”? Surely they cannot literally be cast into something somewhere? Then where does this word choice come from? The answer is pointed out to us in what follows:

And death and the unseen were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. And if anyone was not found written in the scroll of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.

Death and the unseen are cast into the lake of fire; that is the second death. How? Because those whose name is not written in the scroll of life are cast into the lake of fire. That is the explanation, since these people were the last to be found in “death and the unseen.” They arose out of it in order to be judged. That means that during that process no one was still in “death and the unseen.” But have “death and the unseen” thereby been nullified? No, for a portion of those standing before the Great White Throne die a second time. By casting these people into the lake of fire, “death and the unseen” are continued in the second death. Everyone who is dead from this moment on is dead for the second time.

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