Daniel 12

Today’s Passage: Daniel 12

We come now to the final page of Daniel, and the last words of the long vision that began in chapter ten. The angel has traced kingdom after kingdom, the rise and fall of proud powers, and now he lifts his eyes past all of it to the end of all things. Michael the great prince stands up for God’s people, there comes a time of distress unlike any before it, and then, out of the dust of the earth, the dead awake. Daniel is told to seal the words until the time of the end, he is shown two heavenly witnesses and the man clothed in linen who swears by the One who lives forever, and when Daniel confesses that he does not understand, he is given the tenderest word in the whole book. Go on your way, old prophet. You will rest, and you will rise to your inheritance at the end of the days. The book that opened with four young men refusing the king’s table closes with the promise of resurrection.

As you read, hold this: Beyond the last distress lies the resurrection, when the wise who turn many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever.

Daniel 12:1 (BSB)

¹ “At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress, the likes of which will not have occurred from the beginning of nations until that time. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.

The vision comes to its summit, and it does not flinch from the darkness that lies before the dawn. There will be a time of distress, the angel says, worse than anything the nations have ever seen. Yet notice how the sentence is framed on both sides by protection. At the front stands Michael, the great prince who watches over God’s people, rising up to defend them; at the back stands the book, the register of every name God has written and will not lose. The trouble is real and it is named honestly, but it is hemmed in by heaven on either side. No storm the world can raise will blot out a single name that God has written down. Those who belong to Him will be delivered, and the fiercest hour of history cannot break that promise.

Daniel 12:2–3 (BSB)

² And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt. ³ Then the wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.

Here is the great sunrise of the book, and I would have you slow down and read it three times, for the whole Old Testament has been leaning toward this word. The grave is not the end. Those who sleep in the dust will awake (יָקִיצוּ) yaqitsu, pronounced yaw-KEE-tsoo, from the root **קוּץ** (*quts*). Strong's H6974, to wake, awaken. The word Daniel is given for what happens to the dead is not a word for something new and strange, but the ordinary word for waking up in the morning. It is the very verb you would use of a man rousing from his bed at first light, shaking off sleep and rising to the day. This is how the Scriptures teach us to think of the resurrection of God’s people, not as a fearful summons but as a waking, when the Lord who laid His children down in peace calls them up again into the morning of a world made new. Death, for the one whose name is written in the book, has been gentled into sleep, and every sleeper will hear the voice that says it is time to rise. , and the sleep of death is shown to be exactly that, a sleep, from which the sleeper is roused when God speaks. Two roads open out of that waking, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting shame, and the Scriptures will not let us pretend there is only one door. But hold your eyes on the promise made to the faithful, and see how tender and how glorious it is. The wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who turned many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever. Think of it. A life spent quietly pointing others toward God, teaching a child to pray, speaking truth when it cost something, loving the way Christ loves, does not vanish into the dust. It is gathered up and set ablaze in the sky of eternity, shining like a star that never burns out. The humblest believer who leads even one soul toward righteousness is being made ready to shine forever.

Daniel 12:4 (BSB)

⁴ But you, Daniel, shut up these words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will roam to and fro, and knowledge will increase.”

Daniel is told to shut up the words and seal the book, and this is not a way of hiding the truth but of keeping it safe, the way you would seal a precious document to preserve it whole until the day it is needed. The vision is not for Daniel’s generation to unfold completely; it is a treasure entrusted to time itself, to be understood more fully as the end draws near. There is a humility asked of us here. Not everything God reveals is given to be fully solved in our lifetime. Some of it is given to be held, and trusted, and carried forward, sealed by the hand of God until the hour He appoints.

Daniel 12:5–7 (BSB)

⁵ Then I, Daniel, looked and saw two others standing there, one on this bank of the river and one on the opposite bank. ⁶ One of them said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long until the fulfillment of these wonders?” ⁷ And the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven, and I heard him swear by Him who lives forever, saying, “It will be for a time, and times, and half a time. When the power of the holy people has finally been shattered, all these things will be completed.”

Two heavenly witnesses stand on the banks of the river, and one of them asks the question that every suffering saint has asked: how long? The man clothed in linen, a figure of great glory hovering above the waters, lifts both hands to heaven and swears an oath, and the oath is not sworn by the answer but by the One who lives forever. That is where the certainty rests. The season is measured out as a time, times, and half a time, a set and limited span, and godly readers have understood its length in more than one way. But do not let the mystery of the number pull your eyes from the sworn certainty. The trouble is bounded. The One who lives forever has set its limit and pledged Himself to it. When the strength of God’s people seems most shattered, at that very point all these things will be completed, for the appointed end will surely come.

Daniel 12:8–10 (BSB)

⁸ I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these things?” ⁹ “Go on your way, Daniel,” he replied, “for the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. ¹⁰ Many will be purified, made spotless, and refined, but the wicked will continue to act wickedly. None of the wicked will understand, but the wise will understand.

I love the honesty of this old saint. I heard, he says, but I did not understand, and so he asks again. And the answer he receives is not a fuller diagram of the future but a gentle command to keep walking. Go on your way, Daniel. The words are sealed until the time of the end, and you are not asked to solve them, only to trust the God who spoke them. Then the angel tells him what the long season is really for. The trouble is a refiner’s fire. Many will be purified and made spotless and refined through it, the way gold is made pure by the flame, while the wicked go on in their wickedness and understand nothing. There is a kind of understanding that only the humble and the trusting are given, not because they are cleverer, but because they walk with God, and the fear of the LORD has opened their eyes.

Daniel 12:11–12 (BSB)

¹¹ And from the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation set up, there will be 1,290 days. ¹² Blessed is he who waits and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.

Now come the two numbers over which faithful readers have long pondered, the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days, reckoned from the abolishing of the daily sacrifice and the setting up of the abomination that desolates. Some have found their fulfillment near Daniel’s own future in the desecration of the temple, others have looked to the very end of the age, and the wisest counsel is to hold these figures with an open hand rather than force them into a single system. But do not miss the blessing tucked inside the arithmetic. Blessed is the one who waits and reaches the end of the days. The counted days are ultimately a call to patient endurance. There is a finish line, it is fixed, and there is a blessing pronounced over everyone who holds on until they reach it. Waiting on God is never wasted; it is named here a blessed thing.

Daniel 12:13 (BSB)

¹³ But as for you, go on your way until the end. You will rest, and then you will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.”

And so the book of Daniel closes, not on a battlefield or a throne, but on the tenderest personal word an old servant of God could hope to hear. As for you, the angel says, and suddenly the whole sweep of empires and end-time visions narrows to one aging man and the God who loves him. Go on your way until the end. You will rest (נוּחַ) nuach, pronounced NOO-akh. Strong's H5117, to rest, settle down, be at ease. This is a warm and homely word. It is the rest of the seventh day when God’s own work was finished, the rest of the ark settling at last upon the mountain, the settled peace of coming to a stopping place after long labor. Spoken here over death, it turns the grave from a terror into a resting place, a bed where a weary servant lies down under the care of his God. And the sentence does not end at the rest. You will rest, and then you will arise. The rest is only for a season; the rising is forever. For the one who belongs to God, death is a lying down in trust, and beyond it waits the waking into an inheritance that cannot fade. , and you will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days. There is the whole gospel of the resurrection folded into a single sentence. Keep walking faithfully to the finish. Then you will lie down and rest, as a tired laborer rests when the day’s work is done. And you will not stay down, for you will rise again to receive the inheritance God has kept for you. This is the word every believer may take as his own. Serve to the end, lie down in peace, and rise to glory. The Most High who ruled over Babylon and Persia rules over the grave as well, and He will not lose one of His own.