Daniel 12
The long final vision that began in Daniel 10 now comes to its close, and the book of Daniel ends with it. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people (v. 1). A time of trouble is coming such as the world has never seen - but it is not unguarded, and it is not the last word. At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. Then the vision lifts past the reach of every empire it has traced and speaks of the grave itself: the dead, asleep in the dust, will wake.3
What follows is the brightest promise in all the Hebrew Scriptures. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever (vv. 2-3). Resurrection, named plainly - a personal, bodily waking, and a glory for the wise that outlasts the stars. Daniel is then told to shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end (v. 4), and he sees two figures beside a river and a man clothed in linen upon the waters, who lifts both hands to heaven and swears by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half (v. 7).
And then Daniel asks the question every reader asks: O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? (v. 8). The answer is not a date. Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried… but the wise shall understand (vv. 9-10). Numbered days follow - a thousand two hundred and ninety, a thousand three hundred and five and thirty - and a blessing on the one who waits. The book of Daniel then ends not in triumph won in the visible world but in a word of rest spoken to a faithful old man: But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days (v. 13).2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Daniel 12:1-3Many That Sleep in the Dust Shall Awake
1And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. 2And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
The vision that began two chapters earlier comes to its head: And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people (v. 1). Michael has already appeared in this vision as one who standeth - a guardian set over Daniel's people in the unseen conflict behind the rise and fall of kingdoms. Now he stands up. The phrase is one of decisive action: he rises to defend his people at the climax of all things. And the moment of his rising is named honestly: there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. The book does not pretend the road to the end is smooth. It will be a trial without precedent, the deepest distress the world has known. But notice where the verse rests its weight - not on the trouble but on the rescue: at that time thy people shall be delivered. The trouble is real; the deliverance is surer. And the delivered are defined with great precision: every one that shall be found written in the book. Not the strong, not the many, not those who escaped the trouble - but those whose names are kept in God's own register. The whole sweep of Daniel's visions has insisted that God knows and orders the future of nations; here it narrows to something far more personal. He knows, and keeps, the names of his own.3
Now the vision lifts past every empire it has traced and speaks of the grave: And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (v. 2). This is the brightest single verse in all the Hebrew Scriptures, and its claim is unmistakable. The dead are pictured as sleeping - and sleep is not an ending but a state that waits for a morning. They shall awake. What is promised is not the survival of a disembodied shade but a real waking of those who lie in the dust of the earth, the very ground bodies return to. And the waking is not all of one kind: some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Two destinies stand at the end of the road, and the same waking opens onto both. The earlier chapters of Daniel set life and death before kings and kingdoms; this verse sets a longer life and a longer loss before every person who has ever returned to the dust. It is the hope toward which the whole book has been leaning. The empires of gold and iron pass; the lions are stopped; the fire does not consume - and behind all of it lies this: even the grave will give back those who sleep in it.
To the promise of waking the vision adds a promise of glory: And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever (v. 3). The wise here are not the merely clever. Throughout this last vision, the wise are those who held fast in the time of trouble, who understood what was at stake, who would not compromise - and, the verse adds, who turn many to righteousness, drawing others with them into faithfulness. To them is promised a future of light. They will shine as the brightness of the firmament - the radiance of the wide bright sky - and as the stars for ever and ever. The image is deliberate and tender. Stars are the most enduring lights the eye can see, steady through every night; and the wise are likened to them not for a season but for ever. There is a quiet reversal in this. In the time of trouble the faithful are the ones who suffer, who seem to lose, whose light looks small against the blaze of empires. Here their end is told: their suffering is not the last thing true of them. They will outshine everything that once overshadowed them, and they will do it forever. The grave gives them back; and what it gives back is glorious.
Daniel 12:4-7Seal the Book Until the Time of the End
4But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. 5Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. 6And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? 7And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.
Daniel is given a charge over what he has seen: But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end (v. 4). To seal a book in the ancient world was not to destroy it or hide it away; it was to authenticate and preserve it - to close it with a seal so that it would be kept intact and trustworthy until the appointed moment it was meant to be opened. The vision is not given to be cracked open and decoded on demand. It is given to be kept - held secure to the time of the end. This is one of the most important keys to reading the whole chapter rightly. The words themselves tell us they are sealed; the meaning waits for a time not yet come. The verse adds a strange and resonant line: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. The picture is of restless searching - people moving back and forth over the words, poring over them, as understanding grows toward the end. There is a quiet wisdom in this charge. Daniel is not told to force the vision into a calendar. He is told to preserve it and entrust it to time, trusting that what is sealed now will be understood when God means it to be. The faithful response to a sealed book is not to pry the seal but to keep faith with the One who set it.3
Daniel now sees the closing scene of his vision: there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side (v. 5), and between them, raised above the water, the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river (v. 6). One of the two asks the question pressing on every reader: How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? And the answer comes wrapped in the most solemn gesture in Scripture. The man clothed in linen held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever (v. 7). An oath was normally sworn with one hand lifted; here both hands rise to heaven, and the oath is sworn by the highest name there is - him that liveth for ever. Everything in the scene presses one point: the certainty of what is promised. The figure raised above the waters, the two witnesses on the banks, the doubled hands, the appeal to the Eternal One - all of it underwrites a single guarantee. The end is fixed. It will surely come. And the oath is sworn by the very attribute that makes the resurrection possible: God liveth for ever. The One who never dies is the ground on which the dead are promised they will wake. The whole chapter rests on Him - the living God whose life outlasts the grave.
The content of the oath is given in deliberately veiled language: it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished (v. 7). The phrase a time, times, and an half runs through this part of Daniel and is not meant to be cashed out into a number we can mark on a calendar - the verse just before told us the words are sealed… to the time of the end. What the phrase does communicate is its shape. It begins to mount up - a time, then times - as though heading toward a full and complete span; and then it breaks off short, and an half. The full measure is cut in two. The reading that the text invites is not chronological but pastoral: the period of trial has a fixed and bounded length, known to God, and it is mercifully cut short before it runs its full course. It will last exactly as long as God appoints and not one moment longer. And it has a definite end-point, tied not to a date but to an event: when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished. When the time of crushing has done its appointed work, it is over. The faithful are not asked to calculate the day. They are told what they most need to know: the suffering is measured, it is shortened, and it ends.
Daniel 12:8-13Go Thy Way, Daniel · Thou Shalt Rest
8And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? 9And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. 11And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. 13But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
Daniel responds with disarming honesty: And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? (v. 8). Here is one of the great men of faith in all of Scripture - the interpreter of dreams, the reader of the writing on the wall, the one to whom God opened secret after secret - and he says plainly that he does not understand. There is something deeply freeing in this admission left in the text. Daniel does not pretend to a clarity he lacks. He hears the vision, knows it matters, and asks the only honest question: what shall be the end of these things? And the answer he is given is not the one he asked for. Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end (v. 9). He is not handed the key. He is told, gently but firmly, that the understanding he wants belongs to a later day, and that his part is simply to go his way. This is the chapter's settled refusal to satisfy our hunger for a timetable, and it is worth sitting with. Even Daniel - faithful, beloved, granted vision after vision - was asked to live without the full answer, to walk on in trust rather than in sight. If the man who saw these things could not unseal them, the call to us is the same: to go our way faithfully without demanding to see the end.
The answer Daniel does receive is about people, not dates: Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand (v. 10). The time of trouble is given a purpose. It is a refining fire. Those who pass through it are purified, and made white, and tried - the language of metal in the furnace and cloth scrubbed clean, of testing that removes what is false and leaves what is true. The trial is not pointless suffering; it is the very means by which the faithful are made pure and white. And the verse draws a sharp line through humanity at this point: the wicked shall do wickedly… but the wise shall understand. Notice what divides them - not cleverness but character. The wicked, who persist in wickedness, simply do not understand; the vision stays sealed to them no matter how they pore over it. But the wise shall understand. The understanding the chapter withholds from the curious and the merely calculating is quietly promised to the wise - to those being purified, those who fear God and turn many to righteousness. Real understanding of these things, it turns out, is not finally a matter of intellect but of a refined and faithful heart. The furnace that purifies is also the place where understanding is given.
The chapter offers two numbered spans and a blessing: from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days (vv. 11-12). These numbers have been counted and recounted for centuries, but the chapter has already told us how to hold them: the words are sealed. They are not given so that we can fix a date; if they were, the seal would be pointless. What they do convey is unmistakable. There is a precise, God-appointed measure to the days of trouble - not a vague and open-ended darkness, but a span counted out to the very day in heaven. And then, past the numbers, comes the only imperative the chapter draws from them: Blessed is he that waiteth. The blessing does not fall on the one who calculates the days; it falls on the one who waits through them and comes to the end of them - who endures, who keeps faith past the appointed time, who does not give up before the morning. After all the heights of the vision, this is what the days are for: not arithmetic, but endurance. The faithful are not blessed for cracking the count. They are blessed for waiting it out.
And so the book of Daniel ends, with a word spoken tenderly to an old man: But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days (v. 13). It is impossible to miss the gentleness here. Daniel has served God through a lifetime of exile - carried off as a youth, faithful in the courts of kings, thrown to lions, granted vision after vision, and now grown old. He has asked to understand the end and been told he will not, in this life, see it. And the last word given to him is not a rebuke but a comfort, and it comes in three movements. First: go thou thy way till the end be. Walk on faithfully to the close of your days; that is enough. Second: thou shalt rest. The faithful servant is promised rest - the rest of one whose labour is done, the sleep this very chapter has already called a waiting for the morning. And third, past that rest: thou shalt… stand in thy lot at the end of the days. Daniel will not be left sleeping. At the end he will stand - rise - and receive his appointed portion, his place in the kingdom he has glimpsed from afar. Here is the whole hope of the chapter brought home to one person. The dead will wake; the wise will shine; and Daniel, who walked his way and rested, will stand in his lot at the last. The book closes not on a throne or a battle but on a promise: faithful rest now, and waking glory at the end.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Daniel 12 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for the verb behind “shall awake” (yaqitsu, the waking from the sleep of death, v. 2), for the shining of the wise (yazhiru, the radiance of verse 3), and for goral (v. 13, the “lot” or portion Daniel is promised at the end of the days).
- Daniel 12 ↔ John 5 · John 11 · 1 Corinthians 15 · Revelation 20Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Daniel 12 to the rest of Scripture - the waking of those who sleep in the dust (v. 2) read alongside all that are in the graves shall hear his voice (John 5:28-29) and the resurrection chapter of 1 Corinthians 15, and the deliverance of all written in the book (v. 1) read beside the book of life in Revelation 20 and 21.
- Daniel 12 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Daniel 12 - the resurrection language of verse 2 and its place in the Old Testament, the sealing of the book until the time of the end (v. 4), the much-discussed “time, times, and an half” of verse 7, and the numbered days of verses 11-12.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Many That Sleep in the Dust Shall Awake
- John 5:28-29all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life.Jesus echoing verse 2 almost word for word - the two wakings of Daniel become the two resurrections, and His voice wakes them.
- Isaiah 26:19Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.The same hope as verse 2 - the dead in the dust roused awake, the sleep of death broken.
- 1 Corinthians 15:41-42one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.Paul reaching for the very image of verse 3 - the risen body shining like the stars.
- Matthew 13:43Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.The shining of the wise (v. 3) named again by Jesus - the righteous radiant in the Father’s kingdom.
- Revelation 20:12the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books... and another book was opened, which is the book of life.The book of verse 1 - the register of names by which the delivered are known.
Seal the Book Until the Time of the End
- Revelation 1:18I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.The risen Christ taking onto Himself the very title the oath is sworn by in verse 7 - and holding the keys to the grave.
- Revelation 10:5-6lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever... that there should be time no longer.The same solemn oath as verse 7 - a hand raised to heaven, sworn by the everliving God, declaring the end of delay.
- Daniel 7:25they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.The same measured span as verse 7 - a bounded period of trial for the holy people, fixed by God.
- Revelation 22:10Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.The deliberate counterpart to verse 4 - what Daniel was told to seal until the end, John is told to leave open, for the end has drawn near.
- Matthew 24:21-22then shall be great tribulation... except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved... they shall be shortened.The time of trouble of verse 1 and the shortened span of verse 7 - a distress without equal, mercifully cut short.
Go Thy Way, Daniel · Thou Shalt Rest
- 1 Thessalonians 4:16the Lord himself shall descend from heaven... and the dead in Christ shall rise first.The rest and the standing of verse 13 - the faithful asleep in Jesus, raised at the last.
- Hebrews 4:9-10There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works.The rest promised Daniel in verse 13 - the rest kept for all the people of God.
- 1 Peter 1:4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.The “lot” Daniel will stand in (v. 13) - the kept inheritance of those who are Christ’s.
- Malachi 3:3he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver... and purge them as gold and silver.The purifying and trying of verse 10 - the faithful refined, made white, in the fire.
- Revelation 14:12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.The blessing on the one who waits (v. 12) - the endurance of the faithful who hold on to the end.