The Time of the End: Deliverance and Resurrection

Study notes

The vision presses the question of how much can be known before the end arrives. Michael rises to defend those whose names stand written in the scroll, yet the same speech moves at once to an awakening from the dust that divides people into everlasting life and everlasting reproach. An oath sworn above the river measures the remaining distress as time, times, and half, but two further day counts appear without any key for relating them to the oath or to each other. Daniel hears the oath yet receives only the repeated instruction that the words stay sealed. The wise are said to understand through purification while the wicked remain unchanged, and the chapter ends by sending Daniel to his own rest until he stands in his allotted place.

What is The Time of the End: Deliverance and Resurrection about?

Daniel 12 opens at the close of the long angelic discourse that began in chapter 10. The man clothed in linen, still standing above the waters, now speaks of Michael rising to defend the sons of Daniel’s people amid an unparalleled time of distress. The same speech announces that those written in the scroll will escape, while many who sleep in the dust will awake, some to everlasting life and others to reproach. Daniel is then told to seal the scroll until the time of the end, after which two further figures appear on the riverbanks and one asks how long the wonders will last. The answer comes in the form of an oath sworn by the one who lives forever: a period of time, times, and half a time until the shattering of the holy people is finished. Daniel hears but does not understand and asks for the outcome. The reply repeats that the words remain closed until the end, adds that the wise will understand while the wicked persist in wickedness, and supplies two differing counts of days from the removal of the continual and the setting up of the abomination. Finally Daniel himself is told to go his way until the end, when he will rest and stand in his allotted place. These closing exchanges therefore bring the preceding account of northern and southern kings, persecution, and the willful king directly to the question of final deliverance and the reader’s own stance toward that coming day.

Where does this passage sit in Daniel?

The angelic discourse that stretches from chapter 10 reaches its conclusion here. After the detailed account of conflict between the kings of the north and south in chapter 11, the man clothed in linen turns to the final intervention on behalf of the sons of Daniel’s people. The promise that Michael will stand marks a shift from the preceding descriptions of human rulers and their wars to a heavenly defender who acts at the appointed moment.

This closing section also returns to motifs introduced earlier in the book. The command to seal the scroll echoes the instruction given after the vision of the four beasts, yet here the sealing extends until the time of the end rather than an immediate interpretation. Daniel’s repeated failure to understand, voiced again in verse 8, recalls his earlier requests for clarification in chapters 7 and 8, but the answer now withholds full disclosure and points instead to the purification of the wise.

The appearance of the two figures on the riverbanks creates a frame around the oath sworn by the man above the waters. Their question about the duration of the wonders draws out the period of three and a half times, linking the shattering of the holy people to the earlier portrayal of the little horn’s activity. The numerical specifications that follow in verses 11 and 12 extend the timeline beyond the initial period, creating suspense about the precise moment of deliverance.

Finally, the personal word to Daniel in verse 13 brings the entire sequence of visions to rest. The instruction to go his way until the end stands against the roving and increase of knowledge predicted for many, while the promise of his own standing in an allotted place at the end of the days resolves the tension left by his earlier incomprehension.

How is the passage structured?

The chapter opens with the linen-clad speaker continuing directly from the preceding vision. He names Michael’s intervention and the unmatched distress, then narrows the outcome to those inscribed in the scroll. From that corporate deliverance the speech shifts without transition to the awakening of many who sleep in the dust, distinguishing two everlasting destinies. A third sentence then singles out the prudent and those who justify many, likening them to celestial lights.

At verse 4 the address turns sharply to Daniel himself. The command to close and seal the scroll marks the end of the extended revelation and introduces an interval before its full disclosure. The narrative then pivots to Daniel’s own seeing: two additional figures appear on opposite banks of the river, and one addresses the man above the waters with a question about the duration of the wonders.

The answer arrives as a solemn oath, arms raised, fixing the period as time, times, and half a time and tying its close to the shattering of the holy people. Daniel immediately registers his incomprehension and voices a second question about the outcome. The reply repeats the sealing motif, then supplies further markers: the removal of the continual offering, the 1,290 days, the additional 1,335 days, and the beatitude attached to the one who reaches the longer span. The final sentence returns to Daniel alone, directing him to proceed to his own rest and future standing.

Across these verses the movement therefore alternates between public announcement and private instruction, between fixed periods and withheld understanding, and between the broad horizon of resurrection and the narrow horizon of Daniel’s own allotted place.

What is the historical background?

The vision places Michael in the role of a heavenly protector assigned to the Jewish people, a conception that appears in other late biblical and early Jewish writings where named angels serve as national guardians. The scroll mentioned in the command to Daniel reflects the ancient practice of sealing documents or prophetic records so that their contents remain hidden until a designated future moment, often signaled by the same phrase “time of the end” used for periods of decisive divine action.

The river setting draws on a longstanding Near Eastern custom of locating revelatory encounters at bodies of water, where boundaries between realms were thought to be thin; the two figures standing on opposite banks frame the linen-clad speaker above the stream as the central source of the oath. Raising both hands while swearing by “the one who lives forever” follows the customary gesture for invoking a deity as witness to a solemn declaration, here fixing the duration of distress as “a time, times, and half.”

The “continual” refers to the daily temple offering prescribed in the Torah, whose interruption by an “abomination that desolates” echoes earlier descriptions of foreign cult objects erected in the Jerusalem sanctuary during periods of Hellenistic rule. The numbered days that follow—1,290 and 1,335—belong to the same symbolic reckoning found in earlier chapters, where precise intervals mark the length of affliction before restoration.

Finally, the promise that Daniel will “rest and then stand in your allotted place” draws on the language of tribal inheritance, now applied to an individual’s portion at the resurrection of the dead, a hope that had begun to surface in Jewish circles by the second century BCE.

What does this passage teach about God?

Michael’s rising marks God’s decision to intervene on behalf of a named people rather than to abandon them in the worst distress the world has known. Deliverance is not promised to everyone who suffers but only to those whose names appear in the scroll, so the passage treats divine record-keeping as the decisive factor that separates escape from ruin.

The awakening of sleepers in the dust establishes two irreversible futures. Some receive life that continues without end; others receive reproach that likewise continues without end. The distinction rests on what each person has become, not on the length of their suffering or the strength of their protest.

Prudence and the work of justifying many are tied directly to brightness that will last like the expanse and like the stars. The text does not separate insight from action; those who understand also turn others toward what is right, and both the understanding and the turning receive the same permanent glory.

The command to seal the words until the time of the end implies that God withholds full clarity until the moment he has chosen. Daniel’s own failure to grasp the outcome after hearing the oath shows that even a faithful recipient may be left without complete knowledge. The increase of knowledge mentioned in the same verse therefore belongs to the later period, not to the present.

Purification, spotlessness, and refining fall on many, while the wicked remain wicked and without understanding. The passage presents these two paths as continuing side by side until the end, so moral transformation is real for some yet not automatic for all.

The oath sworn by the one who lives forever sets a measured limit to the shattering of the holy people. God’s own life stands behind the calendar of distress, which means the duration is neither random nor endless. The additional days that bring blessing to those who wait further show that God distinguishes between those who endure to the appointed moment and those who do not.

Daniel himself is told to go his way until the end, after which he will rest and then stand in his allotted place. The promise addresses one person’s future participation rather than a general principle, anchoring the larger vision in a concrete assurance given to the one who has heard everything yet still does not understand.

What are the interpretive difficulties?

The differing time periods in the final exchange raise the most immediate question. The man clothed in linen swears that the wonders will last a time, times, and half until the shattering of the hand of the holy people is finished. Two later statements then give one thousand two hundred and ninety days from the removal of the continual until the abomination that desolates stands, followed by a blessing on anyone who reaches one thousand three hundred thirty-five days. The text supplies no conversion formula between the two measures, nor does it state whether the longer spans begin at the same moment as the oath or at a later point within the same sequence. The discrepancy remains visible in the wording itself.

A second question concerns the resurrection announced in verse two. The statement that many who sleep in the dust will awake distinguishes those who rise to life forever from those who rise to reproach and abhorrence forever. Nothing in the surrounding sentences clarifies whether the “many” includes every human being who has died or only those whose lives intersect the final distress of Daniel’s people. The verse records the division without further definition.

Daniel’s own incomprehension also marks a boundary. After the oath he asks what the outcome of all this will be, and the reply tells him the words are closed and sealed until the time of the end. The same instruction appears earlier when he is told to close the words and seal the scroll. The chapter therefore presents the revelation as intentionally limited even for the one who receives it.'

No significant manuscript variation affects these verses across the ancient witnesses. The interpretive tensions arise from the statements as they stand rather than from differences among copies. The passage records the periods, the awakening, and the command to seal without supplying the additional keys that would remove the remaining ambiguity.

Notes accompany the Anselm Project Bible, an AI translation from the original languages. Tap any verse above for the committee's word-level decisions.