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Jehovah Promises Daniel a Wonderful RewardPay Attention to Daniel’s Prophecy!
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“YOU WILL STAND UP”
18, 19. (a) What did the angel mean when he foretold that Daniel would “stand up” in the future? (b) Why would Daniel have been familiar with the resurrection hope?
18 The book of Daniel closes with one of the most beautiful promises God has ever made to a human. Jehovah’s angel told Daniel: “You will stand up for your lot at the end of the days.” What did the angel mean? Well, since the “rest” he had just referred to was death, the promise that Daniel would “stand up” at some later time could mean only one thing—resurrection!b In fact, some scholars have asserted that Daniel chapter 12 contains the first explicit reference to resurrection to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. (Daniel 12:2) In this, though, they are wrong. Daniel was very familiar with the resurrection hope.
19 For example, Daniel no doubt knew these words that Isaiah had recorded two centuries earlier: “Your dead ones will live. A corpse of mine—they will rise up. Awake and cry out joyfully, you residents in the dust! For . . . the earth itself will let even those impotent in death drop in birth.” (Isaiah 26:19) Long before that, Elijah and Elisha were empowered by Jehovah to perform actual resurrections. (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:32-37) Even earlier, Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, acknowledged that Jehovah is able to raise people up from Sheol, the grave. (1 Samuel 2:6) Earlier still, faithful Job expressed his own hope with these words: “If an able-bodied man dies can he live again? All the days of my compulsory service I shall wait, until my relief comes. You will call, and I myself shall answer you. For the work of your hands you will have a yearning.”—Job 14:14, 15.
20, 21. (a) Of what resurrection is Daniel sure to be a part? (b) In what way is the resurrection in Paradise likely to take place?
20 Like Job, Daniel had reason to be confident that Jehovah would actually yearn to bring him back to life one day in the future. Still, it must have been deeply comforting to hear a mighty spirit creature confirm that hope. Yes, Daniel will stand up in “the resurrection of the righteous ones,” which will occur during Christ’s Millennial Reign. (Luke 14:14) What will that be like for Daniel? God’s Word tells us much about it.
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Jehovah Promises Daniel a Wonderful RewardPay Attention to Daniel’s Prophecy!
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b According to The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, the Hebrew word for “stand” used here refers to “revival after death.”
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