Daniel 12:1

1. For Michael see note Daniel 10:13.

At that time This is, “in the time of the end,” so often referred to. (See Daniel 7:26; Daniel 8:25; Daniel 11:35; Daniel 11:40.) After the destruction of this arch enemy of the saints Daniel, now seemingly for the first time, gets a glimpse of another time of trouble before the final consummation of joy. (See notes Daniel 11:45; compare Matthew 24:21.) Michael is still Israel’s heavenly helper (Daniel 10:21), which is in itself sufficient proof that ultimately Israel shall be delivered. The close connection between the historic affliction and the Messianic triumph is natural in all prophecies. Dr. Terry calls attention to the glorious picture, Isaiah 4:2-6, which immediately follows the ruin of Judah and Jerusalem and to the “magnificent prophecy” of the coming Messiah (Isaiah 11:0), which is connected as clearly as possible with the overthrow of the Assyrian invader (Isaiah 10:0), and adds, “In such visions of the future no note is made of times that may intervene between the catastrophe and the final triumph, but the two opposite pictures are made to stand out so conspicuously in their main features that all else is for the time lost sight of.”

Every one that shall be found written in the book This thought, of a book in which Jehovah has carefully inscribed all the names of the righteous, meets us several times in Scripture (Exodus 32:32; Psalms 69:28; Malachi 3:16; Revelation 13:8). It was probably also familiar to the Babylonians, as it was certainly to the Egyptians. Professor Jastrow has shown the close connection between the zag-muku Babylonian festival and that held on the Jewish New Year: “On this day, according to the popular Jewish tradition, God sits in judgment with a book before him in which he inscribed the fate of mankind.” So Marduk during the festival zag-muku ( resh shatti) exactly equivalent to the Jewish Rosh-hash-shana (New Year) makes his decrees for the whole year while the gods stand solemnly about him ( Religion of Babylonia, pp. 681, etc.).