Sealed Until the Time of the End
The prophet Daniel was given a vision of Judah’s future by a mysterious visitor–the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus. In Daniel 11:2-35, Daniel’s visitor foretells in amazing detail how the people and the land of Judah will fare from the time the Jews began to return home after their captivity in Babylon ends in 538 BCE, until the rise of a persecuting tyrant–Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the man who will desecrate the temple in Jerusalem in 167 BCE.
After predicting the precise events associated with Antiochus IV’s rise to power, Daniel’s divine visitor begins to speak about the time of the end–moving from events in 167 BCE to those which will occur in the distant future at the end of time. Daniel learns that a figure much like Antiochus IV will arise and “do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done” (Daniel 11:36).
But Daniel’s vision is not yet over. The divine visitor tells Daniel that human history will come to a final end on that day when all the dead are raised, and God will judge all the earth’s inhabitants according to what they have done–whether good or evil. Some of those raised from the dead will live in everlasting righteousness, while others in everlasting shame and contempt. But instead of giving him precise details–as he had done in verses 2-35–Daniel’s visitor now tells him, “the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.”
With this exposition we wrap-up our series on the Book of Daniel. We are in the concluding section of Daniel’s prophecy–chapters 10-12, which includes the third and final vision given to Daniel, a portion of which we considered in chapter 11:2-45. We will consider the closing scene in this vision (verses 1-4 of chapter 12), before looking at the epilogue to the book (vv. 5-13), where Daniel recounts his divine visitor conversing with two other beings (presumably angels), speaking about the time of the end, discussing how those things just revealed to Daniel must remain “sealed,” or closed off to Daniel and all of God’s people until the dawn of the messianic age.
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