Daniel 12:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament— And those that have wisely instructed shall shine like the splendour of the firmament: or, as the heavens adorned with the sun and the other glorious lights. In the Hebrew the first word is the same participle as at chap. Daniel 11:33 and the whole verse seems intended as an encouragement to those teachers especially, who were to fall, and to suffer such distresses as in the fore-mentioned passage are described. Cappellus observes of the two clauses of this verse, that one member is εξηγητικον, or explanatory of the other: the splendour of the firmament and the splendour of the stars is the same; and those that have taught, and those who have justified many, must mean those, who by teaching and by good example have successfully, through the grace of God, shewed the way to righteousness and life eternal. The Judge of all the earth will certainly do right: he has given the fullest assurance that there is a reward for the righteous; and it is certain, that this reward will be augmented in proportion as men have been more extensively useful, or have advanced the real and best interest of their fellow-creatures. In the last verse the reward and the punishment are expressed generally as to their degree, and merely said to be perpetual in their duration: in this they are exalted to the highest pitch of distinction in their degree, and their duration is pointed out in the strongest form of expressing eternity. Vulg. in perpetuas aeternitates. Gr. εις τους αιωνας και ετι. The design of which is, to convince the eminently holy and useful, that they are in a more especial manner the favourites of heaven, and may with greater confidence expect their reward. The glories of the future world are adumbrated in Scripture by the loftiest and most splendid images in this; but after all, so inadequate is language, and so inferior the conceptions of the human mind to this great subject, that the finest description of the joys of eternity is that negative one of St. Paul, which he has in some measure borrowed from Isaiah, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." See Bishop Lowth on Isaiah 64:4.