But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy
Go thou thy way until the end be: for thou shalt rest - in the grave (Job 3:17; Isaiah 57:2, "He (the righteous) shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds"): He, like his people Israel, was to wait patiently and confidently for the blessing until God's time. He "received not the promise," but had to wait until the Christian elect saints should be brought in, at the first resurrection, "God having provided some better thing for us," that he and the other Old Testament saints "without us should not be made perfect" (Hebrews 11:40).
And stand in thy lot at the end of the days - implying justification unto life, as opposed to condemnation (Psalms 1:5, "The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment").
Thy lot - image from the allotment of the earthly Canaan.
Remarks:
(1) Israel's national resurrection, and the first or the literal resurrection of the elect saints, shall he about the same time. Shame and everlasting contempt shall be the portion at last of those dead who shall not share in the first resurrection. But "blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him" (Revelation 20:6). Here is an incentive to faith, hope, and love, that we may be counted worthy to obtain the resurrection from the dead (Luke 20:35-36; Philippians 3:4).
(2) In that coming day they alone shall be counted "wise" (Daniel 12:3) who have been wise for their own souls and for eternity, and wise in winning other souls also to salvation. Once the great men of the world seemed wise, and believers, who denied worldly lusts, seemed fools; but at the resurrection all unrealities shall be unmasked, and realities shall be seen in their true light. The Israelites who shall have protested with true spiritual wisdom against the blasphemous falsehoods of Antiochus and of his antitype, Antichrist, though in the day of the world's triumph they seemed to be almost cast down and prostrated, shall in the great day of the Lord shine as the brightness of the firmament: they who shall have turned many to righteousness, so as to be justified through faith, shall shine, not only with their own glory, but also with the reflected glory of those whom they have led to Christ, the sun of righteousness. They shall shine as the stars forever and ever. What a stimulus is given us wherein, not only to seek our own salvation, but to labour for that of others-not only to work for the Lord, but to "abound in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58).
(3) Daniel is told to "shut up the words and seal the book to the time of the end," whereby it is implied that the events foretold by him were in his day as yet distant, and his prophecy was therefore to be not so much scrutinized, as being then obscure. But though his words were then not understood by his countrymen, who prematurely sought an immediate fulfillment of the promises of Messiah, yet he is assured that toward the time of the fulfillment of the prophecy "many shall run to and fro," diligently searching into and eagerly announcing its truths, and so 'the knowledge' of those truths "shall be increased" (Daniel 12:4).
Moreover, the end, though distant, is appointed at a time fixed in the counsels, and confirmed with an oath "by Him that liveth forever." We may not be able to explain what is the exact period meant by the "time, times, and an half;" but it is our comfort to know that the time of Israel's and the Church's affliction is short, as compared with the everlasting times of blessedness which are to follow. There is a correspondence between the three and a half times of suffering of Christ's body, the Church, and the three and a half years of Christ's own suffering, in order that in all things He, the Head, and we, the members, should be assimilated. It is when the scattering of the Church's and of Israel's power shall have been accomplished (Daniel 12:7), that then their brief period of death (Revelation 11:7-11), as in their Lord's own case, shall be followed by resurrection, that of Israel nationally, that of the elect Church literally, by transfiguration at Christ's coming.
(4) Daniel "understood not" (Daniel 12:8) the full meaning in detail, and the exact times, meant by the Spirit, in his own prophecy. How utterly mistaken, then, they are who think that "prophecy came by the will of man" (2 Peter 1:21) - that is, was the mere prompting of the sacred writers' own will, imagination, genius, and modes of thought. Nothing proves more unanswerably that the Holy Spirit miraculously and extraordinarily inspired the sacred writers, than the fact that they themselves "searched diligently" (1 Peter 1:10-12) to discover what was the mind of the Spirit in the revelations imparted through them. Even Daniel must wait for the unfolding of his own prophecies "until the time of the end" (Daniel 12:9).
(5) During the period that is elapsing between the past profanation of the sanctuary and its future restoration in glory, our duty is, as also the duty of those who shall hereafter see it restored and profaned again prior to its final restoration, shall be, to be ever "waiting." "Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh" to the appointed end! (Daniel 12:12) Whether we shall be found alive, or asleep and at rest in the grave, when Christ shall come, if only we be found waiting and watching for His coming, we shall stand justified before God, and shall receive our allotted inheritance in the I heavenly Canaan (Daniel 12:13). Whatever be the lot of the saints in their earthly pilgrimage, their lot at the end of the days shall be supremely blessed. This thought may well reconcile us to the adversities of our present portion, whatever it may be. Let us make it our one care to please God, and walk by the faith of the Son of God here, and to wait for His personal coming again in glory.
interposing in their behoof could have prevented their nationality becoming fused into the several nationalities among whom they are scattered, according to the analogy of all other peoples so circumstanced. Israel is indeed, in her present and past state, an unanswerable witness for the truth of Scripture against the infidel and sceptic. Since a modern divine truly describes their state, 'Oppression has not extinguished them: favour has not bribed them. God has kept them from abandoning their mangled worship, or the Scriptures which they understand not, and whose true meaning they believe not: they have fed on the raisin husks of a barren ritual and unspiritual legalism, since the Holy Spirit they have grieved away' (Pusey).
(4) But the very peculiarity of their state, and of their nationality and worship of God, preserved under such anomalous circumstances, is the strongest pledge of assurance that, as the prophecy of their present and past isolation amidst dispersion has been so extraordinarily fulfilled, so also will the prophecy of their coming restoration to the Lord their God, and the Son of David their King, be fulfilled. It is for this end evidently that they are kept so distinct from all the peoples, waiting continually for Messiah to come and sit upon the throne of His father David, and reign over the house of Jacob forever (Luke 1:42-43). Then shall the goodness of the Lord toward them melt them into penitent love toward Him who has so marvelously covered over their past unfaithfulness, and into fear of ever more displeasing Him again and losing His favour (Hosea 3:5). The same holds good in the case of the spiritual Israel, the Church, and of every true believer. The marvelous way whereby the Lord, through chastening discipline, has led us to Himself, and His gratuitous goodness, notwithstanding all our past unfaithfulness, will form a constraining bond of love binding us to our God and our Saviour indissolubly. We shall ever be receiving fresh revelations of that goodness which rejoices to impart itself to His people, and this shall be the chief happiness of the true Israel of God forever.