Texts in Conversation
Daniel describes a vision sealed until the end, with its words kept hidden until the right time. Revelation reflects this idea of apocalyptic secrecy when a heavenly voice commands that what was heard must not be written down.
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Daniel 12:4
Hebrew Bible
2 Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake—some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence. 3 But the wise will shine like the brightness of the heavenly expanse. And those bringing many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever. 4 “But you, Daniel, close up these words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will dash about, and knowledge will increase.” 5 I, Daniel, watched as two others stood there, one on each side of the river. 6 One said to the man clothed in linen who was above the waters of the river, “When will the end of these wondrous events occur?”
Date: 2nd Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Revelation 10:4
New Testament
2 He held in his hand a little scroll that was open, and he put his right foot on the sea and his left on the land. 3 Then he shouted in a loud voice like a lion roaring, and when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded their voices. 4 When the seven thunders spoke, I was preparing to write, but just then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders spoke and do not write it down.” 5 Then the angel I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven 6 and swore by the one who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, and the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, “There will be no more delay!
Date: 92-96 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... There is no inconsistency in Daniel saying, 'I kept the matter to myself' (7:28) and then recording it in writing in this chapter. This is merely a device of apocalyptic literature, in which a revelation of future events is presented as having been made and recorded in a secret document centuries before the events take place, so that the document may become known at the proper time when the final predictions in it are about to take place; compare 12:4: 'Keep the words secret and seal the book until the time of the final phase' (compare also 8:26b). The revelation of future events—the number and nature of the kings in each of the four pagan empires—is presented in chapter 7 as having been given to Daniel in the first year of the reign of King Belshazzar of Babylon; but it is finally published in the days of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, almost four centuries later, so that the reader, seeing how the visionary had rightly predicted events that the God who rules history had actually brought to pass, might have faith in the genuine prediction contained in the book: the time is at hand when God will destroy the pagan kingdom that is persecuting his holy people and will bestow on them ―the kingship and the dominion and the grandeur of all the kingdoms under the heavens' ..."
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