Isaiah 66:24

Hebrew Bible

22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth I am about to make will remain standing before me,” says the Lord, “so your descendants and your name will remain. 23 From one month to the next and from one Sabbath to the next, all people will come to worship me,” says the Lord. 24 “They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, and the fire that consumes them will not die out. All people will find the sight abhorrent.

Daniel 12:2

Hebrew Bible

1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who watches over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress unlike any other from the nation’s beginning up to that time. But at that time your own people, all those whose names are found written in the book, will escape. 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.”

 Notes and References

"... It is commonly recognized that Daniel 12:2 alludes to two different Isaian texts: Isaiah 26:19 and Isaiah 66:24. What is the breadth and effect of this double allusion? ... Missing from Isaiah 26:19 is the dualism of fate required by Daniel 12 to accommodate the traitors to the holy covenant among “the many” (e.g., Daniel 9:27; 11:30, 32). This aspect is provided by a complementary allusion to Isaiah 66:24, in which those who have so rebelled against God lie dead. This death is a timeless “reproach” for Isaiah: the worm that devours these corpses never dies; the fire that ravages the corpses is never exhausted. Just so the faithless in Daniel 12:2 arise “to everlasting reproach”. Thus, in addition to providing Daniel 12 a separate fate for the human antagonists of the narrative, Isaiah 66:24 also provides the necessary eternity of that punitive fate, an eternity corresponding to the everlasting life of the faithful. Also, a likely factor in this narrative’s interest in Isaiah 66:24 is that its immediate context, Isaiah 66:23, associates this punishment of the wicked with the eschatological restoration of a proper calendar to Temple worship (a concern reflected in Daniel 7:25; 8:11–12; 9:26–27; 11:31). Finally, that Daniel’s last verses allude to Isaiah’s closing verse underscores how deliberately Daniel uses allusion, and suggests the label, “Allusion-apocalypse” for this book ..."

Lester, G. Brooke Daniel Evokes Isaiah: Allusive Characterization of Foreign Rule in the Hebrew-Aramaic Book of Daniel (pp. 99-101) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015

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