The book is finished. You have seen the thrones, and the crowns, and what crowns are made for. But there is still one man to whom this book owes something, and it cannot close before the debt is paid.
He stands on the bank of a great river, the Tigris, far from the land where his heart dwells, and he is old. He has heard everything you have read in this book — the kings of the north and the south, the abomination on the altar, the wise who stumble in order to be refined, the time of distress, the resurrection, the stars. He heard it from the first mouth, earlier than anyone, and it profited him nothing in the way we want words to profit us: he did not understand it. He says it himself, without shame, and it is one of the most honest sentences in Scripture: "I heard it, but I did not understand it" (12:8). And when he pressed further — what shall be the end of these things? — he received no explanation. The prologue of this book has already quoted that answer: "Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end." A sending-away. The door closed, and the seer stood before it.
But the angel did not leave it there. Two more sentences follow — the last two of the whole book of Daniel — and they are no explanation and yet everything an explanation ought to have been. Whoever lays them side by side sees that the old man was not sent away empty-handed. He was given no key. He was given something better: a beatitude and a promise.
The beatitude first. "Blessed is the one who waits, and arrives at the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days." It is a strange beatitude, and a precise one. Not: blessed is the one who understands it. Not: blessed is the one who gets the countings to add up. Blessed is the one who waits — the word traces not a moment but a posture, a waiting that persists while there is nothing to see — and who arrives. The chapter counts two numbers there: twelve hundred and ninety days, and then this longer number, forty-five days further on — and what happens between those countings the text does not say, and so this book does not say it either; the days stand there, and they are allowed to stand. What the text does say is what the blessedness hangs on: not on the first day of the outcome, but on the last day of the waiting. Blessed is the one who is still there then — who fills out the longest number, the last forty-five days too, when holding on has long since ceased to be spectacular. You recognize it, this beatitude. It is the law of the Kingdom from the last chapter, in its oldest form: all crowns hang on the least spectacular verb. Perseverance in Scripture needs only one reward, and here it gets its own "blessed" — not for the cleverest reader, but for the one who waits the longest.
And then the promise, the closing verse, and now it becomes personal. For the last word of the book of Daniel is no vision and no counting; it is a pledge to one old man with unanswered questions. "And you — go your way to the end; and you shall rest, and stand to your destiny, at the end of the days." That same "go your way" which sent him off in verse nine returns here, but it has changed form: it is no longer a door that closes, it is a road that opens. There is now a direction attached — to the end — and at the end a promise in three verbs, so short that you read past it and so large that this whole book fits inside it. Go your way: the ordinary years still left to him, the work, the faithfulness, the days without a vision. You shall rest: his death, named the way you name it to someone you love. And stand: the standing-word of the resurrection — the same hope that earlier in this chapter roused the sleepers out of the dust (12:2), now pledged to him personally. And then the goal of it all: to your destiny — your allotted portion, your inheritance, which does not evaporate while you sleep but lies ready and stands in your name, at the end of the days.
That is Daniel's own cross and crown, in a single line. The maskil who was not allowed to read his own book receives at the close precisely what his book promises the wise — not because he understood it, but because he was faithful and went his way when he was told to. There is in all of Scripture no purer proof that understanding is not the price of admission. The first of the wise died with a sealed book under his arm and an unsealed promise in his hand, and of the two the second turned out to be enough.
Once more back, across the whole distance of this book. The closing chapter of Daniel says "and you" twice to the old man. The first time at the beginning: "and you, Daniel — shut up the words and seal the book." The last time at the end: "and you — go your way." Between those two sentences lies everything this book has attempted. At the first "and you" you stood at the door of a sealed book, and the prologue said: a sealed book you do not open at the lock; go back to the beginning. That you have done — from the altar of Kislev to Mount Zion, from the first vanguard to the cast-down crowns. Now you stand at the second "and you," and it points the other way: not back into the book, but forward, into your own days, toward your own end. So the circle closes, and it closes not shut but open: from "shut up and seal" to "go your way to the end [...] to your destiny."
For that last word did not stay stuck on the riverbank. It was spoken to Daniel and, over his head, to everyone who would search his book to and fro when the time had come — and so also, if you are reading this in those days, to you. Perhaps you have understood much of what stood here; perhaps little; the beatitude does not ask after it, and whoever tells you otherwise has not read the close of Daniel. What is pledged to you is what was pledged to him, and it asks of you what it asked of him. Go your way — back into your life, your work, your people, your ordinary days, which under all of this become no less ordinary. Keep waiting — even when there is nothing to see, even the last forty-five days of whatever counting it may be. And if your end comes before the End: rest. You shall rest as he rests, and you shall stand as he stands, and you shall receive your destiny — your own portion, allotted and kept, at the end of the days.
The book that was sealed has opened as far as the hour allowed. What is still closed will open in time; that is no surmise but the term of the seal itself. More you do not need to know, and with less Scripture sends no one away.
And you — go your way to the end. You shall rest, and stand, to your destiny, at the end of the days.
The book is finished. You have seen the thrones, and the crowns, and what crowns are made for. But there is still one man to whom this book owes something, and it cannot close before the debt is paid.
He stands on the bank of a great river, the Tigris, far from the land where his heart dwells, and he is old. He has heard everything you have read in this book — the kings of the north and the south, the abomination on the altar, the wise who stumble in order to be refined, the time of distress, the resurrection, the stars. He heard it from the first mouth, earlier than anyone, and it profited him nothing in the way we want words to profit us: he did not understand it. He says it himself, without shame, and it is one of the most honest sentences in Scripture: "I heard it, but I did not understand it" (12:8). And when he pressed further — what shall be the end of these things? — he received no explanation. The prologue of this book has already quoted that answer: "Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end." A sending-away. The door closed, and the seer stood before it.
But the angel did not leave it there. Two more sentences follow — the last two of the whole book of Daniel — and they are no explanation and yet everything an explanation ought to have been. Whoever lays them side by side sees that the old man was not sent away empty-handed. He was given no key. He was given something better: a beatitude and a promise.
The beatitude first. "Blessed is the one who waits, and arrives at the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days." It is a strange beatitude, and a precise one. Not: blessed is the one who understands it. Not: blessed is the one who gets the countings to add up. Blessed is the one who waits — the word traces not a moment but a posture, a waiting that persists while there is nothing to see — and who arrives. The chapter counts two numbers there: twelve hundred and ninety days, and then this longer number, forty-five days further on — and what happens between those countings the text does not say, and so this book does not say it either; the days stand there, and they are allowed to stand. What the text does say is what the blessedness hangs on: not on the first day of the outcome, but on the last day of the waiting. Blessed is the one who is still there then — who fills out the longest number, the last forty-five days too, when holding on has long since ceased to be spectacular. You recognize it, this beatitude. It is the law of the Kingdom from the last chapter, in its oldest form: all crowns hang on the least spectacular verb. Perseverance in Scripture needs only one reward, and here it gets its own "blessed" — not for the cleverest reader, but for the one who waits the longest.
And then the promise, the closing verse, and now it becomes personal. For the last word of the book of Daniel is no vision and no counting; it is a pledge to one old man with unanswered questions. "And you — go your way to the end; and you shall rest, and stand to your destiny, at the end of the days." That same "go your way" which sent him off in verse nine returns here, but it has changed form: it is no longer a door that closes, it is a road that opens. There is now a direction attached — to the end — and at the end a promise in three verbs, so short that you read past it and so large that this whole book fits inside it. Go your way: the ordinary years still left to him, the work, the faithfulness, the days without a vision. You shall rest: his death, named the way you name it to someone you love. And stand: the standing-word of the resurrection — the same hope that earlier in this chapter roused the sleepers out of the dust (12:2), now pledged to him personally. And then the goal of it all: to your destiny — your allotted portion, your inheritance, which does not evaporate while you sleep but lies ready and stands in your name, at the end of the days.
That is Daniel's own cross and crown, in a single line. The maskil who was not allowed to read his own book receives at the close precisely what his book promises the wise — not because he understood it, but because he was faithful and went his way when he was told to. There is in all of Scripture no purer proof that understanding is not the price of admission. The first of the wise died with a sealed book under his arm and an unsealed promise in his hand, and of the two the second turned out to be enough.
Once more back, across the whole distance of this book. The closing chapter of Daniel says "and you" twice to the old man. The first time at the beginning: "and you, Daniel — shut up the words and seal the book." The last time at the end: "and you — go your way." Between those two sentences lies everything this book has attempted. At the first "and you" you stood at the door of a sealed book, and the prologue said: a sealed book you do not open at the lock; go back to the beginning. That you have done — from the altar of Kislev to Mount Zion, from the first vanguard to the cast-down crowns. Now you stand at the second "and you," and it points the other way: not back into the book, but forward, into your own days, toward your own end. So the circle closes, and it closes not shut but open: from "shut up and seal" to "go your way to the end [...] to your destiny."
For that last word did not stay stuck on the riverbank. It was spoken to Daniel and, over his head, to everyone who would search his book to and fro when the time had come — and so also, if you are reading this in those days, to you. Perhaps you have understood much of what stood here; perhaps little; the beatitude does not ask after it, and whoever tells you otherwise has not read the close of Daniel. What is pledged to you is what was pledged to him, and it asks of you what it asked of him. Go your way — back into your life, your work, your people, your ordinary days, which under all of this become no less ordinary. Keep waiting — even when there is nothing to see, even the last forty-five days of whatever counting it may be. And if your end comes before the End: rest. You shall rest as he rests, and you shall stand as he stands, and you shall receive your destiny — your own portion, allotted and kept, at the end of the days.
The book that was sealed has opened as far as the hour allowed. What is still closed will open in time; that is no surmise but the term of the seal itself. More you do not need to know, and with less Scripture sends no one away.
And you — go your way to the end. You shall rest, and stand, to your destiny, at the end of the days.