Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)According to biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, this is one of only two clear Old Testament references to the resurrection of the dead. The first is Isaiah 26:19 - Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. He is careful to connect this with Isaiah 25:6-10a.
Daniel, then, is the second. Whereas the Isaiah text focuses on the joy associated with resurrection, Daniel says there are two sides to that coin. Some will be resurrected to everlasting life and some to everlasting contempt.
Brueggemann says we are mistaken to limit resurrection to a merely private experience... reward or punishment, or even that of being restored to our loved ones. It's bigger than that. Let Brueggemann speak: It is clear that the affirmation of life-beyond-death that is only at the fringes of the Old Testament is able to speak of resurrection as a function of 'the end' (12:13) that is also the beginning of 'new life.' That is, resurrection is a vehicle for radical, apocalyptic thought that bespeaks fearful endings and amazing beginnings, all of which are wrought by the power of God. [1]
What does the promise of resurrection mean to you?
[1] Walter Brueggemann. An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 358.
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