God’s Word for You

Daniel 12:10-13 your inheritance at the end of days

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, February 3, 2026

11 From the time that the regular daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days. 12 Blessed are those who wait and reach one thousand three hundred thirty-five days. 13 But you, go your way to the end, and rest. You will rise to the gift of your inheritance at the end of days.”

Daniel’s question, “How long…?” is not ignored. But the answer is now given in the form of two numbers: 1290 and 1335. What do these numbers mean? They are given as days (yamim), but they must be symbolic in some way. Every attempt to line up these numbers with years throws out the value of “days” and violates both a literal as well as a figurative interpretation.

Both of these numbers add up to something close to three and a half years, or “a time, times, and half a time.” 1290 days would be about 43 lunar months. 1335 days would be about 45 lunar months. The Israelites used a lunar month in which the first day was always a new moon. Our “solar” months (that is, a solar year divided by twelve months) total about 42 weeks if we count three and a half years. Revelation 11:2-3 says that enemies of the church will trample on the holy city for 42 months.

But let’s return to the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. His rule began in 175 BC, but his terrible persecution of the Jews began with setting up the abomination that causes desolation on the altar of burnt offering in the temple in Jerusalem in 167 BC. From that point until his death was just about 42 months, or three and a half years. This “became the measure for the duration of a period of oppression and affliction in Judaic tradition” (Concordia Self-Study Commentary, p. 296). So the 1335 days makes some sense to us if it refers to the period of time (exactly measured out by God) when the New Testament Church was and is being assailed by its opponent, the Antichrist, right down to the very end of time. This is not a literal 42 months, but a terribly long spiritual “forty-two,” a time of oppression and hardship during which Christians will be persecuted and assailed on account of their faith.

What about the shorter number? This must be the period within the longer one when such persecution would be, will be, the most severe.

Why call the time of this “great forty-two” merely days? Days always have a beginning and ending in the Scriptures, “there was evening and there was morning” (Genesis 1:5). This is a bearable time. Even the most awful times in many people’s experiences are measured or thought of in days. “My homeless days were the worst,” one man might say, or “the day that this or that person died was the hardest day of my life.” Our greatest soldiers talked about “the Longest Day,” the day in June 1944 when they stormed the beaches of Normandy. Perhaps an awful day, or long string of days, is in store for the church, days when a new abomination will appear, such as a law, or a public movement to silence the true gospel, and only believing parents will still teach their children about Jesus’ love in secrecy at home, in hushed and frightened voices. How blessed will they be, those Christians, who survive such an awful time, and are able to speak the name of Jesus once again in public, before the end comes.

Consider one example: Under communism, Christianity in the USSR (the Soviet Union) almost disappeared from the public eye for 75 years. Atheism was the official position of the nation, and this was taught in Soviet schools beginning in 1917. Then in August of 1991 (while I happened to be packing all of my things to head for college to become a pastor here in America) a Soviet leader named Boris Yeltsin stopped tanks from rolling into Moscow during an attempted coup. He held up his hands, stopped the line of tanks (whose commanders were baffled by the act), climbed up onto one, and gave a speech that was the beginning of the end for communism and (they hoped) tyranny in Russia. By December, the USSR had fallen (I have greatly simplified the story). Now, back to the Christians: In the thirty-fire years since then, the number of Russia Orthodox churches has grown from about 2,000 to more than 20,000. Churches that had been torn down by the atheist state were rebuilt. The main crisis in the beginning was the lack of trained pastors. Other denominations (including our Wisconsin Synod) made inroads into Russia and into the nations that broke away from Russia, like Ukraine. People said that they never stopped being Christian (not since 1917!). That could only have happened if parents and grandparents passed the gospel down to their little ones in their homes; when Jesus became the secret story being told at bedtime and before meals.

This could happen again. We mustn’t be surprised if it does; that’s what Daniel is being warned about. But the next time, it could be, probably will be, much worse; much more wide-spread, and much closer to home.

Our prophet is told, “Go your way to the end.” Keep living out your faith—you have a place in heaven. Does that mean that Daniel from this moment was confirmed in his faith like the good angels, and that he could not fall? Of course it doesn’t. Daniel, a sinner like all of us, could still have fallen from faith and been condemned. But what he is being told is that he should continue on in the faith he had shown; that this faith is the way to the resurrection, life, and salvation. The final word about our souls, confirmed in the captivity and apocalypse of Daniel, is the same message as in the rest of the Holy Scriptures: Only unbelief damns. And only faith in Jesus Christ saves.

Salvation unto us has come
by God’s free grace and favor;
good works cannot avert our doom,
they help and save us never.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,
who did for all the world atone;
he is our one Redeemer.

What God did in his law demand
and none to him could render
caused wrath and woe on ev’ry hand
for man, the vile offender.
Our flesh has not the pure desires
the spirit of the law requires,
and lost is our condition.

Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone
and rests in him unceasing;
and by its fruits true faith is known,
with love and hope increasing.
For faith alone can justify;
works serve our neighbor and supply
the proof that faith is living.

Paul Speratus (1484-1516)

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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