The Sadducees are reported to have asked Rabbi Gamaliel, the preceptor of Paul, whence he would prove that God would raise the dead, who quoted Deut. 9:21: “Which land the Lord sware that he would give to your fathers.” He argued, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had it not, and as God cannot lie, that they must be raised from the dead to inherit it.
Rabbi Simai, though of later date, argues the same from Ex. 6:4, insisting that the law asserts in this place the resurrection from the dead, when it said: “And also I have established my covenant with them, to give them the Canaan;” for, he adds, “it is not said to you, but to them.”
Mennasseh Ben Israel says: “It is plain that Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs did not possess that land; it follows, therefore, [pg 359] that they must be raised in order to enjoy the promised good, as otherwise the promises of God would be vain and false.”—De Resurrec. Mort., L. i., c. 1. § 4.
Rabbi Saahias Gaion, commenting on Dan. 12:2, says: “This is the resuscitation of the dead Israel, whose lot is eternal life, and those who shall not awake are the forsakers of Jehovah.”
“In the world to come,” says the Sahar, fol. 81, “the blessed God will vivify the dead and raise them from their dust, so that they shall be no more an earthly structure.”
Thus “Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance ... sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” Heb. 11:8-10. While he dwelt in that land, God “gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him,” Acts 7:5. This was also true of all those “who died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth,”—desiring “a better country, that is, [pg 360] a heavenly” (Heb. 11:13-16), “not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection” (v. 35), “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect,” v. 40.
When the promises are thus made good to Israel, all who are of the faith of Abraham will participate in the same promises. For “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law ... that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.” “And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise,” Gal. 3:13, 14, 29. So the Saviour said to the Jews: “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom [unregenerate Jews] shall be cast into outer darkness,” Matt. 8:11, 12. And then, as the Saviour said to the twelve: “Ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” Matt. 19:28.
“The rest of the dead,” who live not again till the thousand years are ended, must be the wicked dead; for, the righteous being raised, no other dead ones remain. They include all the wicked, who have died in all ages, and “the remnant” who “are slain [pg 361] with the sword” (19:21), when the kingdom is cleansed from all things that offend.
“The thousand years” to intervene between the two resurrections, are regarded by some as a symbol of 360,000 years. There seems to be no necessity for such an interpretation. When time is symbolized, it is always proportioned to the duration of the other symbols used. Thus, in Dan. 8th, when beasts symbolize kingdoms, it would have been incongruous to have specified the duration of the vision in literal years; for beasts do not continue during centuries, as the kingdoms symbolized by them have done. But days are proportioned to years, as beasts are to kingdoms; so that there is a fitness in symbolizing the years foreshadowed in that vision, by 2300 days; between which measure of time and the duration of the existence of beasts, there is a perfect congruity.
In the 4th of Daniel, where the cutting down of a tree is used to symbolize the loss of the king's reason, there is no such disproportion between the duration of man's existence and that of a tree, as there is between the life of a beast and that of an empire. And therefore there is no incongruity if the time specified is a symbol of literal time, i.e., if a time is used to symbolize a year. In this case, the seven years could not have been symbolized by seven days; for there is no marked disproportion between the duration [pg 362] of the other symbols in connection, and the things symbolized; and had days been used, days must have been understood in the fulfilment.