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Chapter 7. If an inquirer asks: who exactly are these who will be resurrected? We answer: the entire nation — the righteous among them and those who died in repentance.
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This is derived from His words: "And I will bring you up from your graves, My people" — for all who are called "My people" are included in this promise.
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I find that the righteous are called "My people" — as it says: "And say to Zion, You are My people"; that sinners who do not repent are not called "My people" — as it says: "For you are not My people"; and that penitents are included in "My people" — as it says: "And I will say to Not-My-People: You are My people."
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Our predecessors, when they enumerated the categories of sinners, said: one who violated a positive commandment, one who violated a negative commandment, one who incurred excision, one who incurred a court-imposed death penalty, and one through whom God's name was profaned — could it be that these will not
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— an atonement for him through his death? Scripture therefore teaches: "Behold, I will open your graves" — informing us that all who repented of any transgression, even from heresy, are assured of this promise.
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Then I offer a general argument: do we not — all of us who affirm divine unity — acknowledge that the Creator, exalted be His glory, will resurrect all the dead in the World to Come for recompense?
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What then is strange about this nation's distinction being an additional period in which our dead are resurrected before the World to Come, so that their life connects directly to the life of the World to Come?
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And what reason is there to prevent or reject it? Is it not justice to compensate every tested people in proportion to their trial? And this nation has been tested with momentous things, as it says: "For You, God, have tested us; You have refined us."
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It is therefore all the more fitting that He grant it this additional period before the World to Come, making it superior to all those who did good — just as its endurance and trial have been superior to theirs.
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If an inquirer asks: if God resurrects all the dead of this nation, how will the land contain them? We say: working through the calculation, we find that from when our nation went out among the peoples until the time of the Redemption — two thousand and two hundred years —
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— totaling approximately thirty-two generations, yielding approximately one hundred and twenty myriads of men and women. Even if we granted that all of them were righteous and penitent and thus deserving at the time of the Redemption —
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— we would find they occupy only one one-hundred-and-fiftieth part of the land. And this is after allotting each person more than two hundred cubits for his dwelling, his fields, and his needs.
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When we multiply one hundred and twenty myriads — which is the approximate size of the nation per generation — by thirty-two, which is the number of generations, the result is three thousand eight hundred and forty myriads.
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If we allocate four parasangs by four parasangs from the land — which is one one-hundred-and-fiftieth part of it — and spread it out in cubits, each parasang being three miles,
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and each mile being four thousand cubits by the black cubit of two and a third, each person gets 288 square cubits of space — and this is only insufficient for those who are not disciples of the sages.
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If an inquirer asks: will their families and relatives recognize them, and will they recognize one another? I have reflected on this and found it to be so — for the shepherds, princes, and prophets will necessarily be known among the nation,
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its elite and its common folk known — so that the distinction among them will be evident. And especially since Scripture has said that every person will be attached to his tribe, as explained in the section "These are the names of the tribes."
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Even the proselytes — each one will be attached to the tribe in whose midst he sojourned, as it says: "And in the tribe with which the stranger sojourns, there shall you give him his inheritance, declares the Lord God."