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...'and I will bring you into the land of Israel' [Ezek. 37:12] — establishing that this is in this world.
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He connected it with the assurance that each one of us, upon being revived by God, will recall that he is the same person who was alive, the same who died, and the same who was revived —
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as stated: 'And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves' [Ezek. 37:13].
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He repeated mention of their dwelling in the Land of Israel a second time to establish for us that it is in this world: 'I will put My spirit in you and you shall live, and I will set you in your own land; and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it — says the Lord' [Ezek. 37:14].
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I say further: the prophet has given glad tidings in parallel to this promise, saying 'Your dead shall live' [Isa. 26:19] — corresponding to the Ezekiel passage 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost.'
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His comparison of this state to one who wakes from sleep — 'Awake and sing' [Isa. 26:19] — parallels: 'you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves',
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and his likening the revived body to 'dew of lights' [Isa. 26:19] — since it is composed of four elements: the earth-element is present, while the moisture our Lord brings through the meaning of 'dew,'
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then He brings the spirit from the meaning of 'lights,' for the soul is indeed luminous, as I have explained.
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'And the earth will cast out the Rephaim' [Isa. 26:19] — meaning the unbelievers will fall to the earth and be brought low, as I have explained,
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and those who are ignorant of their Lord's command and wish to remain so — 'a wandering man from the path of understanding will rest in the assembly of the Rephaim' [Prov. 21:16].
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I say further: I find that Daniel was informed by our Lord of what would be at the end of time in forty-seven verses.
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One verse of them concerns what will be at the end of the Persian empire — that is the first. Thirteen verses concern the Greek empire,
and twenty verses concern the Roman empire, from 'He will do as the one who comes to him pleases' [Dan. 11:16]
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...to 'the king will do as he pleases' [Dan. 11:36]; and ten verses concern the Arab empire,
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and the last three verses concern the matter of the Redemption — one of them being: 'And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to everlasting life and some to reproaches' [Dan. 12:2].
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He said 'many of those who sleep' and not 'all of those who sleep in the dust,' because all who sleep in the dust are all of humanity, but this promise was made only to the Children of Israel — which is why he said 'many.'
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'Some to everlasting life and some to reproaches' — this does not mean that among those who are revived some receive reward and some punishment,
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for no one who bears punishment is resurrected at the time of Redemption.
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Rather, the partition in the verse means: those who wake are to everlasting life, while those who do not wake are subject to everlasting reproach and shame —
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for every righteous person and every repentant one will live, and only the unbeliever and one who died without repentance will remain. All of this is at the time of Redemption.
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If someone goes to allegorizing these verses and turns them away from the resurrection of the dead,
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by saying: we have found that the language can describe the elevation of a lowly person as though God raises him from the dust — as in: 'He raises the poor from the dust, from the ash-heap He lifts the needy, to seat him with nobles' [1 Sam. 2:8] —
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and can describe a lowly person who was given leadership: 'Because I lifted you from the dust' [1 Kgs. 16:2].
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We have shown that such a position is mistaken, because it is not permissible to apply to a verse every allegorization it might admit — only those justified by one of the four reasons we set out earlier.
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If none of these reasons applies, the verses stand according to their literal text.
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If it were required to apply to every verse whatever allegorization it could bear, without any ground for it, no revealed law could be established for us at all, since all of Scripture admits of allegorization.
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Chapter 3. If someone entertains the doubts raised by these verses and thinks they prevent affirming that the resurrection of the dead is in this world,
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I have considered it appropriate to mention them and clarify the intended meaning in them.
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I say: they are three types of doubt, and each type has a corresponding mode of clarification.
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The first type is based on the servant Job's words: 'Remember that my life is a breath... the eye of him who sees me will behold me no more... For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again... But a man dies and lies prostrate, he breathes his last — where is he? ...If a man dies, will he live again?' [Job 7:7–10; 14:7, 10, 14].
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The righteous ones who said these words did not intend by them that the Creator cannot revive the dead —
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for how could they face Him with such a claim when they knew He has power over all things?
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Rather, they intended by these words to describe the human being's helplessness once he enters the grave — his inability to raise himself, to wake from his sleep, or to return to his place of habitation.
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They are saying, as it were: O Lord, have mercy on a servant who is in this state of helplessness and destitution — to Your compassion alone he turns.