And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of your people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time your people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
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Aquinas Study Bible
AD 2017
Michael: means “Who is like God”; Whenever some act of wondrous power must be performed, Michael is sent, so that his action and his name may make it clear that no one can do what God does by his superior power. So also our ancient foe Satan desired in his pride to be like God, saying: I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven; I will be like the Most High. He will be allowed to remain in power until the end of the world when he will be destroyed in the final punishment. Then, he will fight with the archangel Michael, as we are told by John in Revelation: A battle was fought with Michael the archangel. (St. Gregory the Great) and a time shall come: But as in the persecutions which happen from time to time, so also then God will permit these things, not because He wants power to hinder them, but because according to His wont He will through patience crown His own champions like as He did His Prophets and Apostles; to the end that having toiled for a lit...
Michael, "who is like God "alludes to the name of the Machabees; Who is like unto thee among the gods? The archangel protected the Jews, while Epiphanes was engaged beyond the Euphrates.
Time. The nation was in the utmost distress. Only about seven thousand ill-armed men adhered to Judas: yet these delivered the country by God's decree.
Book. God seemed to keep a register of his friends. (Calmet)
Michael, the guardian of the Church, will protect her against antichrist, as her pastors will do visibly. (Worthington) Ver. 2. Many. This shows the great number. All shall rise again. In a figurative sense, the Jews who seemed buried shall appear and fight.
To see. Hebrew, "everlasting. "(Calmet)
St. Jerome has not seen a d (Haydock) in the word. This text is express for eternal happiness or misery. (Calmet)
Some have understood, deraon, "stench "or contempt, to denote the ignominy of the damned; but the prophet speaks of the times of the Machabees. (Houbigant.)
All shall rise in their...
There shall be a time of trouble. For at that time there shall be great trouble, such as has not been from the foundation of the world, when some in one way, and others in another, shall be sent through every city and country to destroy the faithful; and the saints shall travel from the west to the east, and shall be driven in persecution from the east to the south, while others shall conceal themselves in the mountains and caves; and the abominanation shall war against them everywhere, and shall cut them off by sea and by land by his decree, and shall endeavour by every means to destroy them out of the world; and they shall not be able any longer to sell their own property, nor to buy from strangers, unless one keeps and carries with him the name of the beast, or bears its mark upon his forehead. For then they shall all be driven out from every place, and dragged from their own homes and haled into prison, and punished with all manner of punishment, and cast out from the whole world.
Up until this point Porphyry somehow managed to maintain his position and impose upon the credulity of the naive [reading imperitis for imperitus] among our adherents as well as the poorly educated among his own. But what can he say of this chapter, in which is described the resurrection of the dead, with one group being revived for eternal life and the other group for eternal disgrace? He cannot even specify who the people were under Antiochus who shone like the brightness of the firmament, and those others who shone like the stars for all eternity. But what will pigheadedness not resort to? Like some bruised serpent, he lifts up his head as he is about to die, and pours forth his venom upon those who are themselves at the point of death. This too, he declares, was written with reference to Antiochus, for after he had invaded Persia, he left his army with Lysias, who was in charge of Antioch and Phoenicia, for the purpose of warring against the Jews and destroying their city of Jerusa...
