The brothers’ faith that God will raise them from the dead for being obedient is a huge shift in Jewish thinking, brought about by the difficult reality that God seemed to be taking his sweet old time restoring the kingdom of Israel—centuries, in fact—while Jews were dying for their obedience to God. For God to remain just, for God to remain faithful, something had to give—and what gave was the finality of death. To be just, God would have to raise the dead.
