Abstract: This paper aims to analyze Heidegger’s enigmatic framing of death – “As the shrine of Nothing, death is the shelter of Being” – in one of his later works, “The Thing”. I begin by examining his account of existential death and related concepts, with a view to identifying how his understanding of anxiety [Angst] and the Nothing [das Nicht] transforms from its presentation in Being and Time (1927) to its articulation in “What is Metaphysics?” (1929). I then argue that, supported by this revised conception of Nothing, Heidegger’s concerns regarding the existential finitude of Dasein in 1929 are superseded by his focus on the ontological finitude of Being. Based on my novel interpretation of this transformation, I contend that Heidegger’s focus in his 1929 lecture foreshadowed his turning and explains the later metaphorical expression about death, Nothing, and Being,