Chapter 5 - Daniel’s Time Periods
The prophetic periods included as details in Daniel’s
visions have long been recognized as among the most exciting features of his
prophecy. Their close connection with the time of the end is undeniable.
Consequently students eager to know “when shall be the end of
these wonders” and reluctant to believe their Lord when he said: “Of
that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven”, have
indulged in an electronic orgy of ingenious computation in a laudable attempt to
identify the precise time of the return of Christ.
Such zeal is wholly praiseworthy, but it is to be
doubted whether it is well-directed. Certainly the fruits of these efforts have
been piling up in ecclesial waste-paper baskets for the past century. A
re-examination of these prophetic periods from a rather different point of view
may not be amiss.
There are four of these periods
mentioned:
- “A time, times and the dividing of time”—the
duration of the little horn’s power to persecute: chapter 7:25. This
recurs in 12:7.
- 2300 days “to give both the
sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot”; 8:13,
14.
- 1290 days, and
- 1335 days,
closely associated with the “time, times and an half” in
12:7,11,12.
The first of these meets the student of
Revelation in Revelation 12:14. It is generally agreed that “a time, times
and an half” and “forty and two months” (Revelation 11:2) and
1260 days (Revelation 11:3) are equivalent; all of them represent 3 12 years of
360 days each. It can be mentioned in passing that no satisfactory explanation
of two associated problems has (to the present writer’s knowledge) ever
been advanced—why a “year” of 360 days should be used, when
the ancients from the time of Daniel onwards certainly knew that this was
5¾ days in error; and what special significance is intended by the three
variants of the same period: 3~ years, 42 months, 1260 days.
The classical approach to all these prophetic
periods has been on the assumption that each day represents a year. The
difficulties inherent in such a method of interpretation do not seem to have
been adequately considered.
There are several:
- If the intention behind the use of days instead of years was
to save Daniel from overmuch discouragement, then its use was not only morally
questionable but its effect was actually cancelled out by other explicit
assertions: e.g. Daniel 8:26, 27.
- The book of Daniel
nowhere supplies a hint that a year for a day is the proper basis of
interpretation. In Daniel 4:16 “seven times” means “seven
literal years”. And if the Seventy Weeks prophecy of chapter 9 be cited as
adequate evidence, it must be stressed in reply that neither days, weeks nor
years are actually mentioned there. The phrase is, literally, “seventy
sevens”.
- In the only other places where the Bible
used a day to represent a year (Numbers 14:33, 34; Ezekiel 4:4-6), this is
explicitly stated. There is nothing to match these statements in the Book of
Daniel.
- The fruits of the application of the “year
for a day” theory are singularly unsatisfying, even though~ questionable
assumptions are often made in the process. In a previous chapter the termination
of the 3½ “years” of Daniel 7 at A.D. 1870 was found to be not
altogether satisfactory since (i) the persecuting power of the Pope ended long
before that date, and (ii) the extra century which has elapsed since 1870 goes
unaccounted for.
- The starting points of these periods
have to be selected in very arbitrary fashion. It may not unreasonably be asked
why the 1260, I290 and 1335 periods of Daniel 12 are usually given as their
beginning the epoch of Mohammedan ascendancy in Palestine. The clues supplied in
Daniel 12 hardly suggest this: “from the time that the daily sacrifice
shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up”
(12:11) can hardly be applied in fairness to the Mohammedan epoch, since (i) the
daily sacrifice was taken away by the Romans in A.D. 70 and (ii) Jesus himself
gave a Roman application to the words: “the abomination that maketh
desolate” (Matthew 24:15=Luke 21: 20).
- Similarly,
the 2300 days of Daniel 8:13, 14 requires to be dated from the time that
“the sanctuary and the host are trodden underfoot”. Yet if the date
of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the temple be used, the period runs out
too soon; whilst if the desolation of Jerusalem by Titus be selected, the result
is distressingly and indeed impossibly late. Attempts to cope with this
difficulty have taken two forms. One stresses that the original is, literally,
“two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings”, which may
conceivably mean 1150days. But this becomes impossibly short, so that even the
unwarranted expedient of a Mohammedan starting point is of no avail. Others have
preferred the dubious Septuagint reading of 2400 days, but this does not
materially ease the difficulty of the application either, as a little mental
arithmetic will speedily shew.
- Jesus was a far better
expositor of Bible prophecy than any of his twentieth century disciples. He had
the Book of Daniel. Nevertheless he declared: “But of that day and that
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son,
but the Father only” (Mark 13: 32). If Jesus could not use the Book of
Daniel to learn the time of the end, what hope for anyone
else?
In view of the fact that criticisms such as the
foregoing can be so readily multiplied and when also regard is had to the
accumulated wrecks of discredited computations, it is not altogether to be
wondered at that this field of Bible study is in the doldrums, either a ground
for puzzlement and vague speculation or the butt of open ribaldry because of the
futility of the results arrived at. Is it possible that there is another,
different, way of making sense of these enigmatic prophecies?
In an earlier chapter it was pointed out that the
prophecies of Daniel all seem to include a gap in the historical fulfilment. It
was also shewn that the “Seventy Weeks” prophecy left a period of
3½ years unaccounted for at its end. Since this 32 years is exactly
equivalent to the “time, times and a half” of Daniel 12 and
Revelation 12, there is here a pointed suggestion that the prophetic periods
of Daniel are intended to be taken as meaning precisely what they say, and
not on the basis of a year for a day. In that case, the 1260,1290, 1335 days are
to be regarded as indicating the duration of “the time of trouble such as
never was” which is to engulf the people of Israel immediately before the
manifestation of their Messiah.
It has also been shewn earlier in this study that
many prophecies speak of a third war between Jews and Arabs in which Israel will
be overrun by their implacable enemies. Putting the two ideas together, it would
now appear that the duration of this final down-treading of Israel will be for a
period of 31 years during which all the fruits of their national resurrection
will be wrested from them or destroyed. From this desperate situation of black
hopelessness only their Messiah will be able to save them.
With this idea as a working hypothesis—a
hypothesis, be it noted, which has been suggested in the first place by
Scripture itself—it is interesting and even exciting to go back and review
the prophecies where this 32 year period is involved.
Daniel 12:1 foretells for Israel “a time of
trouble such as never was”. It is “the time of Jacob’s
trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7). During this period specified in 12:7 as “a
time, times and an half”, “Many (in Israel) shall be purified, and
made white, and tried” (v. 10). “When he shall have accomplished to
scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be
accomplished” (v. 7).
According to this interpretation, the little horn
of Daniel 7 (in its final fulfilment) is this same persecutor of the Last Days:
“I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them” (7:21). These “saints” are the Jews, the
“holy people” (the same word is so translated and so used concerning
Israel in chapter 8:24).
This persecutor will “speak great words
against the most High”. The application of these words to the Papacy is
hardly self-evident inasmuch as the Catholic Church is Christian, after a
fashion, and in this 20th century is the main contender for a theistic
philosophy of life against atheistic communism. But the relevance of this
prophecy to a Russia-directed overthrow of the new State of Israel needs no
demonstrating.
“And they shall be given into his hand
until a time and times and the dividing of time”, after which period of 3
2 years “the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under
the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most
High” (7: 27). Possibly, though not certainly, there is a distinction here
between “the people of the saints” (those who “live and reign
with Christ”) and “the saints of the most High” (the nation of
Israel). But this is not a conclusion that can be insisted on.
In any case the visions of Daniel are now seen to
be solidly—and appropriately—Jewish in their reference. No
one could question the appositeness of such a scheme of interpretation. Would
any wish to do so? Papal and Mohammedan interpretations fly out of the window,
and the purpose of God is revealed once again as an essentially Jewish
purpose made known through Jewish prophets in a Jewish context. In chapter 8
reasons will be given for believing that the corresponding passages in
Revelation are to be given a similar reference.
The existence of the gap in the continuity of the
Daniel prophecies now finds a simple and more than adequate explanation: THE
VISIONS CONCERN THE EXPERIENCES OF ISRAEL IN THEIR OWN LAND. When Israel is
cast off and scattered the detail of the prophecies ceases, just as in the
wilderness when Israel was punished for lack of faith in God’s promises
there was a period of 38 years of wilderness wanderings of which no single
detail is recorded.
It is now possible to see the familiar words
“the times of the Gentiles” as having yet another significance.
Besides referring to the long period of Israel’s scattering, they also
describe specially the literal “time, times, and an half” of
down-treading of Jerusalem in the Last Days. The word “times” in
Luke 21:24 is the same as in the Septuagint version of Daniel. There can be
little doubt that Jesus was making deliberate reference to Daniel especially
since he had just quoted words “spoken by Daniel the prophet (whoso
readeth, let him understand)”.
One last and important conclusion remains to be
brought to the reader’s attention. It will be evident that if the
viewpoint advocated here is correct, there now remains no material on which to
base a computation of the date of the return of the Lord. All the prophetic
periods of Daniel and Revelation are now seen to describe a comparatively short
epoch immediately before the coming of Messiah. The gap in the prophecies is of
unspecifiable duration. It is not possible to know beforehand when the
vital 31 years will begin. Hence it is still true that “of that day and
hour knoweth no man”. These things “the Father hath kept in his own
power”. But with his saints there is the power of prayer: “Ye that
are the Lord’s remembrancers, give him no rest until he make Jerusalem a
joy and a praise in the earth”.
