Appendix B
The Year/Day Principle

The year for a day principle isn’t obvious in prophecy. If we’re going to use it as a tool, it has to be a legitimate part of the original sense of scripture. We can’t import modern ideas into the Bible. If the year/day perspective exists in the Bible, then it will be legitimate to test its use in interpretation against history. The fact that it was popular during the Reformation is irrelevant.(1)

For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. (Ezek 4:5–6)

According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years, and you shall know My opposition. (Num 14:34)

These are the only two texts that directly equate years and days in English translation. Let’s be blunt. This is pretty flimsy. The first text actually transforms literal years into days, and seems opposite to the idea we’re evaluating. The second merely lists a literal punishment, and is difficult to stretch into a year of time for a day of prophecy.

But these aren’t quite as weak as they might appear. In both cases, the thought in the Hebrew is "according to the number of days . . . a day for a year." In each case the "day" is symbolic of the literal year. In Numbers, the 40 days of spying are symbolic of years of wandering, while in Ezekiel, the days of lying down are symbolic of years of literal iniquity.

There’s much more to recommend the idea. Daniel is told that his vision pertains to "the time of the end" (Dan 8:17). Later on, when Daniel has trouble understanding the vision:

"And the vision of the evenings and mornings which has been told is true. But keep the vision secret, for it pertains to many days in the future." (Dan 8:26)

Gabriel equates the "time of the end" with "many days" in the future. We would think of it in terms of many years in the future. Even if the second coming had been just after the cross, it would still be many years after Daniel.

"As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance." (Dan 12:13, NIV)

Daniel will receive his inheritance "at the end of the days." It wouldn’t have been stated this way if he wasn’t prepared to understand the expression. This same equation of days and years in Hebrew thought can be seen many places. The seventh-day Sabbath is clearly defined in Exodus.

. . . but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God . . . (Ex 20:10a)

This is a weekly event. But sabbaths also come every seven years. They are patterned after the weekly Sabbath.

Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. (Lev 25:3–4)

This failure to keep annual sabbaths is one reason for the Babylonian captivity.

And those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete. (2 Chron 36:20–21)

Daniel uses interchangeable "years" and "days." He and his three friends are to appear before Nebuchadnezzar after three years of training (1:5) but Daniel refers to it as "at the end of the days" (1:18). In 2:28 Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that God is revealing to him what will happen "in the end of the days" (literal Aramaic). Nebuchadnezzar was insane for seven years (4:25), but Daniel says he regained his sanity "at the end of the days" (4:34 literal Aramaic). Nebuchadnezzar reigned for many years, but his reign was referred to as "days" in 5:11.

In Daniel's prayer in chapter 10, he says he had been in mourning for three weeks (10:2). For weeks, he uses the Hebrew word shabuwa. This is the same word used in 9:24–27. Shabuwa is used fourteen times in the Old Testament outside of Daniel, and in every case it means a literal seven-day week. In all, Daniel uses it nine times. Twice, in 10:2–3, it clearly means literal weeks. He uses “weeks of days” in 10:2, suggesting that he needed to clarify which kind of week he was referring to. In chapter 9, (seven times) it’s clear it means years.

The first "seven weeks" of 9:25 are too short to consider rebuilding Jerusalem if taken as forty-nine literal days, although Nehemiah did repair its walls in fifty-two days (Neh 6:15). Even more dramatically, the strengthening of the covenant in 9:26 would be ludicrous if it only lasted seven days. Since Messiah is "cut off" in the middle of the week, 3½ days of a strengthened covenant would never be noticed. Only a year/day understanding allows the prophecy to make sense.

Daniel isn’t alone in this usage. Other Old Testament writers use the same kind of year/day equivalence. Exodus 13:10 says that the Passover will be kept "from days to days" (literal Hebrew). The same word for "day," yom, is used repeatedly in a similar annual context. First Samuel 2:19 tells how Samuel's mother brought him a coat each year. The literal Hebrew says that she came "from days to days". This usage is repeated in Judges 11:40. First Samuel 1:21 refers to a yearly sacrifice with yom, literally calling it a "daily" sacrifice.

This same form is used to specify durations. First Samuel 27:7 uses "days and four months" (literal Hebrew) to specify a year and four months. Numbers 9:22 uses "two days, or a month, or days" to mean "two days, or a month, or a year." Translators render 1 Kings 1:1 that King David was "advanced in years" (NIV), but it literally says that he was "advanced in the days."
This thought pattern seems to have its origin in the genealogy of Genesis 5. There we repeatedly see the statement that "the days of (x) were (y) years." Clearly, days and years were in many ways interchangeable in the Hebrew mind. We need to put ourselves in the position of the Hebrews who would be reading the prophecies. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to do just that.

The Book of Jubilees is a non-canonical work written in the second century BC, around the time of the Maccabees. It describes Noah's age at his death as "19 jubilees, 2 weeks and 5 years." A jubilee is 49 years, so the total would be 936 years and 2 weeks if we take it literalistically. But we know that Noah was 950 years old when he died (Gen 9:29). If the 2 weeks are "weeks of years" then we get the correct total. Clearly, the Jews used the year/day principle.

In classical prophecy, very specific time spans are given and fulfilled. Man's wickedness was limited to 120 years before the flood (Gen 6:3). Abraham's descendents would be oppressed in Egypt for 400 years (Gen 15:13). The Babylonian captivity would last 70 years (Jer 25:11). Every time, the prophecy and fulfillment are quite explicit.

Apocalyptic prophecy is different. It focuses on the time of the end. It uses symbolic language, with various players described in non-literal ways. Where time spans in ordinary prophecy are presented in clear language, the language of apocalyptic is distinctly non-standard. Daniel 7:25 and 12:7 refer to a span of (literally) "a time, two times, and a dividing of time." Daniel 8:14 uses 2,300 "evening/morning." Daniel 9:24 identifies "seventy weeks." These prophetic time periods are not the normal way that literal time would be expressed. Not one of them uses the normal word for "year." The players in the prophecies are symbolic, and consistency requires that the times in symbolic prophecy are symbolic, too.

The other major biblical apocalypse adds light to this. In Revelation, there is a 10-day period of tribulation (Rev 2:10) and a 3½ day period (Rev 11:9,11). Taking these as literal borders on lunacy. Why would God bother telling us about such short periods in a prophecy that has the entire sweep of human history in view? It just doesn't fit. Revelation 11:2 and 13:5 tell about “forty two months,” which 11:3 converts to “1,260 days,” both of which are the same “time, times, and a dividing of time” from Revelation 12:14, echoing Daniel 7:25 and 12:7.(2)

The “longest” time period in apocalyptic is the “2,300 evening/morning” of Daniel 8:14. Literalistically, this would be a bit over six years. Some commentators even shorten it to 1,150 days. While the longer period can sort of make sense, it’s really out of place in apocalyptic.

Our final step is to look at the logic of apocalyptic prophecy. It shows the war between God and Satan. The various stages of the battle take time to play out. A literalistic understanding of the time periods just isn’t long enough for the players to fulfill their roles. A longer, symbolic understanding is required.

How long are the time periods? They can generally be translated into days, months, and years. Taken literalistically, they don’t make much sense. But, if we take the Hebrew year/day thought pattern into account, we can see a year of literal time in place of a day of prophetic time. When we do this, we have time periods that are consistent with the apocalyptic perspective.

Why would God use this roundabout way of describing time? I can propose one logical answer. While the symbolic language matches the style of the prophecy, it can also include additional meaning. Daniel’s 8:14's use of "evening/morning" calls into view the morning and evening sacrifices and draws attention to the Temple. His use of "weeks" in 9:24 reminds us about the weekly Sabbath, and reminds the readers that the 70 years of exile was due to failure to keep the covenant with its weekly and annual Sabbaths. The “seven weeks” in 9:25 recalls the Jubilee, which came every “seven weeks of years” (Lev 25:8–10).

In short, the year/day principle is a basic Hebrew thought pattern. It was impressed on them repeatedly by the sabbatical and Jubilee cycles. We see it in multiple ordinary uses throughout the Old Testament. Far from being a modern invention, it is a natural part of biblical history, and its application to apocalyptic prophecy is also natural.