A Year for a Day

There is one further principle required for understanding of apocalyptic prophecy. This principle is not without its detractors, so I will explore it at some length.

The year for a day principle is not immediately apparent in prophecy. The OT prophecies were all written in the expectation of the end of sin around the time of Christ. This would be "the end time" anticipated in Dan 12:9. And this would be the time when the prophecies of Daniel were to be understood.

15 "Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place let the reader understand, Matt 24:15

The term "Messiah" used in Dan 9:25 clearly anticipates the coming of the ultimate high priest or king. This time limited prophecy is parallel to writings of all the OT prophets who wrote of the restoration of Israel. God would set up His kingdom on Mount Zion, and all the peoples of the world would come to worship there.

Given this expectation, the modern era would never happen, and literal understandings of various prophetic time spans (7:25, 8:14, 12:11-12) could be expected. Any other understanding makes a mockery of the idea that all scripture is meaningful (2 Tim 3:16), or requires that the prophecy in question be conditional. The fact that the Jews of the Maccabean period applied the 2,300 evenings/mornings of Dan 8:14 to the oppression of Antiochus IV Epiphanes confirms this view.

Unfortunately, the Jews rejected their God. Consumed by political and secular interests, they rejected Jesus' spiritual message. God allowed His backup plan to proceed.

17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, Heb 6:17

God's unchangeable purpose was to save His chosen people. The Jews failed. But God was not about to give up on mankind. He had destroyed the earth with a flood, and promised never to destroy it again.

21 And the LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. Gen 8:21

The church became "Israel". God's purpose did not change, but His methods did. This change of methods meant that the end time prophecies had to take on new meaning. This didn't happen immediately. As John records in Rev 1:1, even about 94 AD, the end was expected "shortly". Only after the failure of the early church to fulfill its mission did a longer time span come into view. This meant that any time prophecies that were fulfilled before the church era did not have a direct modern meaning. While it might have been logical for these prophecies to be fulfilled and then be of historical interest only, this would leave modern man without prophetic signposts as a buttress to his faith.

19 "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. John 13:19

29 "And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you may believe. John 14:29

God, in His infinite wisdom, rather than revealing new time prophecies, set in motion a modern set of meanings for His prophecies.

The span of time over which God's plan would be carried out through the church was comparable to the total span of time from Abraham to Jesus. This meant that, if the old prophecies were to be meaningful, another measure for their time span would have to be available. However, we cannot simply assert that "days" in the old prophecies become "years" in the new interpretation. There has to be a legitimate understanding within the original text which will allow this change of perspective. If such a perspective exists, then it becomes legitimate to test it against history.

5 "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.
6 "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

34 '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 which directly equate years and days in English translation. This appears to be flimsy evidence. The first text actually transfoms literal years into days, and appears opposite in application from the principle we seek to verify. The second text merely lists a punishment, and is difficult to stretch into a year of time for a day of prophecy.

However, these are not so 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 is much more to recommend the idea. Since this study is of the prophecies of Daniel, it should be appropriate to look at how Daniel uses language. In chapter 8, Daniel is told that his vision pertains to "the time of the end". (8:17). Later on, when Daniel is having trouble understanding the vision:

26 "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 has equated 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. Daniel is told:

13 "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 would not have been stated this way if he was not 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.

10 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.

3 'Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop,
4 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 given as a reason for the Babylonian captivity.

20 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,
21 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

Does the book of Daniel present a clear picture of this "interchangeable" use of "years" and "days"? Let's look at the historical narratives. In these, we know how long the time periods are. Daniel 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" (lit). Nebuchadnezzar was insane for seven years (4:25), but Daniel says that he regained his sanity "at the end of the days" (4:34 lit). Nebuchadnezzar reigned for many years, but his reign was referred to as "days" in 5:11.

In Daniel's prayer in chapter 10, he states that he had been in mourning for three weeks (10:2). For weeks, he uses the Hebrew word shabuwa (7620). This is the same word used in 9:24-27. Shabuwa is used fourteen times in the OT outside of Daniel, and in every case it means a literal seven day week. In Daniel, it is used nine times. Twice, in 10:2-3, it clearly means literal weeks. Daniel actually uses a Hebrew idiom meaning "full weeks" in 10:2. Yet in chapter 9, (used seven times) it is clear that it means years.

The first "seven weeks" if taken as forty-nine literal days are too short to consider rebuilding Jerusalem, 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 a week. Since Messiah is "cut off" in the midst of the week, 3 ½ days of a strengthened covenant would never be noticed. Only a year for a day understanding allows the prophecy to make sense. This is confirmed by Jesus in Mark 1:15. (See the discussion of Dan 9 for detail.)

Daniel is not alone in this usage. Other OT writers use the same kind of year/day equivalence. Ex 13:10 commands that the Passover be kept "from days to days" (lit. Hebrew). The same word for "days", yowme (3117) is used repeatedly in a similar annual context. 1 Sam 2:19 tells of 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. 1 Sam 1:21 refers to a yearly sacrifice with yowme, literally calling it a "daily" sacrifice.

This same form is used to specify durations. 1 Sam 27:7 uses "days and four months" (lit) to specify a year and four months. Num 9:22 uses "two days, or a month, or days" to mean "two days, or a month, or a year". 1 Ki 1:1 is translated that King David was "advanced in years" (NIV), but literally says that he was "advanced in the days".

This thought pattern seems to have its origin in the genealogy of Gen 5. In it, 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 place ourselves in the position of the Hebrews who would be reading the prophecies. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to do just that.

We should recall that the Maccabees clearly thought that the 2,300 days of Dan 8:14 applied to the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The Book of Jubilees is a non-canonical (not included in the Bible) work written in the second century BC, around the time of the Maccabees. In it, Noah's age at his death is described as "19 jubilees, 2 weeks and 5 years". A jubilee is 49 years, so the total would be 936 years, 2 weeks if it is taken literally. But we know that Noah was 950 years old when he died (Gen 9:29)! If we take the 2 weeks as "weeks of years" then we get the correct total. Clearly, the Jews used the day = year 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). The oppression of Abraham's descendents in Egypt was to be 400 years (Gen 15:13). The Babylonian captivity was to last 70 years (Jer 25:11). In each case, the prophecy and fulfillment are very much explicit.

Most of Daniel is not classical prophecy. It is apocalyptic. Its focus is the time of the end. As such, it is delivered in 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. Dan 7:25 refers to a span of (literally) "a time, two times, and a dividing of time". Dan 8:14 uses 2,300 "evenings/mornings". Dan 9:24 refers to "seventy weeks". Not one of them includes the normal word for "year", even though the word is used in the historical passages of the book. Not once does Daniel express a prophetic time period in the normal way that literal time would be expressed. Just as the players in the prophecies are symbolic, consistency requires that the times in symbolic prophecy be symbolic, too.

The other biblical apocalypse sheds further light on this issue. In Revelation, there is a 10 day period of tribulation (2:10), a 3 1/2 day period (11:9,11), and 1,260 days or 42 months (11:2,3; 12:6,14; 13:5). To consider the first two as literal borders on lunacy. Why would God bother telling us about such short periods in the context of a prophecy which has the entire sweep of human history in view? It simply doesn't fit. In fact, the longest time period in apocalyptic is the 2,300 days of Dan 8:14. Literally, this is a bit over six years. Some commentators even shorten it to 1,150 days! While the longer period can appear to make sense, it is still out of place when taken literally.

The final step is to look at the logic of apocalyptic prophecy. It presents the sweep of the great controversy between God and Satan. The various stages of the battle require time to play out. A literal understanding of the time periods simply does not allow time for the players to fulfill their roles. A longer, symbolic understanding is required. Ordinary prophecy looks at a period of adversity, after which normalcy is to be restored. It is presented in literal terms, and a literal understanding is appropriate.

How long are the time periods? The prophets record them in terms which can generally be translated into days, months, and years. Taken literally, they make little sense. But, if we take the Hebrew year/day thought pattern into account, we can see that the time periods may be generally thought of in terms of a year of literal time in place of a day of prophetic time. When we do this, we have a set of time periods which are consistent with the perspective of apocalyptic prophecy.

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. Dan 8:14's use of "evenings/mornings" calls into view the morning and evening sacrifices, and draws attention to the sanctuary. Dan 9:24's use of "weeks" calls into view the weekly Sabbath, and reminds the readers that the 70 years of exile was due in part to failure to keep both weekly and annual Sabbaths.

The variable length Jewish year will necessarily create some imprecision when we evaluate end points of prophecies, particularly if they end in Jewish times. While their average length is 365 ¼ days, their variable length could allow perhaps as much as 32 days variation when measured on a modern calendar. Since the prophecies were given to a people who did not exercise such precision as we moderns do, to expect that degree of precision in fulfillment would be improper.

Archeological data has occasionally created difficulties. The Jews counted the first year of a king from the time he assumed the throne (the ascension year), and credited him with a full year, even if there was only a month left in the calendar year. The Babylonians and MedoPersians counted from the first full year that he assumed sole possession of the throne (the regnal year). There were several instances where two kings were co-regent for a period of time. The possibility for confusion is obvious. This is aggravated by a translation issue.

The Hebrew word melek (4430) has been uniformly translated "king". This means that Belshazzar is called the "king" in Daniel 5, when his father Nabopolassar was actually the king. Daniel describes him as the melek. Recent archeological evidence shows that this word was in fact a "loan-word" which is also in the Ugaritic and Akkadian (native Babylonian) language. It properly translates "ruler", not "king", and can be applied to a ruler at any level from a local chief up to the king.

The conventional translation of Daniel 5 would leave Babylon with two kings. If we properly understand melek, then Babylon had one king (Nabopolassar) and one ruler (Belshazzar, the prince regent). This also explains why Belshazzar (Dan 5:7) offered the third position in the kingdom to whomever could translate the handwriting on the wall. Belshazzar was only the second in command!

The Jews had some other "personal" ways of counting. For a historic period, they would frequently count both the beginning and ending partial years as full years to complete a count. This would give a total greater than what we might count.

Astronomy/astrology has been an important part of all ancient cultures. Very detailed records exist of all relevant cultures with regard to calendars and events. Therefore we are able to clearly state that the Jews, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians, and others were well aware of the 365 1/4 day solar year, even to the point of being aware of the need for a periodic "leap year" adjustment. They happened to start their years at different seasons, and used different lengths and numbers of months. Their methods of adjustment varied, but the results were the same. This detailed record keeping also allows us to convert their ancient calendars to our current modern calendar. It also makes reckoning of time periods simple, since everyone understood the same length year. In this discussion, all dates will be in reference to our modern calendar.