In Daniel chapter 12 the time times and a half is the years between 1470 BC when God introduced Himself as “I Am†and 2031 when Jesus returns for the “Dreadful Day of the Lordâ€... 3 1/2 thousand years.... And if you want to know about The Abomination that Maketh Desolatementioned in Daniel...
NOW TO EXPLAIN... Notice Genesis 7:11: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. Now verse 24: And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. Next, Genesis 8:3-4: And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. So notice - the flood started on the 17th day of the second month. At the end of 150 days, the ark rested on Mount Ararat, on the 17th day of the 7th month. That was five months to the day. Five 30-day months are precisely 150 days. So months, then, were 30-day months! We find it definitely figured this way in both Daniel and Revelation. In Revelation 12:6, a prophecy of an event which in actual history did last 1260 solar years is spoken of as a thousand and two hundred and threescore days. So here, again, a prophetic day was a year in fulfillment. In Revelation 13:5 (referring to a different event but the same amount of time) this same period of 1260 days being fulfilled in 1260 solar years is spoken of as forty and two months. Now 42 calendar months, according to the calendar now in use, would not be 1260 days, but 1276 days - and, if a leap year occurred, 1277. Or, if the extra half-year happened to be the last half of the year, it would be 1280 or 1281 days. But the 42 months of Revelation 13:5 is the same amount of time as the 1260 days of Revelation 12:6. So the 42 months were 30-day months. The same amount of days is spoken of in still different language in Revelation 12:14 as a time, and times, and half a time. The time is one prophetic year; the times is two more prophetic years; and the whole expression is 3 1/2 prophetic times, which is a literal 1260 days - or 3 1/2 years of thirty-day months. Seven of these times then would be 2520 days - and on a day-for-a-year basis, 2520 years! Then in Daniel 12:7 the same expression time, times, and a half [time] is mentioned. A prophetic time, then, is a 360-day year - or a plain 360 days. And during those years of Israel's punishment, as made plain by combining Leviticus 26:18 with Ezekiel 4:4-6, Numbers 14:34, and Revelation 13:5 and 12:6, each day of a prophetic time was one year in fulfillment. In Leviticus 26:18, and in Revelation 12:6 and 13:5, this meaning is verified and PROVED by the fact that the prophecy was fulfilled in precisely the time indicated. And now comes the day-for-a-year principle: After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years. . . (verse 34). And this punishment was, in fact, a WITHHOLDING of the promised blessing for this duration of forty years. In order to impress on the prophet Ezekiel the seriousness of Israel's years of rebellion against God's rule and God's laws which would cause great blessings, God imposed this very principle on him - but it was enacted in reverse. The sins of the house of Israel had continued from their rejection of God as King for 390 years. Naturally God could not expect this prophet, in a human lifetime, to undergo the bearing of these years of sin on the basis of each day of sinning being borne by him for a year. That would have required 2,000 lifetimes. So God reversed the actual application of the principle. Ezekiel was required to bear Israel's sins a day for each year they had sinned. But it still was the day-for-a-year principle! Ezekiel was told to lie on his left side, in an imaginary siege against Jerusalem, pictured on a tile before him. Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year (Ezek. 4:4-6). It is mentioned further in verse 9. But in the other application of the day-for-a-year principle, previously explained, where it applied also to a duration of punishment put on THE PEOPLE, the punishment was to be borne by them on the basis of a year of punishment for each day. Also in this case, the punishment was the number of years during which a promised blessing was withheld. 2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 3,500 years... |