One Day Can Equal One Year
(1b)
The idea that 'one day can equal one year' is a common concept and is based upon the bible. We will not labor this point because the bible speaks for itself, as do the patterns that result.
(Numbers 14:34) "After the number of the days in which ye spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my alienation."
(Ezekiel 4:6) "And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it unto thee."
(See, Daniel 9:24-27, "70 weeks," normally understood as "70 weeks of years".)
Steve Gregg in his parallel commentary on the four main Protestant views of Revelation lists a number of outstanding theologians who have held the "historicist" view. (The "historicist" regards the Book of Revelation as a survey of the whole of Church history. Personally, I find that all four views compliment one another.)
Concerning the historicist view, Gregg says: "A unique characteristic of this line of interpretation is its advocacy of what is called the "year-for-a-day principle."'" He lists the following among the adherents of this view:
"John Wycliffe, John Knox, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Phillip Melanchthon, Sir Isaac Newton, Jan Huss, John Foxe, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Finney, C. H. Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes, E. B. Elliot, H. Grattan Guinness, and Bishop Thomas Newton." (S. Gregg, "Revelation: Four Views," Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub, 1997, p. 34.)
We will now build upon this first and basic principle of understanding the numbers in the bible.
(Bible Prophesy Numbers
1260 -- 1290 -- 1335 Days)