The Day-Year Principle

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 27, 1908

The Day-Year Principle

ANOTHER objection to the accuracy of Scripture raised by opponents of precision is what they call “The Year-Day Theory.” They object to “days” mentioned in prophecies being used as years, which they say is “a shameful perversion of Scripture.” But it would be uncommon to find in the Bible a prophecy where the days do not mean years. The seventy weeks of Daniel form the most important prophecy in Scripture; but if the seventy weeks, which are 490 days, do not mean years, the prophecy has no meaning. Our Lord was not manifested to Israel after 483 days, which are “69 weeks,” following the command to build and restore Jerusalem. When the voice from heaven declared, “This is my beloved Son,” it was after 483 years; and when he cried on the cross, “It is finished,” it was not after 486½ days, but years. . . . Did not Almighty God give us this example also in appointing a year for a day to the unbelieving Israelites?—“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, and ye shall know my breach of promise.” To the prophet Ezekiel (4:6) God also said, “I have appointed thee each day for a year.”

But it is a scientific fact that a day is also a year. If some men can not see this in Scripture, let them lift up their eyes to the heavens above them, and they will see that as the sun proceeds through the twelve signs of the zodiac in a day, so also (if they still keep their eyes open) they will find that the sun passes through the same twelve signs in the course of a year. Therefore, a year-day fulfilment of time is a fact both of Scripture and of astronomy. It is no “theory.”—“The Appointed Time,” by J. B. Dimbleby, London, E. Nister, 1897, pages 36-38.