The Year-Day Principle in Prophecy
IN the “Notes” this week, in considering the “year-day” standard of prophetic time, we state that “the interpretation of a given prophetic symbol, in one place, must be the interpretation of the same symbol in every place.” By this we do not mean that, as is sometimes expressed, “a day in prophecy means a year;” for that is not necessarily true. The word “day” may be used in a prophecy in the sense of a twenty-four-hour day, or it may mean a year. What we do say, is that when a day is used in prophecy as a symbol, it invariably means a year. A day was given to Ezekiel as a symbol of a year; and therefore wherever in the Bible we find days that are evidently symbolic, we know that they mean years. This principle must be followed, else the prophecies could not be interpreted consistently with one another.