An expanded version of this article was published in Alberto R. Timm, “Miniature Symbolization and the Year-Day Principle of Prophetic Interpretation”.¹

A basic hermeneutical component of the historicist school of prophetic interpretation is the so-called “year-day principle.” Those who advocate this hermeneutical principle argue that the prophetic periods connected with the apocalyptic prophecies of Scripture have to be understood not as literal days, but rather as symbolic days that represent the same number of literal years.² Some critics have not only rejected the year-day principle altogether, but have also blamed the historicist school for its alleged inconsistency in the application of this principle. The present article argues that the concept of “miniature symbolization” provides a hermeneutical framework for the application of the year-day principle to the prophetic periods of Daniel and Revelation.

As argued by some nineteenth-century historicist scholars, the year-day principle of prophetic interpretation should be applied only to the time elements of those specific symbolic prophecies whose symbols represent broader entities than the symbols themselves.³ In 1843, George Bush, professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature at New York City University, elaborated on the concept of “miniature symbolization”in the following terms:

The Scripture presents us with two distinct classes of predictions—the literal and the symbolical. Where an event, or series of events, of a historical character, is historically announced, we naturally look for the announcement to be made in the plainest, simplest, and most literal terms. No reason can then be assigned for designating periods of time in a mystical or figurative diction. . . . But the case is entirely reversed in regard to the symbolical prophecies The prophets have frequently, under divine prompting, adopted the system of hieroglyphic representation, in which a single man represents a community, and a wild beast an extended empire. Consequently, since the mystic exhibition of the community or empire is in miniature, symbolical propriety requires that the associated chronological periods should be exhibited in miniature also.⁴

Bush argues further that

the grand principle into which the usage of employing a day for a year is to be resolved, is that of miniature symbolization. As the events are thus economically reduced, the periods are to be reduced in the same relative proportion. What that proportion is, we cannot positively determine without some antecedent information touching the rate or scale of reduction. But the probability is, that such scale will be at the rate of a day or minor revolution of the earth round its axis, for a year or greater revolution of the earth round the sun.⁵

The discussion that follows tries to show how the presence of a miniature symbolization in Numbers 14 and Ezekiel 4, on one hand, and in some apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, on the other, provides a basic thematic correlation between that expression and those prophecies.

Numbers and Ezekiel

The expression “for every day a year” appears in the book of Numbers (14:34) in the historical episode of the twelve spies chosen from the twelve tribes of Israel “to spy out the land of Canaan” prior to its conquest (13:1-25). After “forty days” of searching, the spies returned to their camp (13:25). The negative report of ten of them (13:26-33; cf. 14:6-9) led “the whole congregation” of Israel to rebel against Moses and Aaron and “against the Lord,” even to the point of deciding to stone the two spies, Joshua and Caleb, who did not agree with that report (14:1-10). Then “the glory of the Lord” appeared in judgment to all the Israelites (14:10-12). After Moses pled with God to spare the rebellious people from being completely destroyed (14:13-19), God announced the following sentence:

And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure (Num 14:33, 34).

The episode under consideration presents a parallel typological relationship between spies and tribes, and between days and years. Crucial in the whole narrative are microcosmic entities (twelve spies and forty days) representing larger macrocosmic realities (twelve tribes and forty years). According to Birks, “we have, thus, from the lips of God himself, the clear relation established in this notable instance of chronological prophecy, that while the spies represent the nation, a day should represent a year.”⁶

While in Numbers 14:34 the expression “for every day a year” occurs in a historical setting, in Ezekiel 4:6 the expression “a day for each year” appears in a symbolic prophecy. As Numbers 13-14 comprises a typology in miniature, so Ezekiel 4 portrays a symbolic representation in miniature. Several small symbols are mentioned in Ezekiel 4 and 5 to illustrate the coming destruction of Jerusalem. Already in 4:1-3, the prophet Ezekiel is asked to take a “brick” and “portray upon it” the city of Jerusalem, surrounded by a siege. That was a miniature model of the city surrounded by enemy armies prior to its destruction. But in vv. 4-8 the prophet himself becomes a miniature symbol, first, of the house of Israel and, then, of the house of Judah. In those verses we read the following:

Then lie upon your left side, and I will lay the punishment of the house of Israel upon you; for the number of the days that you lie upon it, you shall bear their punishment. For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred and ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; so long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, a day for each year. And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared; and you shall prophesy against the city. And, behold, I will put cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege.

Once again we are facing a small microcosm (the prophet himself) representing a broader macrocosm (first Israel and then Judah). The act of Ezekiel lying on his left side for 390 days was understood by Bush as

a miniature hieroglyphic of Israel; a man, of a nation. Hence as the man represented the nation in miniature, so the 390 days represented the period of 390 years in miniature. In like manner, his lying forty days on his right side symbolized the foreseen iniquity of Judah through the period of forty years (emphasis original).⁷

The previous consideration confirmed the fact that the time periods mentioned in Numbers 13-14 and Ezekiel 4 occur within the context of specific miniature symbolizations. While in Numbers the context is of a miniature typology, in Ezekiel it is of miniature symbolization. But in both cases the hermeneutical principal provided by the text itself to interpret the time elements involved is each day for a year. This led several nineteenth-century historicists to believe that the year-day principle should be used only in regard to those time prophecies in which occur a similar miniature symbolization.

The discussion attempts now to verify how this principle can be applied consistently to the apocalyptic time prophecies of Daniel and Revelation.

Daniel

Crucial to understanding the validity of the concept of miniature symbolization as a hermeneutical tool to interpret apocalyptic prophecies is the task of identifying precisely the passages of Scripture in which that concept occurs associated with some prophetic time period. In regard to the book of Daniel, the present discussion will consider how this concept is applicable to the following time periods usually interpreted by historicists from a year-day perspective: (1) “a time, two times, and half a time” (Dan 7:25); (2) 2,300 “evenings and mornings” (Dan 8:14 [also NASB, NIV]); (3) “seventy weeks” with their time subdivisions (Dan 9:24-27); (4) “a time, two times, and half a time” (Dan 12:7); and (5) 1,290 days and 1,335 days (Dan 12:11, 12).

In the apocalyptic prophecy of Daniel 7, all main entities are portrayed in a clear miniature symbolization. According to the Protestant historicist tradition, the “lion” with “eagle’s wings” (v. 4) represents the Babylonian Empire; the “bear” (v. 5) refers to the Medo-Persian Empire; the “leopard” with “four heads” (v. 6) describes the Greek Empire; the “fourth beast” with “ten horns” (v. 7) is an allusion to the Roman Empire; and the little “horn” (v. 8) is a symbol of papal Rome. As the entities (“beasts” and “horns”) of the vision represent larger political powers (empires), so does the symbolic time-element involved represent a broader range. There is almost a consensus among historicists that “a time, two times, and half a time,” during which the saints should be oppressed by that little horn (v. 25), stands for 1,260 literal years.

Likewise, in Daniel 8 two different animals are used as miniature symbols of larger empires. The “ram” with “two horns” (vv. 3, 4) is identified by the text itself as a symbol of Medo-Persia (v. 20); and the “he-goat” with “a conspicuous horn between his eyes” (vv. 5-8), as a representation of the Greek Empire (v. 21). Once again the counterfeit activities of the little horn are mentioned (vv. 9-12), which would be reversed only at the end of the symbolic period of 2,300 “evenings and mornings” (vv. 13, 14 [also NASB, NIV]).⁸ As the entities mentioned (animals and “horns”) are symbols of broader and longer-living empires, so the time element is seen as representing 2,300 years.

Daniel 9:24-27 mentions the prophetic period of “seventy weeks,” subdivided into “seven weeks,” “sixty-two weeks,” and “one week.” The content of the passage itself, isolated from the background context of Daniel 8, is worded in apparently concrete language, without a clear miniature symbolization involved. But by recognizing that Daniel 9:24-27 is a later appendix explaining the vision of the 2,300 evenings and mornings of Daniel 8:14 (cf. 8:26, 27; 9:20-23), one might conclude rightly that seventy weeks and its shorter time-period subdivisions have to be understood also within the miniature-symbolization context of Daniel 8. Linguistic evidences indicate that the seventy weeks were actually “cut off” (Heb., neak) of the larger period of 2,300 days-years and, therefore, must be interpreted as 490 years. If not understood as 490 years, the seventy weeks becomes senseless as a messianic prophecy. So evident is the year-day principle in Daniel 9:24-27 that this passage, together with Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:5, 6 are considered by historicists as the hermeneutical keys to interpret the time periods of other symbolic prophecies.

Three significant prophetic time periods are mentioned in the concluding section of Daniel (12:4-13): (1) “a time, two times, and half a time” (v. 7); (2) “a thousand two hundred and ninety days” (v. 11); and (3) a “thousand three hundred and thirty-five days” (v. 12). One might be tempted not to apply the year-day principle to those time periods because of the fact that no explicit miniature symbolization is found in that specific section of the book. But this argument cannot be accepted when one looks beyond the narrow context into the larger prophetic scope of the book. Actually, “a time, two times, and half a time” (v. 7) seems to be just an echo of the same time period mentioned previously in Daniel 7:25. If the miniature symbolization found in Daniel 7 requires the time period in 7:25 to be understood as 1,260 years, then, to be consistent, the same period has to be interpreted as 1,260 years also in 12:7.

The allusion in Daniel 12:11 (NIV) to the “daily” and the “abomination that causes desolation” connects the 1,290 and 1,335 days not only with the content of the vision of Daniel 11 (see v. 31), but also with the 2,300 evenings and mornings of Daniel 8:14 (see 8:13; 9:27). The very same apostate power that would establish the “abomination that causes desolation” in replacement to the “daily” is described in Daniel 7 and 8 as the “little horn,” and in Daniel 11 as the “king of the north.” These reoccurrences confirm that the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days of Daniel 12:11, 12 share the same prophetic-apocalyptic nature of “a time, times, and half a time” of Daniel 7:25 and of the “2,300 evenings and mornings” of Daniel 8:14.

The attempt to isolate the content of Daniel 12:4-13 from the prophetic chain of Daniel 11 is not endorsed by the literary structure of the book of Daniel. Shea explains that in the prophetic section of the book of Daniel each prophetic period (70 weeks; 1,260, 1,290, 1,335, and 2,300 days) appears as a calibrating appendix to the basic body of the respective prophecy to which it is related. For instance, the vision of chapter 7 is described in vv. 1-14, but the time related to it appears only in v. 25. In chapter 8, the body of the vision is mentioned in vv. 1-12, but the time appears only in v. 14. In a similar way, the prophetic time periods related to the vision of chapter 11 are mentioned only in chapter 12.⁹ So, if we apply the year-day principle to the prophetic periods of Daniel 7 and 8, we should also apply it to the time periods of Daniel 12, for all these time periods are in some way interrelated, and the description of each vision points only to a single fulfillment of the prophetic time period related to it.

The above-mentioned symbolic time periods are interpreted by means of the day-year hermeneutical principle because of their direct or indirect relationship with a specific miniature symbolization setting. But in the book of Daniel there are also a few other prophetic time periods to which that principle of interpretation cannot be applied because of their historical nature, which is without any miniature-symbolization point of reference. Attention will be given to the “seven times” of Daniel 4:16, 23, 25, 32; the “seventy years” of Daniel 9:2; and the “three weeks” of Daniel 10:2.

The “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s punishment for his pride (Daniel 4:16, 23, 25, 32) was erroneously understood by some nineteenth-century historicists as 2,520 years (7 x 360 days = 2,520 days-years).¹⁰ There is no doubt that the “seven times” are mentioned within Nebuchadnezzar’s symbolical prophetic dream of a huge and fruitful “tree” that would remain devastated for “seven times” (vv. 8-18). Daniel’s interpretation of the dream (vv. 19-27) and its actual fulfillment (vv. 28-37) corroborate the fact that no miniature symbolization at all is involved in this incident. In the prophetic dream, the tree represented just one person (Nebuchadnezzar) with whom it was fulfilled (vv. 20-22, 28). The prophetic “seven times” (v. 16) were interpreted by Daniel as “seven times” (vv. 23, 25) and actually fulfilled just as “seven times” (v. 32). Understood as seven literal years,¹¹ this period can be easily adjusted within the lifetime of king Nebuchadnezzar. No room is left in the text for a year-day interpretation of this prophetic period that would stretch it beyond those seven years. Only an allegorical reinterpretation of the dream’s basic entities (“tree” or “Nebuchadnezzar”) can favor any other artificial fulfillment not contemplated by the text itself.

The prophetic promise that Jerusalem would be restored after “seventy years” of Babylonian captivity (Dan 9:2) was taken from Jeremiah 29:10. References to the same time period are found also in Jeremiah 25:11, 12, and 2 Chronicle 36:21. By reading the respective literary setting of each of those passages, one can easily perceive that not only in Daniel 9:1-19 and Jeremiah 29:1-32 but also in Jeremiah 25:1-14 and 2 Chronicle 36:17-21, the narratives are always expressed in a literal language, without any miniature symbolization or other kind of symbolisms. Thus, the “seventy years” of Daniel 9:2 have to be understood as a literal period of time.

Similarly, the “three weeks” of Daniel 10:2-3 occur in a different literary context from the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9. In this passage, the prophet refers to his own concrete experience of “mourning for three weeks,” abstaining from most, wine, and delicacies.” There is nothing symbolic in these verses, the actions of which all occurred within “the third year of Cyrus” (10:1), so there is no basis for interpreting this time period as anything other than three ordinary, literal weeks.

The previous considerations of the occurrences of miniature symbolizations in the book of Daniel allow us to suggest that the year-day principle seems applicable in that book to the “seventy weeks” with their time subdivisions (9:24-27); “a time, two times, and half a time” (7:25; 12:7); the 1,290 days (12:11); the 1,335 days (12:12); and the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” (8:14). By contrast, the absence of such kind of symbolization in regard to the “seven times” (4:16, 23, 25, 32) and the “seventy years” (9:2) and the “three weeks” (10:2-3) implies that these specific time periods have to be taken literally as seven years, seventy years, and three weeks, respectively.

The discussion turns now to the book of Revelation, with special attention to the presence of prophetic time periods within a miniature-symbolization setting.

Revelation

The discussion about the concept of miniature symbolization in the book of Revelation will gravitate mainly around the following prophetic time periods: “ten days” (Rev 2:10); “five months” (Rev 9:5, 10); 42 “months” and 1,260 “days” (Rev 11:2, 3); “three days and a half” (Rev 11:9, 11); 1,260 “days” (Rev 12:6); “a time, and times, and half a time” (Rev 12:14); and 42 “months” (Rev 13:5). Some historicist scholars would also understand the expression “the hour, the day, the month, and the year” (Rev 9:15) as a prophetic period, at the end of which “four angels” were “to kill a third of mankind” while others would suggest it is a point in time.¹²

The period of “ten days” mentioned in Revelation 2:10 occurs within a literary setting not clearly symbolical (see vv. 8-11). But, according to the concept of miniature symbolization, it is not just the presence of some symbols that justifies the use of the year-day principle. The real point at stake is whether the main entity involved (“the church in Smyrna”) can be considered a symbol (as in Ezek 4) or a type (as in Num 13-14) of a broader corporative reality. This means that if the “church in Smyrna” is considered just as a reference to the first-century Christian community of that specific town, then the “ten days” would have to be taken just as a literal ten days. But if that church is understood as a miniature symbol of the Christian church between “about the close of the 1st century (c. A.D. 100)” and “about A.D. 313, when Constantine espoused the cause of the church,”¹³ then those “ten days” should be considered most probably as ten literal years.¹⁴

Twice in Revelation 9 a reference to the “five months” (vv. 5, 10), during which “those of mankind who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads” should be tormented (v. 4), appears. The entire narrative of the fifth “trumpet” (vv. 1-12) in which those references appear is crowded with symbolic entities, such as “star,” “bottomless pit,” and exotic war “locusts.” Those interpreters who regard the presence of symbolic entities as sufficient to justify the use of the year-day principle would not hesitate to consider those “five months” as 150 literal years. Thus, if the trumpet is seen as a miniature representation of an era of the Christian church— for instance, from the “rise” of the Ottoman Empire in A.D. 1299 to the “downfall” of the Byzantine Empire in A.D. 1449¹⁵ —then the “five months” can only be taken as 150 years.

The 42 “months” and the 1,260 “days” mentioned in Revelation 11:2, 3 (see also 13:5; 12:6) are recognized as synonyms not only of each other, but also of “a time, two times, and half a time” derived from Daniel 7:25 (see also Dan 12:7; Rev 12:14).¹⁶ This implies, just by itself, that the miniature symbolization by which the vision of Daniel 7 is presented requires the year-day principle to interpret not only “a time, two times, and half a time” in Daniel 7:25, but also all of the other correlated time periods. Yet, in addition to the miniature-symbolization prophetic background of Daniel 7, the actual content of Revelation 11:3-12, in which the 42 months and the 1,260 days are mentioned, is focused on the historical events related to the “two witnesses,” also called “the two olive trees” and “the two lampstands” (v. 4). Despite the widespread tendency of reducing the two witnesses to two literal prophets (such as Moses and Elijah),¹⁷ some authors argue in favor of a broader corporative understanding of these witnesses.¹⁸ Kenneth A. Strand and Ekkehardt Müller argue that they actually represent the larger prophetic witnesses comprised by “the word of God” (the OT prophet message) and the “testimony of Jesus Christ” (the NT apostolic witness).¹⁹ This confirms the already-established notion that the 42 months and the 1,260 days of Revelation 11:2, 3 have to be understood from a year-day perspective as 1,260 years.

Within the same pericope of Revelation 11:3-12, there are also two references to a period of “three days and a half” (vv. 9, 11). By considering the “two witnesses” as miniature representations of the broader prophetic testimonies of the Old and New Testaments, one can easily conclude that those “three days and a half” stand for three years and a half.²⁰

In Revelation 12, the time periods of the 1,260 days (v. 6) and “a time, and times, and half a time” (v. 14) are synonymously identified as the age during which the apocalyptic “woman” would find refuge in “the wilderness” (vv. 6, 14) from the satanic “dragon, with seven heads and ten horns” (v. 3). The presence of a symbolic “woman” as a miniature representation of God’s faithful church²¹ confirms the already-settled year-day interpretation of each of those periods as 1,260 years.

The prophetic period of 42 months reoccurs in Revelation 13:5 as the period in which the “beast” with “ten horns and seven heads” (v. 1; cf. 12:3) would exercise the “great authority” granted to him by the dragon (v. 2). Here in Revelation 13:1-8, the “little horn” of Daniel 7 and 8 reappears under the symbol of a “beast” as a miniature representation of papal Rome. The nature of this symbolic vision also corroborates the 1,260 years of religious persecutions.

In the book of Revelation, the time periods of “three days and a half” (11:9, 11); “ten days” (2:10); “five months” (9:5, 10); “a time, and times, and half a time” (12:14); 42 “months” (11:2; 13:5); and 1,260 “days” (11:3; 12:6) all occur within a miniature symbolization setting. To all those time periods the year-day principle of prophetic interpretation seems applicable. But what could be said on this matter about the 1,000 years of Revelation 20? If the year-day principle is applied to all those periods, would it not be inconsistent to not also apply it to the 1,000 years?

If the only criterion to use the year-day principle is the presence of a given period within an apocalyptic narrative, then there would be no convincing reason not to interpret the 1,000 years of Revelation 20 as 360,000 years. The attempt to consider the word “years” (vv. 2-7) by itself as an obstacle for the year-day principle does not seem convincing, however, because in a few other places that principle is applied also to this word. Already in the expression “a time, two times, and half a time” (Dan 7:25; 12:7; Rev 12:14) the word “time” is taken as “year” and multiplied by 360, the number of days of a year in biblical times. No more convincing is the argument that a “year” can be interpreted from a year-day perspective only when designated by the symbolic term “time.” In this case, should the year-day principle be used because the word “day” is mentioned or should it not be used because the term “year” is also present? But if the notion of miniature symbolization is a valid hermeneutical principle of prophetic interpretation, then the nature of the 1,000 years can be defined more easily by considering the presence or absence of a miniature symbolization in that context.

By reading Revelation 20:1-10, where the 1,000 years are mentioned six times, one might notice several apocalyptic symbols being mentioned, such as the “bottomless pit,” “a great chain,” “thrones,” the “beast” and “its image,” “Gog and Magog,” and “the false prophet.” But it seems quite evident that the overall tone of this apocalyptic narrative cannot be considered a true miniature symbolization. First, the “beast” and “its image,” which were the main miniature protagonists in Revelation 13, are mentioned in Revelation 20 only in a tangential way (vv. 4, 10). The predominant figure in the whole narrative is the “dragon,” also called “old serpent” (v. 2). While the “beast” and “his image” gave to Revelation 13 a miniature-symbolization tone, the presence of the “dragon” in Revelation 20 does not have the same tone. This is due to the fact that in the book of Revelation the “dragon” is not a miniature symbolization of a larger entity or community, but of one spiritual being called “Devil” and “Satan” (20:2; cf. 12:9). For this reason, it seems more consistent to understand the 1,000 years of Rev 20 just as a literal 1,000 years.

Some readers of Revelation might wonder about the “half an hour” of “silence in heaven” when the Lamb (Christ) opens the seventh seal (Rev 8:1). If the sealed “scroll” (or “book” [KJV]) in Revelation 5²² and each of its “seven seals” (6:1-17; 8:1-5) are considered miniature symbolizations of broader historical realities, then that “half an hour” might be considered a symbolic time representing about a week of literal time.²³ However, if one considers Revelation 10:6 (“there should be time [Greek chronos] no longer” [KJV]) as implying that no symbolic time prophecy would reach beyond the fulfillment of the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” of Daniel 8:14 in A.D. 1844,²⁴ then not only the “half an hour” of Rev 8:1 but also the 1,000 years of Revelation 20:1-10 would have to be understood as literal time periods, to which the year-day principle should not be applied. But this is a discussion that goes beyond the purpose of the present study.

Conclusion

In many apocalyptic prophecies, both the major entity and the time element involved have been zoomed down into a symbolic microcosmic scale that can be better understood by zooming them up into their macro-cosmic fulfillment. The miniature-symbolization motif provides a basic thematic correlation between Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6, on one hand, and the symbolical time elements of Daniel and Revelation, on the other. The presence of this motif justifies the carrying of the “each-day-for-a-year” principle from Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:5, 6 over to those apocalyptic visions in which the time periods involved appear within a similar miniature-symbolization context. This miniature-symbolic parallelism enriches the year-day principle with a meaning that goes far beyond a mere proof-text approach.

The presence of miniature symbolizations in the book of Daniel allows the year-day principle to be applied to the “seventy weeks” with their time subdivisions (9:24-27): “a time, two times, and half a time” (7:25; 12:7); the 1,290 days (12:11); the 1,335 days (12:12); and the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” (8:14). But the absence of such symbolization in regard to the “seven times” (4:16, 23, 25, 32), the “seventy years” (9:2), and the “three weeks” (10:2) implies that these time periods have to be understood as literal.

In the book of Revelation, the time periods of “three days and a half” (11:9, 11); “ten days” (2:10); “five months” (9:5, 10); “a time and times, and half a time” (12:14); 42 “months” (11:2; 13:5); 1,260 “days” (11:3; 12:6); and perhaps even “half an hour” (8:1), all occur within a miniature-symbolization setting. It seems evident that the year-day principle is applicable to these periods, but not to the 1,000 years of Revelation 20, where no miniature symbolization occurs.

A comparative study of these passages leads to additional, more specific conclusions. First, prophetic miniature symbolization can involve entities such as symbols (as in Ezek 4) and types (as in Num 13-14). Second, the presence of miniature symbolization requires that the main entity or entities involved represent larger corporative powers (as the “little horn” in Dan 7 and the ten-horned “beast” in Rev 13). Third, tangential allusions to miniature symbols do not replace the lack of miniature characteristics in the main entity or entities (as with the “dragon” in Rev 20). Fourth, a prophetic time period is of a symbolic nature and has to be interpreted from a year-day perspective whenever it appears in the midst of miniature symbols (as with the 1,260 “days” and the 42 “months” in Rev 13:1-8) or in subsequent passages explaining those symbols (as with the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” in Dan 8:14 and the 70 “weeks” in Dan 9:24-27). Fifth, a prophetic time period previously defined as of a symbolic nature does not lose its symbolic nature when referred to in not so clearly miniature-symbolic contexts (as in “a time, two times, and half a time” from Dan 7:25 that reappears in 12:7 and Rev 12:14).

The relevance of the year-day principle of prophetic interpretation is dependent not only on the concept of miniature symbolization. Rather, sound scholarly studies of the Scriptures have demonstrated the internal (exegetical) and external (historical) need for a year-day interpretation of some apocalyptic time periods. But I am personally convinced that the concept of miniature symbolization can strengthen the inner consistency of that principle of prophetic interpretation. Besides this, it also provides convincing answers to crucial questions in regard to the rationale to be used in defining when the year-day principle should or should not be used.