Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation. Albert 1798-1870 Barnes
1260 years? This were to limit the power of the Almighty, by arrogantly assuming, that though he presented a few years by outward pictures to the eye, He could not, with equal facility, and like intelligibleness to men, have painted a much larger number by external emblems. We refer the writer in the Investigator to Rev. xiv. 1, and ask him how the apostle John knew there were exactly 144,000. On his principle that large number could not have been presented to the eye. How then did he know that there were 144,000?”18 Does the critic mean that John must have come to the knowledge of it by picture representation? Is he sure of this? The number is the same, and the company is the same as in chap. vii. 4, and there we read, “And I heard the number of them which were sealed, and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” The question is by no means one regarding what God could do, but one regarding merely the powers and capabilities of symbolic language; and we do not feel ourselves at all guilty of any unwarrantable “daring,” when we aver that large numbers could not be visibly represented like small ones. The real solution of the difficulty which the objection presents, seems to us to have been given by Birks, in his First Elements of Prophecy. “The beasts were conceptions visually suggested to the eye of the prophet, and nothing more; and the days, in like manner, were conceptions suggested by the words of the vision to his ear. The only difference is in the sense by which the mental image is conveyed; for it is plain that a day, when used as a symbol, must be mentioned, and could not appear visibly to the eye.”19 But whatever may be thought of this, and of the preceding observations, we have still our appeal to the matter of fact. If it be the fact, that in Scripture a day does represent a year, we have no concern about speculations regarding modes of representing. The only question is, What is the Bible mode? and to that question we shall very shortly apply ourselves.
Meanwhile, we would remark, ere leaving this part of the subject, that although we affirm that wherever we find the principle of miniature symbolization of events, there we have a strong presumption in favour of the times, if such there be, being also expressed on a miniature scale, yet we do not exalt this into a principle embracing the entire case. We shall endeavour to ascertain here, what such general principle is. It need not be disguised that the ground of it has been shifted more than once during the progress of discussion. Mede himself seems to have occupied ground by far too wide; and few or none now choose to defend the Year-day principle on the platform chosen by him who has been erroneously regarded as its originator. He maintained that, “alike in Daniel, and, for aught he knew, in all the other prophets, times of things prophesied, expressed by days, are to be understood of years.” But prophecies can be quoted almost without number in which the predicted times must be understood literally; and against this position, somewhat doubtingly and casually assumed by an illustrious interpreter, the artillery of Stuart and Maitland would be most successful, if any were found so foolish as to intrench themselves within it. Professor Stuart, however, chooses to write as if it were an essential part of the Year-day theory. He fights with a man of straw, and expends his logic and his ridicule alike in vain. He asks in triumph, If the 120 years, predicted as the period that should elapse before the flood, must be extended into a respite for the ante-diluvians of 43,200 years? and if the predicted bondage of Abraham’s posterity in Egypt, for 400 years, must be extended into 144,000 years? if the seven years of plenty, and seven of famine to Egypt, must mean 2520 years of each? if Israel’s forty years’ wilderness-wanderings are to last 14,400 years?20 No, truly! and yet the times in Daniel and John may be symbolical times notwithstanding. By Bush and Faber, the principle is much narrowed. The ground assumed is that of miniature symbolization. This covers a large part of the field within which the Year-day theory is applied; still, it must be allowed, that both in Daniel and the Apocalypse, there are passages where the times are construed symbolically, or according to the longer reckoning, without being associated with symbols of events. Of this kind is Daniel’s famous prophecy of the seventy weeks. What, then, is the true principle or basis of the Year-day theory? We are disposed to reply, as we find Mr. Barnes in one place has done, that it is the manner of the symbolical books of Daniel and John, to express times on the scale of a day for a year; and that in regard to those places, if such there be, where the times are literal, the circumstances of the case, or some expressions in the text, prevent the possibility of mistake, and leave the principle untouched. The circumstances of the case, for example, forbid us to explain Dan. iv. 32 in accordance with the principle of a day for a year. “According to this, Nebuchadnezzar must have been mad and eat grass 2520 years.”21 The limited life of man renders any such extension of times here positively absurd. So also with the other case, so much insisted on by the Day-day theorists, of Daniel fasting three weeks.22 “Surely no one will contend that Daniel fasted twenty-one years.” No, but not to mention that this is not a prophecy at all, the circumstances of the case forbid it; and besides, in this place, we have the addition of יָמִים (weeks of days), “inserted expressly to bar any such interpretation as would assign to it, as its first sense, the meaning of years.”23 It would, therefore, be most unwise24 to argue from these exceptive passages, where there can be no danger of mistakes, against the application of the Year-day principle to the great leading prophecies in Daniel and John, regarding the glorious epochs of the church, and the times especially of the consummation. Nor can anyone rationally contend, that because these prophets have adopted this style of a day for a year, in predictions of the character above specified—predictions which form the chief part of their writings—that they are in no single instance to depart from that style—that they are never to lay aside the symbolic and assume the natural. Birks and Elliott, it may be noticed finally, find, in those passages where the Year-day theory is applicable, a purpose of temporary concealment; it being “the express design of God, that the church should be kept in the constant expectation of Christ’s advent,” and that, “yet as the time of the consummation drew near, there should be evidence of it sufficiently clear to each faithful inquirer.” “This,” adds the latter writer, “sets aside, from its very nature, the objections that have been drawn from sundry prophetic periods, known to be literally expressed, in prophecies where no such temporary concealment was intended.”25
3. Having seen that the symbolical character of the predictions in which the disputed times for the most part occur, affords a strong presumption, amounting as nearly as possible to proof, in favour of some such principle as that involved in the Year-day theory, we inquire next whether there be any indications of such principle in Scripture?
The case of the spies in the book of Numbers26 has been appealed to by nearly all writers on the Year-day side, and by some of them with no little confidence. “They returned from searching the land after forty days. … 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.” We confess, however, that if this passage were the only one of its kind, we should not be disposed to build much on it. It has been too much pressed; and many will find it difficult to see anything typical or mystical in it. It cannot be proved that the spies were types of the whole nation, or that the days were meant to represent years. Dr. Davidson seems to give the true account of the passage when he says, “It is a simple historical prophecy, in which God ordained that as the spies had wandered forty days, so the Israelites should wander forty years in the wilderness because of their sins.”27 Taken in connection with other passages, however, it may serve to show that the “Year-day scale” readily occurs in Scripture, when another might as easily have been adopted. The very fact of the punishment of Israel in this case being on the precise scale of a year for a day, seems to indicate something of this kind.
Ezekiel’s typical siege presents a much stronger case. We give the passage at length. Ezekiel having been commanded to portray the city of Jerusalem on a tile, and conduct a symbolic siege against it, is further enjoined—“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.”28 Ezekiel was ordered to assume this painful position that he might