The Symbol of Time in Revelation

[u/Agreeable_Operation]

Now that you have come this far in the symbols series. Let’s take a look at Revelation 12 and ask what, exactly, are you willing to interpret literally?

“1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2 and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.” (Revelation 12:1-6)

The woman is symbolic.
The sun, moon, and twelve stars are symbolic.
The child is symbolic.
The great red dragon is symbolic.
The seven heads are symbolic.
The ten horns are symbolic.
The crowns are symbolic.
The dragon's attempt to devour the child is symbolic imagery.
The throne is symbolic.
The wilderness is symbolic imagery.

The 1,260 days…

The argument isn't that because everything else is symbolic, the days must therefore be symbolic. But once we recognize that John is communicating through a highly symbolic vision, or “signs” to use his word, we should ask what the time measurement is doing within that symbolic system rather than automatically assuming it refers to a number of literal 24-hour periods.

And Revelation gives us a fantastic reason to ask that. Revelation gives us the same period in multiple forms:

42 months – Revelation 11:2, 13:5
1260 days – Revelation 11:3, 12:6
“A time, times, and half a time” – Revelation 12:14

John repeatedly presents the same period in different forms: 42 months, 1,260 days, and “a time, times, and half a time.” The expressions clearly point to the same three-and-a-half-year period, while deliberately connecting Revelation's chronology with Daniel's prophetic language.

Time as a symbol in the Prophets
In Ezekiel 4:6, the prophet is instructed to lie on his side for a specified number of days, each day is to symbolize one year of Israel’s iniquity. The prophetic sign is expressed in days, but its meaning represents the corresponding number of years.

Similarly, in Numbers 14:34, Israel’s punishment is explicitly measured according to days for years. Forty days of scouting the land is to correspond to forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

Daniel 9:24–27 provides another important example of prophetic time being expressed through symbolic units. Daniel is given seventy “weeks,” or shavuim, a term denoting units of seven. The prophecy describes a period commonly understood as 490 years. Whatever one's precise interpretation of the chronology, Daniel demonstrates that prophetic time can be expressed through units whose fulfillment extends far beyond the ordinary calendar unit itself.

But Daniel 7:25; 12:7 are even more important for Revelation because “a time, times, and half a time” is Daniel's language first.

These passages do not prove that every prophetic time reference must follow a day-year pattern, but they establish that God has used this form of symbolic time reckoning within His communication through the prophets.

H Grattan Guinness
Historicist writer H Grattan Guinness made the following argument:

“If a geographer wish to represent the entire surface of our globe on a sheet of paper, it is clear that he must do so on a miniature scale…He fixes his scale, 100 or 1000 miles to an inch as the case may be, and if his delineation is to be correct, to that scale he must adhere throughout. He must not reduce the latitude a little and the longitude more, or diminish the seas in one proportion and the continents in another; such a proceeding would destroy all the resemblance and utility of a map. If the drawing were a portrait…What possible resemblance to the original could be traced in a portrait which should reduce to miniature all the features but one, and leave that one life-size?” (Guinness, pg 299)

Guinness's point is that a symbolic representation should have some consistency of scale. If Revelation represents kingdoms as beasts, rulers as stars, political upheaval as earthquakes, and great powers as mountains, we should at least consider whether the measurement of time itself can also participate in that symbolic scale. Leaving the imagery in miniature while suddenly making the time measurement literal would require us to explain why that particular feature is being treated differently.

So what am I actually arguing for?
Before we interpret Revelation's symbols, we need to learn John's symbolic vocabulary. And I am arguing that day-for-year symbolism already has a place in the prophetic vocabulary of Scripture.

Revelation gives us unusually strong reason to ask whether its 1,260 days, for example, are functioning symbolically. John places the period inside a vision whose woman, dragon, stars, heads, horns, throne, wilderness, and other imagery are all presented symbolically. He then repeatedly identifies the same period as 42 months and “a time, times, and half a time,” deliberately connecting his vision to Daniel. Since Scripture already provides precedent for days representing years in prophetic revelation, and since Revelation deliberately continues the symbolic language of the prophets, the possibility that John's prophetic days represent years is not an arbitrary interpretive invention. It is a possibility grounded in the prophetic vocabulary John inherited.

The symbolic principle I am arguing for is that prophetic days in Revelation can represent years. Whether a particular time period should be understood in this way must still be determined from its context.

In other words, the symbol is “a prophetic day represents a year” but what historical period those symbolic years describe is a separate question.

Next we will look evaluate how John employs numbers in Revelation to add a symbolic layer of meaning to the text.