And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High.
Three attributes of Antichrist are specified:
(1) The highest worldly wisdom and civilization.
(2) The uniting of the whole civilized world under his dominion (Revelation 17:13; Revelation 13:7, "power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations;" Revelation 13:12-18).
(3) Atheism, antitheism and autotheism in its fullest development (1 John 2:22).
Therefore, not only is power taken from the fourth beast, as in the case of the other three, but God destroys it and the world-power in general by a final judgment. The present external Christianity is to give place to an almost universal apostasy.
And think, х wªyicbar (H5452)] - literally, carry within him as it were the burden of the thought.
To change times and laws - the prerogative of God alone (Daniel 2:21); blasphemously assumed by Antichrist. The "times and laws" here meant are those of religious ordinance; stated times of feasts (Maurer). Perhaps there are included the times assigned by God to the duration of kingdoms. He shall set himself "above all that is called God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4), putting his own "will" above God's times and laws (Daniel 11:36-37). But the "times" and "days" of his willfulness are limited "for the elect's sake" (Matthew 24:22).
And they - the saints.
Shall be given into his hand - to be persecuted.
Until a time and times and the dividing of time - one year, two years, and half a year: 1,260 days (Revelation 12:6; Revelation 12:14, "The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days ... And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent"). "The holy city shall they (the Gentiles) tread under foot forty and two months" (Revelation 11:2-3, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth").
Thus, it appears that the period of the Church's witnessing (or that of those who are meant by the two witnesses) is to be of equal duration to that of the beast's temporary triumph, a time, times, and half a time, answering to the week (forming by the combination of the two periods of three and a half each, seven, the perfect number), in the midst of which Antichrist shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, Daniel 9:27. That literally three and a half years are to be the term of Antichrist's persecution is favoured by Daniel 4:16, "Let seven times pass over him (Nebuchadnezzar)," Daniel 4:23, where the year-day theory would be impossible.
If the Church, moreover, had been informed that 1,260 years must elapse before the second advent, the attitude of expectancy, which is inculcated (Luke 12:38; 1 Corinthians 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10; 2 Peter 3:12), on the ground of the uncertainty of the time, would be out of place. The original word х `idaan (H5732)] here, and х mow`eed (H4150)] in Daniel 12:7, for "time" denotes a stated period or set feast, or the interval from one set feast to its recurrence - i:e., a year (Tregelles); Leviticus 23:4, "seasons;" Leviticus 23:44, "feasts."
The passages in favour of the year-day theory are Ezekiel 4:6, where each day of the 40 days during which Ezekiel lay on his right side is defined by God as meaning a year. Compare Numbers 14:34, where a year of wandering in the wilderness was appointed for each day of the forty during which the spies searched Canaan; but the days were, in these two cases, merely the type or reason for the years, which were announced as they were to be fulfilled. In the prophetic part of Numbers 14:34, years are literal, "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." If the year-day system was applied to them, they would be 14,400 years! In Ezekiel 4:4-6, if day meant year, Ezekiel would have lain on his right side forty years! The context here, in Daniel 7:24-25, is not symbolical. Antichrist is no longer called a horn, but a king subduing three out of ten kings (no longer horns, as they are symbolically called in Daniel 7:7-8). So in Daniel 12:7, where "time, times, and half a time" again occur, nothing symbolic occurs in the context. ("It shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.") So that there is no reason why the three and a half years should be so. For the first four centuries the "days" were interpreted literally; a mystical meaning of the 1,260 days then began. Walter Brute first suggested the year-day theory in the end of the fourteenth century.
Moreover, it is against the year-day theory that the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity foretold by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 29:10) were understood by Daniel (Daniel 9:2) as literal years, not symbolical, which would have been 25,200 years! (Tregelles.) It is possible that the year-day and day-day theories are both true. The "seven (symbolical) times" of the Gentile monarchies (Leviticus 26:24) during Israel's casting off will end in the seven years of Antichrist. The 1,260 years of papal misrule in the name of Christ may be represented by three and a half years of open Antichristianity and persecution before the millennium.
Witnessing churches may be succeeded by witnessing individuals, the former occupying the longer, the latter the shorter period (Revelation 11:3). The beginning of the 1,260 years is by Elliott set at 529 AD, or 533 AD, when Justinian's edict acknowledged Pope John II to be head of the Church; by Luther at 606 AD, when Phocas confirmed Justinian's grant. But 754 is the most likely date, when the temporal dominion of the popes begun by Pepin's grant of the exarchate of Ravenna, the kingdom of the Lombards, and the state of Rome to Stephen II (in return for Zachary, the preceding pope's recognition of his title to France): this grant was subsequently confirmed by Charlemagne. For it was then first that the little horn plucked up three horns, and so became the prolongation of the fourth secular kingdom (Newton). This would bring us down to about 2000 AD, or the seventh thousand millenary from creation. But Clinton makes about 1862 the seventh millenary, which may favour the dating from 529 AD