“She hath a place which has been prepared of the Deity, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.” (Revelation 12:6)
In the fourteenth verse, this is equivalently expressed by the words, “where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time out of sight of the Serpent.” This parallelism shows us that “1,260 days” is a form of words importing the duration of “a time, times, and half a time.” Whatever the word day may signify, it requires 1,260 of them to equal three times and a half. In common time, 1,260 days are forty-two months, or three years and six months. But in dramatic prophecy, where the things predicted are acted on a small scale, by the persons of the drama, the time is proportioned, and therefore expressed in miniature. Hence, when a piece is performed on the boards of a theatre, its incidents, which are spread over a long series of years, are all brought in the acting before the spectator’s eye in the short space of an evening. This is a practical condensation of the time of the piece performed. If the acted time of the piece were dramatically expressed by the performer, according to the real time, an evening theatrical entertainment would be impossible. He has therefore, in his acting, to reduce the literal, or real, time of the incidents he represents, from years to minutes, which all the audience, from pit to gallery, easily perceives.
Now, upon the same principle of condensation is time exhibited in the apocalyptic drama. It is condensed from real time to acted time, the latter only being proportioned to the former, and to the agents dramatically engaged Thus, if the real time be 1,260 years, it is proportionally represented by 1,260 days, or forty-two months, or three times and a half. It is also made proportional to the agents acting in the time. Thus, in the dramatic prophecy before us, the woman and her feeders, or nourishers, are the agents. She dwells in her place as a woman, the cycle of whose natural existence is threescore years and ten. Now, to affirm of her that they nourished her 1,260 years, would be in violation of the decorum of things. It would be a monstrosity in the picture, because out of all proportion, seeing that, naturally, women do not live 1,260 years. But the fitness and suitableness of things are observed; and the language descriptive of her pregnancy and subsequent life, does no violence, but is in strict accordance with, the laws of a real woman’s natural existence. The remarks of Daubuz upon symbolic time, are to the point in this place.
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Author: John Thomas
Keywords: persecution, Christian persecution, persecution of Christians, great eagle, two wings of the great eagle, Roman eagle, isolation, expulsion, exile, 1260, 1260 days, thousand two hundred and threescore days, fortytwo months, 42 months, forty two months, two witnesses
Bible reference(s): Rev 12:6, Rev 12:14
Source: “Times of Exile,” The Christadelphian, Vol. 36, Nos. 423-4, September & October 1899.
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