“For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.” – Daniel 8:14
The last prophecy in Daniel 8 is often misinterpreted and misunderstood because a lot of scholars are skeptical of the supernatural. For everything that happens on Earth, there are corresponding things happening in the unseen realm. If we were to put this in human, easy-to-understand terms, imagine it like a Broadway play with things happening on the stage as well as behind the curtain simultaneously.
Daniel 8:9-14 is about a rising king named Antiochus Epiphanes, who is a foreshadowing of the antichrist. We’ll learn more about him later. This human ruler rises up and conquers people in the physical realm, and he’s so evil and demonic that he also declares war on spirit beings. When he ruled in power, he literally took the Word of God, threw it on the street, and commanded people to step on it. That’s the spirit of the antichrist. He closes the Temple of God. A divine being asks how long this will go on, and another divine being answers, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.” (8:14)
There are three possible interpretations of what 2,300 means:
- This could be 2,300 literal days.
- They had two sacrifices a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, so it could be 1,150 days.
- An indefinite period of time.
I believe the first or second is the most likely, and the point is this: God has numbered the days of the demonic and will ultimately crush them and bring them to an end.
What stands out to you in this chapter, and how does it validate your trust in the Bible?
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