Daniel 12:11

"And from the time that the continual burnt-offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days."

The big problem with this verse is that of the one thousand two hundred and ninety days. It so nearly corresponds with the one thousand two hundred and sixty days that one is at a total loss to account for the discrepancy. We agree with Thomson that, "No satisfactory solution to this mystery is possible."[15] Probably the best view of it is to understand it as a symbol of the same period, namely, the whole Christian dispensation, as that of the "time, and times, and a half a time," the one thousand two hundred and three score days. One possible meaning, which is as reasonable as any we have encountered is that, since the one thousand two hundred and threescore days stands for the whole period between the First and the Second Advents of Jesus Christ, these tabulations in verse 11 (one thousand two hundred and ninety days) and the one in verse 12 (one thousand three hundred and five and thirty days) also represent the whole dispensation, the slightly different numbers indicating God's adjustment of the exact time of Christ's coming in order more exactly to conform to his infinite will. It will be recalled that there was mentioned "a shortening" of certain days (Matthew 24:22).

Some have vainly tried to get Antiochus into this passage; but many have pointed out that there is positively no period whatever in the life of that evil ruler that could possibly have been fulfilled by these predictions even if viewed as literal days, or upon any other reasonable conjecture.

Assuming, then, that the one thousand two hundred ninety days is but a slightly variable reference to "the time, and times, and a half a time," which we understand to be the entire Christian dispensation, the "terminus ad quem", or starting point for the calculation of this period is described in this verse as, "the time when the continual burnt-offering shall be taken away and the abomination that maketh desolate shall be set up." That time, of course, was pinpointed by the Christ himself as occurring at the destruction of Jerusalem when the Christians were warned to flee from the city. At first thought, one might hesitate to place this event in A.D. 70 as concurrent with the beginning of the Christian era in A.D. 30; but in the prophetic sense, that was precisely the date when Jesus Christ consigned the Herodian temple to complete destruction and removal, even to the extent that not a single stone would be left on top of another. In this light, we see no difficulty at all in finding the entire Christian dispensation indicated by this time reference.

"The continual burnt-offering was taken away forever in the destruction of Jerusalem. The short period of time when Antiochus caused the daily sacrifices to cease was a trifling and unimportant event compared with the actual and permanent removal of the continual burnt-offering in Christ's condemnation and commitment of the Temple to complete destruction.