2300 Days
The longest time prophecy in all of Scripture β and arguably the most precise. It stretches from 457 BC to 1844 AD, spans three chapters of Daniel, and its meaning was deliberately sealed until 'the time of the end.'
The Ram and the Goat (Dan 8:1β14)
Daniel sees a ram with two horns (Medo-Persia, interpreted by the angel in v.20) charge in every direction without opposition. Then a goat with a single conspicuous horn (Greece, v.21 β Alexander the Great) comes from the west at astonishing speed, shatters the ram, and becomes very great. The great horn breaks at its peak (Alexander died in 323 BC), and four horns grow in its place (his four generals). From one of the four arises a little horn that grows exceedingly great, casts down the host and the sanctuary, and continues for 2,300 evenings and mornings β then 'the sanctuary shall be restored.'
The Connection to Daniel 9
Daniel is left overwhelmed after chapter 8 β the 2,300-day figure is unexplained. In chapter 9, the angel Gabriel returns with the explicit purpose of 'giving Daniel understanding' (9:22). The 70 weeks of Daniel 9 are 'cut off' (Hebrew: chΔtak β rendered 'decreed' or 'determined' in most translations, but understood by historicist scholars as 'cut off from a larger period') from the 2,300 days β their starting point is the same, and they are a subset of the larger prophecy. They share the same starting point: the decree to restore Jerusalem in 457 BC (Ezra 7, verified by the Elephantine Papyri). The 70 weeks (490 years) end in 34 AD. The remaining 1,810 years run to 1844 AD: 457 BC + 2,300 = 1844 AD. In that year, a worldwide movement independently reached this calculation and recognised that the heavenly sanctuary β not an earthly temple β was the subject of the prophecy.
The Day-Year Principle
The prophetic conversion of days to years is not an assumption β it is exegetically mandated. Numbers 14:34: 'According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, each day for a year, you shall bear your iniquity forty years.' Ezekiel 4:6: 'A day for each year I have assigned to you.' Both texts use the same formula in a prophetic context. The principle is not Adventist innovation β it was the interpretive method of the Reformers, of Newton, of the entire Historicist school.
The sanctuary of Daniel 8 is not the Jerusalem temple β it is the heavenly sanctuary of which the earthly was a copy (Heb 8:2, 5). Christ is the High Priest of that sanctuary (Heb 4:14). The 2,300 days are ultimately about his priestly work: after the 'little horn' power suppressed and substituted for Christ's mediation for centuries, the heavenly sanctuary ministry entered a new phase in 1844. This understanding β that the judgment of Daniel 7:9β14 and the sanctuary restoration of Daniel 8:14 are the same event, beginning in 1844 β is the conclusion historicist interpreters, particularly in the Adventist tradition, have drawn from this prophecy. It is one of the most significant and specific claims in the entire prophetic framework. Both visions point to Christ completing what no human priesthood can: the final atonement, the vindication of his people, the restoration of truth.
βThe great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.β