What are Daniel's 1,260, 1,290, and 1,335 days?

Daniel 12 gives three precise numbers — 1,260, 1,290, and 1,335 days — in six verses, without explaining how they fit together. Every eschatological system builds on them, and they disagree because the text provides the numbers without providing the decoder ring.

The 3.5-year period is the baseline. A figure in linen swears by the God of heaven and gives the duration of a tribulation as "a time, times, and half a time" (Dan 12:7) — where mo'ed (מוֹעֵד, H4150) means an appointed time, the same word used for the feasts of the LORD in Leviticus 23:2. Add them up (1 + 2 + 0.5 = 3.5) and you get three and a half years. Revelation confirms the equivalence: the same event is described as 1,260 days (Rev 12:6) and then again as "a time, times, and half a time" (Rev 12:14), and 42 months × 30 days = 1,260. So that part is locked down.

Then it gets harder. Daniel 12:11 gives 1,290 days, with a specific starting point: from the time the daily offering is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up. That's 30 days longer than 1,260. The text doesn't say what happens at day 1,290.

Then Daniel 12:12 gives 1,335 days:

"Blessed is the one who waits and arrives at 1,335 days."

The word for "blessed" (ashrei, H835) is the same word that opens Psalm 1 — a full-throated declaration of blessedness. But the text says nothing about why reaching day 1,335 is blessed. No event is named. No end point is described. It just pronounces blessing on the one who arrives there, and stops.

The gaps are mathematically precise — 30 days between 1,260 and 1,290, then 45 more to 1,335 — and the text tells us nothing about what fills them. That silence is itself data: Daniel is told the numbers are sealed until the time of the end (Dan 12:9). The study explores what each framework does with these gaps, and where the evidence is stronger or weaker.

Read the full study on Daniel's numbers