God’s Word for You
Daniel 8:14 evenings and mornings
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, December 6, 2025
14 And he answered him, “Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings; then the Holy Place will be put right.”
We need to identify two things in this verse. First, what is meant by 2,300 evenings and mornings, and second, what is meant by “put right.”
First, about the identity of the number, that is to say, “evenings and mornings.” Just a few verses before (8:12) we heard that Antiochus, foreshadowing the terrible deeds of the Antichrist, would end the “the continual sacrifice,” including the evening and morning sacrifices. If the specific 2,300 evenings and also 2,300 mornings are to be counted, then are we left with a very odd way of talking about 1,150 days? This would not be so much a mystery as a basic math problem. We can set this notion aside.
Usually in the Bible, in fact, all other places in the Bible, when an evening and a morning are counted, they add up to one day (“there was evening and there was morning, the second day,” Genesis 1:8, and so on). So we should take the number as it is expressed. But are these literal days, or spiritual days, or are they literal days that point ahead to spiritual days? I hesitate to wonder aloud, for “there begins confusion.” But for the sake of those who wonder, I will wonder along with you.
2,300 days add up to something between six and a quarter years and a six and a third years (six years and 110 days). And although this fits the approximate time of the troubles under Antiochus, it is not exact. And if it is not meant to be exact, why give such an oddly exact number as 2,300? Why not 2,555 to equal seven years?
In 167 BC, Antiochus came to Jerusalem and defiled it, ordering pig flesh to be burned on the altar, forbidding circumcision, and other things. After his death, another leader (Nicanor) also committed a blasphemy in the temple, but was slain in 161 BC. This accounts for a rough estimate, but it is far from exact. To apply the words of one commentator, to hold up the specific number 2,300 and to allow a rough approximation in historical years “is to carry water on both shoulders.”
To take the number as symbolic—which is altogether preferable in a vision—we find that since this number falls short of seven years (with the idea that seven years of punishment would be a divine period of retribution and punishment)—the falling short of this means that the number signifies not even a full period of divine judgment. This is to reassure the people of God. Persecution will come, but it will last only a limited time. God’s temple would be “put right.”
The words “put right” are the translation of just one word, va-nitsdaq. This is a passive form of the verb “to be just, to be righteous.” Here it is an active verb, “to make something right again.” The making right or just is the work that would end the long and oppressive time of the wicked king, Antiochus. This would also echo ahead of time the end of the work of the Antichrist in the world. And this is the gospel lesson of our verse. God will bring that wickedness to an end. He does not leave us or forsake us. “The Lord will not reject his people” (1 Samuel 12:22).
And as I sit at my window on this snowy winter evening and contemplate this passage further, three things about the phrase “evenings and mornings” come drifting down among the snowflakes the way that God’s blessings sometimes drift into our lives unexpectedly. First, “evenings and mornings” reminds me first of the creation account, and therefore of the world as it was in the perfection of Eden. God’s plan and God’s holy providence are on display when we experience evenings and mornings from now until the end of time—even on bad days.
Second, “evenings and mornings” can be and here probably is a reference to the evening and morning sacrifices, offerings that were made by God’s holy people at his command as one of the many examples of his holy law, to show us our sins and a way to serve him as forgiven and beloved children of his—even during persecution.
Third, “evenings and mornings” is also a reminder that after every evening, a morning will come. After every death there will be a resurrection. Therefore evenings and mornings is also a way of looking at the resurrection of all mankind. Our dear, darling beloved ones will be with us once again in eternity on account of Christ’s merits, on account of God’s promises, and on account of the Holy Spirit’s work through the means of grace.
Evenings and mornings. Perfection, fall, and forgiveness—this is the world in which we live, and from which we shall be rescued after Daniel’s mysterious 2,300 evenings and mornings have finally been brought to their end. Until then, we have our faith to live out.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.