Also known as 2300 evening-mornings, 2300 days, Daniel 8:14, the cleansing of the sanctuary
The vision of Daniel 8:14, which speaks of 2300 evening-mornings until the sanctuary is restored. How many days the phrase counts, and whether the period is to be read in days or in years, are both read differently by different interpretive traditions, which the Hub presents side by side.
What the text says: 2300 evening-mornings (Hebrew ereb boqer; rendered 'days' in some translations)
The readings below are interpretations offered by different traditions. None is presented as the meaning of the passage, and they are listed in no order of preference.
Reads the vision as addressing the Seleucid crisis of the second century BC. Most commonly takes each 'evening-morning' to name one of the two daily sacrifices, so that 2300 of them span roughly 1150 days — about three years, matching the interval from the desecration of the temple under Antiochus IV in 167 BC to its rededication in 164 BC. A minority reads 2300 literal days. On this view the period is measured in days, not years, and terminates within the Maccabean era; the 'cleansing' is the rededication of the earthly sanctuary.
Key points
167 BCAntiochus IV desecrates the temple and halts the daily sacrifice
Identifies the taking away of the daily and the transgression of desolation (Daniel 8:11-13) with the Seleucid suppression of the temple cult.
Daniel 8:11-13 · 1 Maccabees 1:54
164 BCRededication of the temple — 'then shall the sanctuary be cleansed'
Takes the cleansing/restoration of the sanctuary (Daniel 8:14) as the Maccabean rededication, roughly 1150 days after the desecration.
Depends on reading 2300 evening-mornings as 1150 days (2300 halves). On a literal 2300-day reading the interval does not fit the Maccabean window as closely.
Daniel 8:14 · 1 Maccabees 4:52-59
Representative sources: John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia); Louis F. Hartman & Alexander A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel (Anchor Bible)
Futurist / dispensational
Dispensational interpretationconfidence: possible
Reads the 2300 evening-mornings as a literal period of days still future, belonging to the career of a coming antichrist figure prefigured by Antiochus IV. Because the period is taken literally and its starting point is not yet fixed by any past event, this reading assigns it no historical anchor and no terminal date; the desolation and the restoration of the sanctuary are placed in a future tribulation rather than in the second century BC or the nineteenth century AD.
Representative sources: John F. Walvoord, Daniel: The Key to Prophetic Revelation; Charles L. Feinberg, Daniel: The Kingdom of the Lord
Seventh-day Adventist (historicist)
Seventh-day Adventist interpretationconfidence: traditional
Applies the year-day principle to the 2300 evening-mornings, reading them as 2300 years, and takes the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 to be 'cut off' from the beginning of that longer period — so that both share the decree of Artaxerxes as their starting point. Measured from 457 BC the period reaches AD 1844, which this reading identifies with the opening of the pre-advent judgment and the cleansing of the heavenly rather than the earthly sanctuary.
Interpretive calculation
2300 years — derived, not stated by the passage.
The conversion of the passage's 2300 evening-mornings into 2300 YEARS rests on the year-day principle (Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6). That principle is an interpretive commitment, not a statement of Daniel 8:14: the text itself gives only the phrase 'unto two thousand and three hundred evening-mornings'. The prior question of how many days the phrase counts is likewise a reading, not a datum.
Borrows the Daniel 9 anchor rather than restating it. The claim that the two prophecies share a starting point rests on reading the seventy weeks as 'cut off' (Daniel 9:24) from the 2300 — itself part of this interpretation, not a neutral link between the chapters.
Chain
AD 1844End of the 2300 evening-mornings — the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary+2300 yrs from the anchor
2300 years from the 457 BC decree, computed with no year zero, reach AD 1844. This reading identifies the terminus with the opening of the pre-advent judgment and Christ's entry upon the antitypical Day of Atonement ministry in the heavenly sanctuary — a theological conclusion drawn from the interpretation, not a dated historical event.
457 BC + 2300 years = AD 1844 only when the absence of a year zero is respected; naive signed arithmetic yields 1843.
Daniel 8:14 · Daniel 9:24 · Leviticus 16 · Hebrews 9:23-24
Representative sources: Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 4; Frank B. Holbrook (ed.), Symposium on Daniel (Daniel & Revelation Committee Series, vol. 2)
Historicist (non-Adventist)
Traditional interpretationconfidence: traditional
Year-day historicism applied to Daniel 8:14 predates and exists independently of Adventism: interpreters from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries read the 2300 evening-mornings as 2300 years and, using a range of starting points, arrived at termini spread across roughly 1843 to 1847. The tradition is recorded here so that the year-day reading of this passage is not presented as a distinctively Adventist innovation, and so that the sensitivity of the result to the chosen anchor is visible.
Interpretive calculation
2300 years — derived, not stated by the passage.
Applies the year-day principle to reach 2300 years, as the historicist tradition generally did. The terminus varies with the starting point chosen, which is why this reading records a range rather than a single milestone.
Key points
AD 1843A representative nineteenth-century historicist terminus
One of several results obtained by applying the year-day principle to the 2300 evening-mornings; different anchors and different reckonings of the BC/AD boundary yielded dates across roughly 1843-1847. Recorded as representative, not as the tradition's agreed conclusion.
The spread between 1843 and 1844 in this literature turns partly on how the BC/AD boundary is counted — the same no-year-zero question the Hub's arithmetic handles explicitly.
Daniel 8:14
Representative sources: LeRoy E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vols. 2-4
About
The vision of Daniel 8:14, which speaks of 2300 evening-mornings until the sanctuary is restored. How many days the phrase counts, and whether the period is to be read in days or in years, are both read differently by different interpretive traditions, which the Hub presents side by side.
Across time
Daniel 8 — The 2300 Evening-Mornings through history
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