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Zeman is a Chaldee word meaning time or season, and is confined to the
books of the captivity (Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel).
Paam, which means a step or a beat (as on an anvil, Isa. 41:7) is
employed when the phrase `so -many -times' is required; `he bowed himself to
the ground seven times'. `Three times a year' (Exod. 23:17) is literally
`three beats' or `three feet'.
Genea
is the Greek word meaning a generation and is translated
`time' on some occasions (Acts 14:16;15:21).
Hemera
is the Greek word `day' (Luke 9:51; 21:37; 23:7; Acts
8:1).
Kairos
means a season (Eph. 1:10; 1 Tim. 2:6; Rev. 12:14).
Chronos
means time as duration (Acts 1:6,7,21; 3:21).
Hora
an hour (1 John 2:18; Rev. 14:15).
Then there are such terms as prothesmia `appoint before' (Gal. 4:2);
popote `ever yet' (John 1:18); ekpalai `anciently' (2 Pet. 2:3); eukairos
`timely' (Heb. 4:16); pote `time past', once (Eph. 2:2); to mellon `what is
about to be' (1 Tim. 6:19) and palai `of old' (Heb. 1:1). It will be
observed that Galatians 4:4 speaks of the fulness of `time' whereas Ephesians
1:10 speaks of the fulness of the `seasons'.
Let us now examine the expression `a time, times and the dividing of
time' (Dan. 7:25). Daniel refers more than once in this way to a peculiar
period at the time of the end:
`A time and times and the dividing of time' (7:25).
`A time, times, and an half' (12:7).
`Let seven times pass over him' (4:16).
A consultation of the margin of Daniel 11:13 will show that `times' may
be synonymous with `years'. If that is so, then a time, times and a half may
be a prophetic and cryptic way of describing three -and -a -half years, this
being just half of the seven year period indicated in Daniel 9:27. We have,
however, clearer evidence of its meaning in the book of the Revelation:
`A time, and times, and half a time' (Rev. 12:14).
This is the period during which the woman is nourished in the
wilderness. In Revelation 12:6 we read:
`They should feed her there 1,260 days'.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that 1,260 days, and a time,
times, and a half, are periods of the same duration. There is evidence in
Scripture of the recognition of a year of 360 days. For example, it is
computed that between the seventeenth day of the second month, and the
seventeenth day of the seventh month is 150 days (Gen. 7 and 8), a
computation which supposes a month of thirty days. Dividing 1,260 by 30 we
have 42 months, or three -and -a -half years. Now Scripture speaks of a
period of 42 months and places it in such proximity to that of 1,260 days as
to remove all doubt as to the length of the prophetic year:
`The holy city shall they tread under foot 42 months' (Rev. 11:2).