Understanding why the Great Tribulation is said to be seven years makes it easier to understand what you need to know about the end times.
Because here’s the truth: If what I’m going to show you is true, then there might not be a seven year tribulation in the future.
This complete article covers the teaching centered around the question, “Why is the Great Tribulation 7 years?”
Let’s get started!
What Is the Great Tribulation?
The Great Tribulation is believed to be a future 7-year period when the Antichrist reigns and all hell breaks loose on the earth.
When this tribulation starts, it is believed to be the beginning of the end of the world. This is a common belief in Christian eschatology.
The Great Tribulation is also called:
"Time of Jacob’s Trouble”
“The Day of the Lord”
“Daniel's 70th week"
"The end times"
Or simply, “the tribulation”
Most Christians believe that all true Christians will first be raptured off the earth before this happens. This rapture will happen suddenly and unexpectedly.
As soon as this rapture takes place, the Great Tribulation begins.
Therefore, most believe that Christians will not face the Great Tribulation and all of its horrors, such as great famines, starvation, and death.
This answers the question, “Who is the Great Tribulation for?” It’s for the unbelievers who are left on earth.
The most famous Great Tribulation verse is probably:
Matthew 24:21 ESV
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.
Here’s the Great Tribulation Bible verse KJV:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
All translations of this Great Tribulation scripture sound about the same.
What about the Great Tribulation in Revelation?
The specific verse that mentions it in Revelation is here:
Revelation 7:14
I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
You should also know that those who believe in the Great Tribulation also hold that the entire book of Revelation is all about this event.
The Book of Revelation speaks of the sun going dark, dragons rising, fire, and other catastrophic destruction happening.
All this, they say, will happen in the future tribulation.
Great Tribulation VS Wrath of God
There are many views about the Great Tribulation:
Pre-Tribulation - Believers will be raptured right before the Great Tribulation starts.
Mid-Tribulation - Believers will be raptured in the middle of the Great Tribulation.
Post-Tribulation - Believers will be raptured right after the Great Tribulation.
But there’s one more view.
For some, the Great Tribulation simply precedes the wrath of God.
They see believers experiencing much of the tribulation but will be raptured before the final outpouring of God’s wrath.
In other words, the rapture doesn’t happen before, in the middle of, or after the Great Tribulation. It just happens sometime before this final wrath of God is poured out.
This is known as the "Pre-Wrath View."
What Happens After the Great Tribulation?
What happens after the tribulation depends on what you believe.
Again, if you’re post-tribulation, then the rapture is going to happen after the tribulation.
But most (pre-tribulation) would say that after the Great Tribulation, Jesus will establish his kingdom on the earth and reign for 1000 years.
The end of all things has happened; now, everything is a blissful paradise on earth.
Now that we’ve gotten all the preliminaries out of the way, here’s the real question we’re focusing on.
How Long is the Great Tribulation?
Those who believe in the future-coming tribulation say it will be seven years.
Now, you should know that no clear scripture says it’ll be seven years.
However, the idea is derived from the famous prophecy of Daniel 9.
All of the elements of Daniel 9 are too much to deal with here, but if you’re interested, I deal with this prophecy in my book.
But let’s just read one passage, and we’ll go from there:
Daniel 9:24-25
24 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.
Notice there are “seventy weeks.” Each “week” in this prophecy is seven years.
So, we have 490 years.
Then, in verse 25, it divides these seventy weeks into two sections: “seven weeks (49 years)” and “sixty-two weeks (434 years).”
That’s a total of 483 years, leaving us with 7 years in the prophecy (one week).
This is where the idea of the Great Tribulation being seven years comes from.
Those who believe in a future tribulation say that these last seven years IS that Great Tribulation.
But here is something you should know about the 70 weeks:
Look at the beginning of verse 25 again.
The time clock for this prophecy and the beginning of the 70 weeks started at “the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem.”
The Israelites were in slavery for a long time, and then they were allowed to go back to their land and rebuild.
So, the first question we should ask is, “When did this happen? What year?”
There are varying views of the exact year, but I’ll cover two.
View 1 - 457 BC
The decree for them to go back and rebuild could have been around 458 or 457 BC.
Remember, we left off with 483 years.
So, let’s add 483 years to 457 BC. We get 26-27 AD.
And what year was that? The year that Christ began his ministry!
This would mean that Christ began his ministry at the beginning of the 70th week, that last seven years.
This would also align with Daniel 9:26-27, meaning that Jesus confirmed a “covenant with many for one week.”
In other words, he was to preach and declare the coming New Covenant for seven years.
However, in the middle of those last seven years (“half of the week”), Jesus would be killed or “cut off” and “put an end to sacrifice and offering.”
That means he would end the Old Covenant with his death.
I hold to this view. It’s pretty simple, right?
Now, here’s what you’re thinking:
“Wait, I thought that you said futurists believe that this last 70th week is in our future and that it is the Great Tribulation?”
Right! Their belief goes like this…
View 2: 445 BC
This view says that the clock actually started in 445 BC (not 457 BC).
Futurists commonly interpret Daniel's prophecy using "prophetic years" of 360 days rather than our modern 365-day solar calendar years.
483 prophetic years of 360 days each gives a total of 173,880 days.
To convert these prophetic days into solar years (365.25 days, accounting for leap years), we divide by 365.25:
173,880 ÷ 365.25 = 476 years
Adding 476 years to 445 BC (taking into account there’s no "year 0" between BC and AD) brings us to approximately 32 AD, around the time of Christ’s death.
So, to them, the 69 weeks (483 years) ended when they killed Christ.
“Well then, how does that last 70th week happen in our future? Wouldn’t that last seven years have occurred right after Jesus’ death?”
Nope.
Futurists believe that when Jesus was killed, God stopped the prophetic time clock.
This inserted a massive “gap of years” between the 69th and the 70th week. And that last 70th week, they say, still hasn’t happened.
Some call this the “great interval,” the “parenthesis,” or the “church age.”
When God stopped the clock, this “inserted gap” became the “time of the church.” We’re currently in this time because the 70th week (Great Tribulation) has yet to happen.
Right now, God is dealing with His church. But eventually, He is going to rapture us off the earth and go back to dealing with the Jews when the seven years pick back up.
Another question you might be asking about this interpretation is:
“But didn’t you say the prophecy says that Jesus would be “cut off/killed” in the middle of the last week? Then why would they believe this last week hasn’t happened yet?”
To be short, it’s because they don’t believe the person (the “he” in the prophecy) said to be “cut off” in the last week is Jesus, but the Antichrist!
My Thoughts on View 2
I don’t believe the last seven years are in our future, so I don’t believe in a coming seven-year Great Tribulation.
Here are a few of my reasons for believing this:
1. No scripture clearly says there is a “gap of time” in Daniel’s prophecy.
No scripture says that God stopped the prophetic time clock in Daniel.
This idea is deduced from pre-forming a belief about a Great Tribulation based on other scriptures and applying it to Daniel 9 in a way that “makes it fit.”
To be frank, to a futurist, Daniel's prophecy must have a time gap so their doctrine can work.
It’s not stated but assumed, based on other beliefs.
2. A gap of time hinges on precise date setting.
Regarding date setting and knowing the exact year something occurred in the Bible, it is best to err on the side of caution and estimate rather than state it as fact.
This goes for setting years as to when a particular book of the Bible was written. We can make a well-educated guess, but we really can’t say for certain.
For the 445 BC date that also places the end of the 69th week at Christ’s death, we shouldn’t accept it as automatic truth just because it might sound intriguing and convincing because it “uses Jewish measurements.”
Our dates can be off a bit, and we could never know.
For example, 457 BC is a good starting point because it ends the 69th week around the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
Again, this also fits better with the idea that he was to preach for “one week” (the last 70th week) but was killed in the middle of this week (also stated in the prophecy).
But that timeframe is a rough estimate, not a certainty.
There are many calculations for Jesus’ birth: 6-4 BC, 3-2 BC, 5 BC, and 2 BC.
The same goes for the beginning of his ministry: 27-29 AD, 26 AD, 30 AD, and 29 AD.
This would all change the timeframe by a few years here and there.
The 445 BC date may be more accurate, but this doesn’t mean that the end of the 69th week was at Christ’s death.
If we accept that date, we could still perhaps be off by a few years, maybe still placing the end of the 69th week at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, meaning that he would still be “cut off” in the middle of the 70th week.
A straightforward approach to determining the starting point would be to assume that Jesus began his ministry around 27 AD, then count back 483 years to reach a starting date of 457 BC. [1]
Jay Rogers has a tremendous resource that goes into great detail about calculating the dates. (See Source 1)
For the gap to work, it feels that the beginning date must be 445 BC, and the end date must be Christ’s death.
Why? So the person being “cut off” in the last week of the prophecy can be the Antichrist and can be thrown thousands of years in the future.
3. The gap in Daniel’s prophecy was a later belief founded on unbiblical hermeneutics.
Did you know that the belief in a secret rapture of the church before a Great Tribulation and a gap in Daniel’s prophecy began in the early 1800s?
Here is a quote from a little gem of a book that I think everyone should read but most people don’t know about:
“Darby used the third Powerscourt conference in September 1833 to continue his attack upon the apostasy of the churches and to stress the need for all true believers to gather in the name of the Lord alone. In a sense this was the first assembly of the new sect, but it was also the first occasion of disagreement between Darby and Newton. Darby introduced into discussion at Powerscourt the ideas of a secret rapture of the church and of a parenthesis in prophetic fulfillment between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of Daniel. These two concepts constituted the basic tenets of the system of theology since referred to as dispensationalism… Neither Darby nor Newton seems to have become estranged at this time. Darby held an open mind on both of these subjects as late as 1843. Newton remembered, years later, opposing both positions. Commenting upon Darby’s interpretation of the seventy weeks of Daniel, Newton remarked, “The secret rapture was bad enough, but this was worse.”” [2]
Darby and Newton were colleagues in their preaching, but when Darby started introducing a gap in the weeks of Daniel, Newton said that this was “worse” than the pre-trib rapture doctrine.
Darby was one of those teachers who say their only source for their ideas is the Bible and the Spirit.
This sounds good, right? I mean, how can you argue against the Bible and the Spirit?
But that usually only means they’re forming their beliefs based on what they alone think the Bible and the Spirit are saying.
If you read that little gem and study, you’ll find that the two ideas (the pre-trib rapture and the gap) were founded by people like this who simply taught whatever they believed the scriptures to be saying.
They didn’t apply good hermeneutics or listen to the theologians and church fathers of the past who did not teach that about Daniel 9.
4. Placing a gap in Daniel 9 is just not logical.
Is it really logical to say that the prophecy would be fulfilled in 490 years, but it’s been around 2500 years now, and it still hasn’t been accomplished?
The futurist reasoning goes like this:
“It hasn’t been 2500 years. It’s only been 483 years because God stopped HIS clock for this prophecy when Jesus died. It will start again when the church is raptured.”
But where is the logic? Where is common sense?
What if I told you I would be at your house in seven days? However, 21 days passed, and then I finally showed up. What if I responded:
“I did get here in seven days, but on the sixth day, something came up, and I had to stop that timeframe and insert a gap of 14 days to do something else. But after those 14 days, I restarted the clock and showed up on the seventh day, just like I said.”
By this logic, it really was 7 days. You just have to disregard those 14 extra days.
We should agree that this goes against common sense.
Every time in the Bible that God said it would take a certain period of time to do something, it took exactly that long, according to our common human usage of time.
For example, Daniel knew and believed that they would be in slavery for 70 years because God said it would take that long. (Daniel 9:1-2)
History also shows us that it took exactly that long.
It didn’t take 70 years plus a gap of 270 years.
It took 70 years, plain and simple.
When God told the Israelites that they would be wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, it was 40 years with no gap and not a year more.
A gap in time is just not logical and goes against prophetic hermeneutics.
Conclusion
Without a gap in time, there is no such thing as a pre-tribulation rapture.
Why? Because there is no tribulation in the future. Those seven years have come and gone.
The last seven years of Daniel's prophecy, when Jesus died, happened right after the other 483 years (just as normal time works).
The "Great Tribulation" occurred 40 years later when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70.
If we can disprove a gap in Daniel 9, the entire futurist doctrine falls.
My goal in writing this was to offer an alternative view of the Great Tribulation, based on Daniel 9.
But I want to know what you think.
Leave a comment below.
Sources
[1] Jay Rogers, In the Days of These Kings (Clermont, FL: Media House International, 2017), 107.
[2] Dave MacPherson, The Incredible Cover-Up (Medford, OR: Omega Publications, 1975), 20–21.
Keep writing. You certainly appear to be right about the way the timelime works. You understand that it is not wise to be too dogmatic. It appears to me that Daniel also predicts when the 'time of the end' will occur. That is, the end of the Mosaic 'Age'. This is why Jesus could state with such absolute confidence that the destruction of the city and the sanctuary would occurr within a generation. Love your work.