Is the Great Day of Revelation a 24-Hour Day?

The four horsemen have ridden out over the earth. Blood has been spilled. Under the altar, those slain because of the word of God cry out for judgment, and they are told to rest yet for a small season. Then the sixth seal is opened. The earth quakes, the sun turns black, the whole moon becomes as blood, and the stars of heaven fall. Kings and bond-servants alike hide in the caves, and they cry out to the mountains and the rocks:

“Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of [their/his] wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”

— Revelation 6:16–17 (URV)

The great day has come.

In a previous article, The Judgments of Revelation Fall on All Creation, we covered the sequence of the judgments and the theme of God’s sovereignty over all creation. That sequence raises a question that deserves an answer of its own: how does Revelation handle time?

This article focuses on the great day, which Revelation names only two times: at Revelation 6:17 and at Revelation 16:14. The question is this. Is Revelation speaking of a 24-hour day? Or is Revelation speaking of a designated day, that is, a day meaning a time in which something happens? If the second, the great day could be phrased as the great time, or the great moment, of something taking place.

To answer, we have to look at how Revelation handles time.

Three Kinds of Time

Revelation speaks of time in three kinds.

Counted time. Counted time is specific. A number stands with the unit: ten days, five months, one hour, a thousand years. If the text says “in one day” (Revelation 18:8, URV), this study reads one day.

Designated time. Designated time is named and not numbered. Designated time is a moment or an appointed time, marked by what happens in that time. The unit carries no number, and in most cases carries a title: “the hour of testing” (Revelation 3:10, URV), “the hour of his judgment” (Revelation 14:7, URV), “the time of the dead” (Revelation 11:18, URV).

Length of time without a count. Some times have a length that the text does not give. We cannot know the length. We know only that the time exists: “a small season” (Revelation 6:11, URV), “a little time” (Revelation 12:12, URV), “a time, and times, and half a time” (Revelation 12:14, URV).

Designated time is something like a length of time without a count, but designated time has a title, and the title sets that time apart. The title is a classification. As we will see, the great day stands within designated time, and designated time is not necessarily 24 hours.

The same words also appear in ordinary uses that neither count nor designate, such as “day and night” (Revelation 4:8, URV). Those are listed below as well, so that nothing is passed over.

Every Use, Counted

In the URV, seven words name a unit of time in Revelation: hour, half hour, day, month, year, season, and time. The Greek has eight, since two different words are rendered “year.” Those words stand 56 times in the book. This table sorts all 56 by kind.

Three things stand out.

• Every counted time has a number. All 21 counted uses carry a number or a fraction with the unit. One of the 21 is marked as approximate: “about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1, URV).
• “Season” is never counted. None of the four uses carries a number.
• “Day” and “hour” go both ways. The book counts days and hours, and the book also designates days and hours. So the word alone does not decide the kind. The number does.

Here is every use, with the wording of the URV. Brackets are the URV’s marks where the manuscripts are split.

Four notes on the table.

• Revelation 9:15 holds four of the words in one phrase. The four share one appointed moment, so each is listed as designated.
• Revelation 11:6, “the days of their prophecy,” is a designated phrase that points back to a counted time, the thousand two hundred sixty days of 11:3.
• Revelation 9:6 and 11:13, “in those days” and “in that hour,” point back to a time already in the scene, so they are listed as ordinary uses.
• Revelation 3:3, “what hour I will come upon you,” carries no title. The hour is listed as designated because the hour is the moment of a named event, the coming, and carries no number.
• Revelation 10:6, “there will be season no longer,” does not give a length. The word is the same word as the small season of 6:11, and carries no number.
• Revelation 17:10 says a king “must continue a little.” No time word stands there, so the verse is not among the 56, but the verse is one more length without a count.
• “Night” is not among the seven words, because night is never counted and never given a title. Night stands eight times: five times in “day and night” (Revelation 4:8; 7:15; 12:10; 14:11; 20:10), and at 8:12, 21:25, and 22:5.

How We Know the Great Day Is Not Counted

The great day has no number at either place. The text says “the great day,” with the title and without a count (Revelation 6:17; 16:14, URV).

That matters because the book does count a single day and a single hour when the book means one. The plagues of Babylon come “in one day” (Revelation 18:8, URV). The ten kings receive power “one hour with the beast” (Revelation 17:12, URV). The judgment of Babylon comes “in one hour” (Revelation 18:10, URV), and Babylon is made desolate “in one hour” (Revelation 18:17, 19, URV). The great day is never called “one day.”

Judgment shows the two kinds side by side. The hour of God’s judgment in chapter 14 is designated: “the hour of his judgment has come” (Revelation 14:7, URV). The hour of the judgment of Babylon in chapter 18 is counted: “in one hour your judgment has come” (Revelation 18:10, URV). And the two counted times for Babylon agree with each other, because the one hour is nested inside the one day. What happens in one hour does happen within one day, so both are true at the same time.

So the definition of “day” is not being changed in order to escape 24 hours. The text counts what the text measures, and the text designates what the text names. The same rule is applied to all 56 uses.

Why This Matters

If the great day is a 24-hour day, Revelation begins to contradict Revelation, because the book lays out a sequence of events. On that sequence, at least five months stand between the first naming of the great day and the second. This is a good test of whether Revelation contradicts Revelation, which Scripture should not do.

Here is the sequence, in order.

1. The sixth seal is opened, and the people say that the great day has come (Revelation 6:12–17).
2. The seventh seal is opened, and the seven messengers are given seven trumpets (Revelation 8:1–2).
3. The trumpets are blown. Under the fifth trumpet, men are “tormented five months” (Revelation 9:5, URV).
4. At the seventh trumpet the temple in heaven is opened (Revelation 11:19). The seven messengers with the seven plagues come out of the opened temple and are given seven bowls (Revelation 15:5–7). The previous article shows why these are read as one opening.
5. The sixth bowl is poured out, and the kings are assembled “to the war of the great day of God, the Almighty” (Revelation 16:14, URV).

Step 1 and step 5 both name the great day, and the five months of step 3 stand between them. Five months do not fit inside 24 hours.

Overlapping the Two Does Not Solve the Problem

One way to remove the problem is to overlap the two namings in time, so that the sixth seal and the sixth bowl are the same moment. The two are numbered alike, since both are the sixth, and both name the great day. But overlapping the two produces more contradictions than the overlap removes.

• The trumpets have to move. The trumpets stand between the sixth seal and the sixth bowl. For the sixth bowl to fall at the sixth seal, the trumpets and the five months would have to move ahead of the sixth seal and overlap the first six seals.
• The trumpets would be blown before the trumpets are given. The seven messengers are given the trumpets at the seventh seal, which is after the sixth seal. On the overlap, those messengers would be blowing trumpets that they had not yet received.
• The bowls would be poured before the temple is opened. The seven messengers with the bowls come out of the temple, and the temple is opened at the seventh trumpet. On the overlap, the sixth bowl would be poured out before the seventh trumpet had opened the temple.

A reader could say that the series do not lead into one another in that way. But to reject the handoff from one series to the next is to reject the continuity the text gives. A consistent way of reading has to deal with that continuity.

The three kinds of time settle the question. The great day is designated and not counted, so the great day is not bound to 24 hours, and the five months have room. Nothing in the text had to be fixed. The three kinds set us in the context of what the text is saying. We are not changing the meaning of anything. We are keeping one consistent way of reading.

Who Speaks of the Day

Two parties speak of the great day.

The people who see the sign. When the sixth seal is opened, the sign is seen. The kings, the great men, and every bond-servant and free man hide “in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains” (Revelation 6:15, URV), and they say that “the great day” of wrath has come (Revelation 6:17, URV). God does not declare the day at this point. The people see the sign and recognize what has happened.

If the great day is not a 24-hour day, the people are saying that the day in which judgment falls is upon them. The day has made the day’s arrival visible. Think of the fifth seal, which comes before. The slain cry, “How long, O Master, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” and they are told to “rest yet for a small season” (Revelation 6:10–11, URV). Next in the sequence, though not necessarily two seconds later in time, the sign appears. Now the people know: the great day has come.

The book’s own narration. At the sixth bowl, the narration speaks of “the war of the great day of God, the Almighty” (Revelation 16:14, URV). Here the book names the day in the book’s own voice, and names the day as God’s. So the title does not rest on the fear of the people alone.

A Day of the Lord Is Not Measured in Hours

The great day is a type of day. Revelation does not use the phrase “the day of the Lord” for the great day. The prophets join the two: “Near is the great day of the LORD” (Zephaniah 1:14, NASB 1995). So this study reads the great day as a day of the Lord, and a day of the Lord is named by who is acting, not by a count of hours.

Isaiah’s oracle against Babylon shows this. Isaiah says, “the day of the LORD is near” (Isaiah 13:6, NASB 1995), and gives that day the same kind of signs in the sky: “the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light” (Isaiah 13:10, NASB 1995). The instrument of that day is an army: “I am going to stir up the Medes against them” (Isaiah 13:17, NASB 1995). A day carried out by an army is named by who is acting.

That is what the sixth seal presents. The Lord shows up for the Lord’s kind of day, and the lights of heaven are affected. The signs are seen, and by the signs the people know who is acting: they name “him who sits on the throne” and “the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16, URV). Here is a picture to help, and this picture is not in the text: think of a darkening or a covering of the sky. The lights can go dark to those on the earth without the stars vanishing out of the heavens. The text does not require that the stars cease to exist, since a third part of the stars is still there to be struck at the fourth trumpet (Revelation 8:12).

A day of that kind shows up with signs, and a day of that kind can go on for a while, even years. The Great Day — From the Sixth Seal to the War traces where the day begins and ends.

The War Is Within the Day

Revelation 16:14 is the verse to read most carefully. At the sixth bowl the spirits of demons go out to the kings “to assemble them to the war of the great day of God, the Almighty” (Revelation 16:14, URV).

Two things are certain from the wording.

• The kings are assembled to the war. “To the war” is where the assembling leads. “Of the great day” is attached to the war and tells which war. The wording cannot be read as the kings being assembled to the day.
• The verse does not say the day begins. No word in the verse speaks of the day arriving or starting. The one place where the book says the day “has come” is the sixth seal (Revelation 6:17, URV).

One thing is allowed by the wording and not required by the wording.

• The day is already present at the sixth bowl. The verse says “the great day,” a day the reader is expected to know, and the only earlier naming in the book is at the sixth seal. Read with 6:17, where the day has come, the day is already there, and the war is gathered into the day. A reader could also take the great day as the day on which the war is fought. The wording of 16:14 alone does not decide between the two. On the reading of this article, 6:17 and the sequence above decide.

So the gathering at the sixth bowl is not the creation of the great day. The great day is named in relation to the war, as the day the war is part of.

Conclusion

The point of this article is not to overwhelm anyone with facts and figures. The point is to show how Revelation speaks of time. When Revelation is specific, Revelation counts. When Revelation designates, Revelation gives a title. When Revelation does not want a time counted, Revelation does not count that time.

The great day is a designated time in which judgment falls. When the day comes, the day comes with the signs Jesus spoke of: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky” (Matthew 24:29, NASB 1995). Jesus then speaks of the Son of Man coming on the clouds while all the tribes of the earth mourn (Matthew 24:30). The opening of Revelation speaks of that coming in the same terms: “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth will wail over him” (Revelation 1:7, URV). This study reads “those who pierced him” as a phrase for the kind of people who pierced him, the Roman hand and the rebellious generation alike.

This also shows that Revelation is consistent in how Revelation speaks of time. Had the text said “in one day” of the great day, or counted the day in any way, this reading would be in error, and the five months of the trumpets would have to live inside 24 hours. The text does not count the great day. The great day is designated, the sequence stands, and the book does not contradict the book.