'Years' in the Bible

So Darius the Mede received the kingdom; he was about the age of sixty-two.

He will speak words against the Most High [God] and wear down the saints of the Most High, and he will intend to change the times and the law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, [two] times, and half a time [three and one-half years].

in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books the number of years which, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the desolations [which had been] pronounced on Jerusalem would end; and it was seventy years.

“Seventy weeks [of years, or 490 years] have been decreed for your people and for your holy city (Jerusalem), to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make atonement (reconciliation) for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness (right-standing with God), to seal up vision and prophecy and prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

So you are to know and understand that from the issuance of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until [the coming of] the Messiah (the Anointed One), the Prince, there will be seven weeks [of years] and sixty-two weeks [of years]; it will be built again, with [a city] plaza and moat, even in times of trouble.

Then after the sixty-two weeks [of years] the Anointed One will be cut off [and denied His Messianic kingdom] and have nothing [and no one to defend Him], and the people of the [other] prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

And he will enter into a binding and irrevocable covenant with the many for one week (seven years), but in the middle of the week he will stop the sacrifice and grain offering [for the remaining three and one-half years]; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until the complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who causes the horror.”

After some years the Syrian king of the North and the Egyptian king of the South will make an alliance; the daughter (Berenice) of the king of the South will come to the king of the North to make an equitable and peaceful agreement (marriage); but she will not retain the power of her position, nor will he retain his power. She will be handed over with her attendants and her father as well as he who supported her in those times.

Also he will carry off to Egypt their [Syrian] gods with their cast images and their precious and costly treasure of silver and of gold, and he will refrain from waging war against the king of the North for some years.

For the king of the North will again raise a multitude (army) greater than the one before, and after several years he will advance with a great army and substantial equipment.

And I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, as he held up his right hand and his left hand toward heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and a half a time (three and a half years); and as soon as they finish shattering and crushing the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

But as for you (Daniel), go your way until the end [of your life]; for you will rest and rise again for your allotted inheritance at the end of the age.”

A day of darkness and gloom,A day of clouds and of thick [dark] mist,Like the dawn spread over the mountains;There is a [pagan, hostile] people numerous and mighty,The like of which has never been beforeNor will be again afterwardEven for years of many generations.

“And I will compensate you for the yearsThat the swarming locust has eaten,The creeping locust, the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust—My great army which I sent among you.

The words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa, which he saw [in a divine revelation] concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

“Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,And I led you forty years through the wildernessThat you might possess the land of the Amorite.

“Did you bring Me sacrifices and grain offerings during those forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? [Certainly not!]

O Lord, I have heard the report about You and I fear.O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years,In the midst of the years make it known;In wrath [earnestly] remember compassion and love.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘These people say, “The time has not come that the Lord’s house (temple) should be rebuilt.”’”

Then the Angel of the Lord said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will You withhold mercy and compassion from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which You have had indignation and anger these seventy years [of the Babylonian captivity]?”

speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the Lord of hosts and to the prophets, saying, “[Now that I am returned from exile] shall I weep in the fifth month [mourning the destruction of the temple], and fast as I have done these many years [in Babylon]?”

“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years [that you were in exile], was it actually for Me that you fasted?

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in ancient years.

Then Herod, when he realized that he had been tricked by the magi, was extremely angry, and he sent [soldiers] and put to death all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that area who were two years old and under, according to the date which he had learned from the magi.

Then a woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the [tassel] fringe of His outer robe;

A woman [in the crowd] had [suffered from] a hemorrhage for twelve years,

The little girl immediately got up and began to walk, for she was twelve years old. And immediately they [who witnessed the child’s resurrection] were overcome with great wonder and utter amazement.

But they were childless, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both far advanced in years.

And Zacharias said to the angel, “How will I be certain of this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in age.”

There was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old, and had lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage,

and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She did not leave the [area of the] temple, but was serving and worshiping night and day with fastings and prayers.

And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem, according to the custom of the Feast;

And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and men.

When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son [by marriage] of Eli,

But in truth I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was closed up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land;

for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. But as Jesus went, the people were crowding against Him [almost crushing Him].

And a woman who had [suffered from] a hemorrhage for twelve years [and had spent all her money on physicians], and could not be healed by anyone,

And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many good things stored up, [enough] for many years; rest and relax, eat, drink and be merry (celebrate continually).”’

so he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and have found none. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground [depleting the soil and blocking the sunlight]?’

And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had an illness caused by a spirit (demon). She was bent double, and could not straighten up at all.

And this woman, a daughter (descendant) of Abraham whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?”

But he said to his father, ‘Look! These many years I have served you, and I have never neglected or disobeyed your command. Yet you have never given me [so much as] a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends;

Then the Jews replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and You will raise it up in three days?”

There was a certain man there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not even fifty years old, and You [claim to] have seen Abraham?”

He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.

for the man to whom this sign (attesting miracle) of healing had happened was more than forty years old.

And this is, in effect, what God spoke [to him]: That his descendants would be aliens (strangers) in a foreign land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.

“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush.

This man led them out [of Egypt] after performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

But God turned away [from them] and handed them over to serve the host of heaven. As it is written and forever remains written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not [really] to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed.

For a period of about forty years He put up with their behavior in the wilderness.

When He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave their land [to our ancestors] as an inheritance—this took about four hundred and fifty years.

Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.

This continued for two years, so that all the inhabitants of [the west coast province of] Asia [Minor], Jews as well as Greeks, heard the word of the Lord [concerning eternal salvation through faith in Christ].

Therefore be continually alert, remembering that for three years, night or day, I did not stop admonishing and advising each one [of you] with tears.

When the governor nodded for him to speak, Paul answered,“Knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I make my defense cheerfully and with good courage.

Now after several years I came [to Jerusalem] to bring to my people charitable contributions and offerings.

But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded [in office] by Porcius Festus; and wishing to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul imprisoned.

And Paul lived there for two full years [at his own expense] in his own rented lodging and welcomed all who came to him,

Without becoming weak in faith he considered his own body, now as good as dead [for producing children] since he was about a hundred years old, and [he considered] the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

But now, with no further place for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you—

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, [only] God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven.

Then three years later I did go up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas (Peter), and I stayed with him fifteen days.

Then after a period of fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem, [this time] with Barnabas, taking Titus along also.

This is what I mean: the Law, which came into existence four hundred and thirty years later [after the covenant concerning the coming Messiah], does not and cannot invalidate the covenant previously established by God, so as to abolish the promise.

[For example,] you observe [particular] days and months and seasons and years.

A widow is to be put on the list [to receive regular assistance] only if she is over sixty years of age, [having been] the wife of one man,

And like a robe You will roll them up;Like a garment they will be changed.But You are the same [forever],And Your years will never end.”

Where your fathers tried Me by testing [My forbearance and tolerance],And saw My works for forty years[And found I stood their test].

And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies were scattered in the desert?

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours [with the same physical, mental, and spiritual limitations and shortcomings], and he prayed intensely for it not to rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Nevertheless, do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day.

But leave out the court [of the Gentiles] which is outside the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles (the nations); and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months (three and one-half years).

And I will grant authority to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days (forty-two months; three and one-half years), dressed in sackcloth.”

Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that she would be nourished there for a thousand two hundred and sixty days (forty-two months; three and one-half years).

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time (three and one-half years), away from the presence of the serpent (Satan).

And the beast was given a mouth (the power of speech), uttering great things and arrogant and blasphemous words, and he was given freedom and authority to act and to do as he pleased for forty-two months (three and a half years).

And he overpowered and laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent [of primeval times], who is the devil and Satan, and bound him [securely] for a thousand years (a millennium);

and the angel hurled him into the abyss, and closed it and sealed it above him [preventing his escape or rescue], so that he would no longer deceive and seduce the nations, until the thousand years were at an end. After these things he must be liberated for a short time.

And then I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those to whom judgment [that is, the authority to act as judges] was given. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had refused to worship the beast or his image, and had not accepted his mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

The rest of the dead [the non-believers] did not come to life again until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection.

Blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired) and holy is the person who takes part in the first resurrection; over these the second death [which is eternal separation from God, the lake of fire] has no power or authority, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with Him a thousand years.

And when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison (the abyss),