---
title: Daniel 4:16
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/daniel-4-16/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/daniel-4-16.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Daniel 4:16
testament: OT
section: Prophets
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Daniel 4:16

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Let his mind be changed from that of a man, and let him be given the mind of a beast till seven times pass him by.

## JW Usage

Daniel 4:16 — "let his heart be changed from that of a man, and let the heart of a beast be given to him, and let seven times pass over him" — is the textual lynchpin of the Watchtower's 1914 doctrine. Through a day-year formula (360 × 7 = 2,520 days reinterpreted as years) and a 607 BCE starting point for Jerusalem's fall, JWs calculate that the "Gentile Times" ended in October 1914 with Jesus's invisible enthronement.

## Protestant Usage

Daniel 4 is about Nebuchadnezzar's personal humiliation — the chapter says so explicitly. The seven times are seven years of the king's personal madness. Verse 25 names the subject: "you will be driven from among men." Verses 28-33 record the fulfilment within Nebuchadnezzar's own lifetime. There is no textual signal that the "seven times" have a secondary 2,520-year meaning, no New Testament citation applying Daniel 4 to a future kingdom chronology, and no first-century Christian who read it that way. The 2,520-year calculation was borrowed by the Watchtower from John Aquila Brown (1823) and Nelson Barbour (1875), both failed Second-Adventist date-setters — as Watchtower historian Lyman Swingle acknowledged. Add the historical problem: virtually every archaeological source dates Jerusalem's destruction to 586/587 BCE, not 607. If the start date is wrong by two decades, the calculation fails before it begins.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [1914 Dating Error](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/1914-dating.md) — 587 vs 607 BCE [Eschatology]