Daniel 4:16
Daniel 4:1616Let 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.
— "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.
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.