Daniel 7:25 (ESV):
25 He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.
More than once I've seen this verse being brought up by Sabbatarians to show that a change from Sabbath observance to Sunday worship was allegedly prophesied by Daniel. Are they right?
This will not answer the question but provide some background. (The answer to this question is impossible without a grander scheme of eschatology and prophetic interpretation.)
The two words at question here are:
זִמְנִ֣ין (zimnin) = times
The root word זְמָן occurs only 11 times in the OT, all but one (Ezra 5:3) occur in Aramaic portion of Daniel, namely, Dan 2:16, 21, 3:7, 8, 4:36, 6:10, 7:12, 22, 25. Thus it means (by BDB)
time (probably loan-word from Old Persian zrvan, zarvâna, time, age, NöM 152 Scheft45; compare Biblical Hebrew (late); and (on change of ν [b] to m) FräZA iii. 52; Nabataean זמן, Palmyrene (Nabataean) זבן Lzb266; Lzb268 SAC48. 49); — absolute ׳ז Daniel 2:16; Daniel 7:12; emphatic זִמְנָא Ezra 5:3 +; plural absolute Daniel 6:11 +, emphatic זִמְנַיָּא Daniel 2:21; — time: specified time Daniel 2:16; appointed time Daniel 7:12,22, compare Daniel 2:21; בֵּהּ זִמְנָא at that time Ezra 5:3; Daniel 3:7,8; Daniel 4:33; (festival) seasons Daniel 7:25; time, occurrence, Daniel 6:11; Daniel 6:14 three times in the day.
וְדָ֔ת (w'-dat) = and law
The word דָּת occurs 14 times: Ezra 7:12, 14, 21, 25, 26 (twice), Dan 2:9, 13, 15, 6:5, 8, 12, 15, 7:25. BDB gives these meanings:
1 decree of king Daniel 2:13,15; Ezra 7:26; with suffix Daniel 2:9 decree against you.
2 unchangeable law of Medes and Persians Daniel 6:9; Daniel 6:13; Daniel 6:16.
3 law of God (in mouth of non-Jews): Daniel 6:6; Ezra 7:12,14,21,26, so (absolute) Daniel 7:25; laws of God Ezra 7:25.
Note that BDB classifies (correctly as is obvious from the context) Dan 7:25 as the Law of God.
Therefore, whatever Dan 7:25 prophesies, it has something to do with changing times in [God's] laws.
To “speak words against the Most High” trying (NIV) “to change the times and the law” has to be anti God as in promoting unclean and evilness, and would refer to the in the Bible prophesied coming “Anti Christ”.
Shall persecute (NKJ) “the saints of the Most High" and " the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time", sounds like it refers to the so called "Great Tribulation" period (Rev 7:14), which could last for 3.5 years.
So, no. The Bible passage in question doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any official change of the Sabbath day; the weekly day of rest, to which our Lord discouraged rigid observance.
I confess I have never heard any charge that Daniel prophesied there would be a change from the Jewish Sabbath observance to Sunday worship. The former starts from sundown on Friday (the 7th day of the Jewish week) and the latter starts from midnight on Sunday (the 1st day of the Jewish week). All I have heard is that some people claim it was the Catholic Church who switched Sabbath day worship to a Sunday, but the Bible book of Acts tells us that the first Christians gathered together for worship on Sundays.
Going back to Daniel chapter 7, the fourth beast represents a kingdom that will speak against the Most High God and persecute the people of God. This fourth beast does the bidding of Satan whose aim is to wear out the saints (the people of God) and silence them. Here is part of a commentary by Matthew Henry:
He shall think to change times and laws, to abolish all the ordinances and institutions of religion, and to bring everybody to say and do just as he would have them. He shall trample upon laws and customs, human and divine. He pulls down, he builds, he changes square into round, as if he meant to alter even the ordinances of heaven themselves. And in these daring attempts he shall for a time prosper and have success; they shall be given into his hand until time, times, and half a time (that is, for three years and a half), that famous prophetical measure of time which we meet with in the Revelation, which is sometimes called forty-two months, sometimes 1260 days, which come all to one. But at the end of that time the judgment shall sit and take away his dominion (v. 26), which he expounds (v. 11) of the beast being slain and his body destroyed...
Henry asks, who is this enemy, whose rise, reign, and ruin, are foretold? He then shows how various interpreters do not agree. He then says:
but others will have the fourth kingdom to be that of the Romans, and the little horn to be Julius Caesar, and the succeeding emperors (says Calvin), the antichrist, the papal kingdom (says Mr. Joseph Mede), that wicked one, which, as this little horn, is to be consumed by the brightness of Christ's second coming. The pope assumes a power to change times and laws, potestas autokratorikeµ—an absolute and despotic power, as he calls it. Others make the little horn to be the Turkish Empire...
But yet it has a further reference, and foretells the like persecuting power and rage in Rome heathen, and no less in Rome papal, against the Christian religion, that was in Antiochus against the pious Jews and their religion. And St. John, in his visions and prophecies, which point primarily at Rome, has plain reference, in many particulars, to these visions of Daniel. Source: https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=mh&b=27&c=7
Whatever interpretation is favoured, one thing seems clear to me. This has nothing to do with Sabbath keeping. As others have said, it depends on your eschatological position. Whatever fulfilments were experienced by God’s people during and after the fall of the Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians, the various Greek Ptolemies and Seleucids, the Maccabees and Hasmoneans and the Roman Empire, there is a greater fulfilment still to come, as described in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The beasts who are empowered by the Antichrist are hell-bent on destroying God’s people, and the final conflict is still some time future.
consider
Philip Melanchton (1553) Lutheran who co-authored the Augsburg confession with Martin Luther. "he changed times and laws... or when they changed the Saturday into Sunday... they changed Gods laws and turned them into their own traditions to be kept above God's precepts." Exposition on Daniel the Prophet 1545 Ad pg. 119
Consider. "... Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath-day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." Article 28 Of Ecclesiastical Power, The Augsburg Confession.
The dated Laws were lost in Babylonian captivity. The solar Hebrew was swallowed by Babylons lunar. As Exodus records the SIGN of SANCTIFICATION is Sabbath keeping, with noncompliance, death, our loving Creator would teach the original composition to our world before judgment. Roman's 2:12-16 shows when the people who do not have law, keep the law by nature, that will be when God judges the secret things of mankind. Christians keeping the lunar, modern calendar ( Babylonian modified about 12 times) see Sunday as the first day of the week and sacred. This year, the original Hebrew Calendar Sabbath falls on a Sunday, and judgment coming on October 6 will fulfill Roman's 2. We could look at Daniel 7: 25 as identifying the person of lawlessness.
