<p>24:22&nbsp;<i>And except those days had been shortened</i>- The Babylonians besieged Jerusalem for a year before it fell, but the Roman siege lasted about five months- according to Josephus, from April 14 to September 8. God can shorten intended time periods at will, for time is seen by Him in a different dimension and context to our experience of it. According to 2 Sam. 24:15,16 LXX, it would seem that the three days of intended plague became one day, because of David's prayer and repentance, and God's pity; &quot;the Lord repented Him of the evil&quot;.&nbsp;It seems this shortening happened- for 1 Cor. 7:29 RV says that &ldquo;the time is shortened&rdquo;, in clear allusion to the Lord&rsquo;s words here. Perhaps this is why it was intended that there be 40 years from AD33 the crucifixion to the destruction of the temple; but this period was &ldquo;shortened&rdquo; by at least 3 years &ldquo;for the elect&rsquo;s sake&rdquo;. And the situation in the 1st century is evidently typical of ours today in these last days. They were to pray that their flight be not on the Sabbath or in the Winter, i.e. that the abomination that made desolate would not be set up at those times. Clearly prayer affected the exact chronology of events and thereby the fulfilment of prophecy.</p><p>&nbsp;The Greek tense specifically means that the days had already been shortened. And yet the verse concludes with the future tense: &ldquo;The days will be shortened&rdquo;. The Lord Jesus was confident that although the shortening was yet future, it had in essence been achieved. This may well have been by the Lord&rsquo;s intercession. In this case, Mk. 13:20 would be a comment inserted by the evangelist, referring to the Lord Jesus: &ldquo;The Lord had shortened the days&hellip; He has shortened the days&rdquo;. See on&nbsp;<i>The elect</i>. According to the parable of Lk. 13:8, the Lord Jesus had persuaded the Father to extend an intended time period for Israel&rsquo;s repentance, and had gained at least another year or half year of patient waiting for spiritual fruit on Israel. It&rsquo;s quite possible, therefore, that the intended &ldquo;days&rdquo; of suffering had already been reduced by the Lord&rsquo;s intercession, because He foresaw the weakness of the latter day &ldquo;elect&rdquo;; and also, simply was heartbroken at the prospect of all the suffering He was predicting. 2 Pet. 3:12 says we can hasten the coming of the day of the Lord- perhaps the Lord was speaking in faith that elect would indeed hasten it and thereby shorten the days. Hence He speaks in both past and future tenses concerning the shortening of the days. And yet on the other hand, it is the delay of judgment which allows opportunity for repentance and salvation (2 Pet. 3:15). Thus in the final algorithm controlling the coming of Christ, there are delay factors and hastening factors. The vision will in one sense &ldquo;not delay / tarry&rdquo; (Hab. 2:3 RV). And yet the same verse speaks of how it does &ldquo;tarry&rdquo;. Perhaps in a human sense it delays, but not from God&rsquo;s perspective. &ldquo;It hasteth toward the end&rdquo; (Hab. 2:3 RV) could imply that things are speeded up in their fulfilment in the very end time; for the elects sake the days until the second coming are shortened (Mk. 13:20). And yet things are also delayed- the bridegroom tarries / delays, to the point that many realize that the Lord has delayed His coming, and begin to act inappropriately. One reconciliation of these paradoxes could be that some prophecies are speeded up in their fulfilment because of the elect would otherwise lose their faith; and yet other prophecies seem to be delayed in fulfilment because of the unspirituality of others.&nbsp; The possibility of changing the fulfilment of prophetic time periods is to be found in Hab. 3:2: &quot;In the midst of the years revive...&quot;- i.e. please, God, do it immediately rather than waiting until the end of days. The difference in tenses between &ldquo;has shortened&rdquo; and &ldquo;will shorten&rdquo; may also simply reflect how God conceives of time in a radically different way to how we do. The shortening of time in a sense hasn't take place, but in another sense it has. There can therefore be no trite explanation of how God can hasten the second coming in accordance with our prayers, and yet also have a set time to favour Zion.</p><p>With so many allusions to Daniel&rsquo;s prophecies, perhaps &quot;the days&quot; in view are those of Daniel&rsquo;s various prophecies. Perhaps this is the explanation of the 1260, 1290 and 1335 days in Daniel 12; and the otherwise difficult reference to 2300 days in Daniel 8. As suggested in the digression about &lsquo;Conditional Prophecy in Daniel&rsquo;, these time periods may have referred to potential periods which had the possibility of extension and reduction- in accordance with the strange mixture of Divine grace, the intercession of Jesus, the prayers of believers, the repentance of Israel&hellip; and perhaps other factors. In Daniel&rsquo;s own experience, the 70 years of exile was a period which was extended. &ldquo;The days&rdquo; are likened to &ldquo;the days of Noah&rdquo; (:37). In the days of Noah again there was the possibility that no flesh would have been saved. The 150 days of flooding is perhaps the basis of Rev. 9:10, where Israel is to have 150 days of tribulation at the hands of her Arab enemies in the last days. The connection between the passages would therefore seem to be teaching that the final 150 days tribulation will be shortened due to the repentance of the remnant.</p><p><i>No flesh would have been saved</i>- &quot;Saved&quot; here may mean 'delivered'; it will appear that none of us will survive the tribulation, &quot;but for the elects&rsquo; sake those days shall be shortened&quot; and we will be saved by the second coming. Thus 2 Pet. 3:12,15 reminds us that by our prayers and spiritual development, the days before the second coming will be shortened. If they were not, even the elect would lose their faith (Mt. 24:22)- showing how those of us who are alive at Christ's coming will&nbsp;<i>barely</i>&nbsp;survive the spiritual traumas of the last days. The virgins were sleeping when they should have been watching; and Peter says that the righteous in the last generation (see context) will&nbsp;<i>scarcely</i>&nbsp;be saved (1 Pet. 4:18). So it would appear that the days of the final tribulation will be shortened, although in another sense the coming of the Lord is delayed in order to allow our greater spiritual development (Mt. 25:5). This &lsquo;delay&rsquo; is why the harvest will be &ldquo;over-ripe&rdquo; for reaping (Rev. 14:15 RV)- or is this a reference to the lack of zeal of preachers to Israel in the last days, not harvesting the ready fruit? The Lord likens the final tribulation to the travail of a woman to bring forth her child. But we read in Is. 66:7,8 in this same context of Israel&rsquo;s latter day suffering: &ldquo;Before she travailed, she brought forth: before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing?... for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children&rdquo;. This seems to imply that the expected period of Zion&rsquo;s travail will be cut short, and she will give spiritual birth far quicker than expected. Perhaps the Lord was alluding to this passage when He spoke of how &ldquo;the days&rdquo; of Zion&rsquo;s labour? shall be shortened.</p><p><i>But for the elect's sake</i>- Both the Lord Jesus and Israel are called &quot;the elect&quot; (Is. 42:1; 45:4); both are fulfilments of the servant songs in Isaiah. 1 Pet. 2:4,6 call Jesus &ldquo;the elect / chosen&rdquo; and then the same word is used about the believers being an elect / chosen nation (1 Pet. 2:9). The days will be shortened for the elect's sake- and this may refer to either the Lord Jesus, or the believers in Him; the shortening will be for the sake of<i> Christ&rsquo;s</i>&nbsp;intercession, as well as ours. It&rsquo;s tempting to understand &ldquo;the elect&rdquo; in the Olivet prophecy as referring to the same group- of faithful believers or perhaps specifically Jewish ones who are alive and remain until the Lord&rsquo;s coming. They are the ones who resist the temptation to be deceived in the very last days (:24) and who are snatched away at the Lord&rsquo;s coming &ldquo;from the four winds&rdquo;, suggesting they are located worldwide (:31). We note that Christ on the cross was called by the same word&nbsp;<i>eklektos</i>- &ldquo;the elect / chosen of God&rdquo; (Lk. 23:35). This group will indeed have identified with His crucifixion sufferings. Perhaps this is the group of believers who are also specifically called &ldquo;the elect&rdquo; who fight on Mount Zion alongside Jesus against the armies of Israel&rsquo;s enemies (Rev. 17:14). In the immediate context, the elect or chosen ones were perhaps intended by the Lord to refer to the listening disciples. Mk. 13:20 labours the point: &ldquo;For the elect&rsquo;s sake <i>eklektos</i>, whom He has chosen / elected <i>eklegomai</i>&rdquo;. The word is specifically used about the Lord&rsquo;s choosing of the twelve (Lk. 6:13; Jn. 6:70; 13:18; 15:16,19; Acts 1:2). He imagined them being scattered to &ldquo;the four winds&rdquo; in their obedience to the great commission, but thanks to them, the days would be shortened and they themselves would be gathered to Him at His return. That was the Lord&rsquo;s hope and ideal intention. It didn&rsquo;t happen in the first century, and thus has some element of reapplication in a different context in our last days.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p><i>Those days shall be shortened</i>&ndash; see on Rom. 9:28,29; 2 Pet. 3:9; Rev. 9:10. This was typified in the Joseph story. &quot;Then Joseph could not refrain himself...&quot; (Gen. 45:1) implies he planned to drag out the process of spiritually refining his brothers, but his love for them caused him to cut it short. &quot;For the elects sake the days shall be shortened&quot; by Christ (Mt. 24:22). The same Hebrew word in Gen. 45:1 is used in Is. 42:14 about how God can no longer refrain Himself in the last days. The RV has: &ldquo;had been shortened&rdquo;, suggesting that maybe the Lord had already been in dialogue with the Father and secured a decrease in the Father&rsquo;s original time period envisaged.</p>