The angel raised both hands toward the sky and made a solemn promise in the name of the Eternal God. I heard him say, “It will be three and a half years. When the persecution of God's people ends, all these things will have happened.”
Then I heard one angel ask another, “How long will these things that were seen in the vision continue? How long will an awful sin replace the daily sacrifices? How long will the army of heaven and the Temple be trampled on?”
But the disciples did not understand any of these things; the meaning of the words was hidden from them, and they did not know what Jesus was talking about.
His disciples did not understand this at the time; but when Jesus had been raised to glory, they remembered that the scripture said this about him and that they had done this for him.
They tried to find out when the time would be and how it would come. This was the time to which Christ's Spirit in them was pointing, in predicting the sufferings that Christ would have to endure and the glory that would follow.