In Babylonian astrological or omen texts, texts with which Daniel would undoubtedly have been familiar, the same phenomenon occurs. A. K. Grayson notes that where regnal years and dynastic sequences are given in these texts there are instances where a period of seven years occurs as a purely literary device and is not literal.64 In 2 Chron 36:17–23 the period of time from the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem to the establishment of the Persian empire—a period of approximately fifty years—is described