The Abomination of Desolation
Both the Lord Jesus and the prophet Daniel predict a terrible event called the Abomination of Desolation.
OVERVIEW
Both the Lord Jesus and the prophet Daniel predict a terrible event called the Abomination of Desolation.
In Matthew 24, the Greek word translated as abomination is βδέλυγμα (“bdelygma”). It means an abominable thing, an accursed thing. It is disgustingly abhorrent. It reeks with stench.
Also in Matthew 24, the Greek word translated as desolation is ἐρημώσεως (“erēmōseōs”). It means desolation, devastation, desecration.
These things are usually interpreted to mean that an abhorrent object (or person) will desecrate the temple in Jerusalem.
The passages about the Abomination of Desolation are very important in the field of Eschatology, which is the biblical study of the end of the present age, human history, or the world itself.
The Abomination of Desolation might have already taken place. In 167 BC, Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Greece invaded the temple. He set up an altar to Zeus over the altar of burnt offering, and sacrificed a pig on the altar.
Antiochus sprinkled the Torah in the temple with pig broth, extinguished the perpetual Lamp, and forced the high priest and other Jewish people to eat pork.
What Antiochus did was so abhorrent that the Jewish people started a war against his rule. Historians call it the Maccabean Revolt.
The Maccabean Revolt is documented in the deuterocanonical books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees and 3 Maccabees.
BIBLE VERSES
Daniel 9:27. He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the full end, and that determined, wrath will be poured out on the desolate.
Daniel 11:31. Forces will stand on his part, and they will profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and will take away the continual burnt offering. Then they will set up the abomination that makes desolate.
Daniel 12:11. From the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days.
1 Maccabees 1:54. And on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the hundred and forty and fifth year, they built an abomination of desolation upon the altar, and in the cities of Judah on every side they built idol altars.
Matthew 24:15. When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
RESOURCES
At Wikipedia
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.