Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), (24:15)

People have a natural longing for a better day, a time of peace and harmony among nations, of greater economic stability, and of decreased crime, disease, and discord. But Scripture is clear that, despite temporary times of improvement, things are destined to become much worse before they permanently become better. Human society faces a time that is going to be more calamitous than any ever experienced before. “Then there will be a great tribulation,” Jesus said, “such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall” (Matt. 24:21). The Tribulation will encompass the entire world but will focus on the nation and people of Israel. It will mark the end of man’s day and the coming of God’s.

The prediction of the time of trouble did not originate in the Olivet discourse or in Jesus’ previous teaching but in the prophetic teachings of the Old Testament. As Isaiah looked forward to that day, the day of the Lord, the day of great judgment, and the day of Messiah’s establishing His kingdom on earth, he wrote: “Now it will come about in that day that the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 10:20).

A time is coming when most of the people of Israel will be massacred by an enemy they thought was their friend, and only a remnant will elude the slaughter. At the time of the very end, just before the time of judgment, Israel will suffer vicious betrayal by one they trusted and they will be subjected to a holocaust from which few will escape. Those who are spared will turn back to the Lord and be saved. They will no longer trust in themselves or in any human ally but will henceforth trust only in the Lord. “A remnant will return,” the prophet says, “the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant within them will return; a destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness” (Isa. 10:21-22).

Jeremiah envisioned the same terrible time and presents additional dimensions:

For thus says the Lord, “I have heard a sound of terror, of dread, and there is no peace. Ask now, and see, if a male can give birth. Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in childbirth? And why have all faces turned pale? Alas! for that day is great, there is none like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved from it. And it shall come about on that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “that I will break his yoke from off their neck, and will tear off their bonds; and strangers shall no longer make them their slaves. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.” (Jer. 30:5-9)

Excruciating pain, like that of childbirth without anesthetic, will be experienced by all of mankind. Even men will be on their knees as if in labor, holding themselves as they writhe in agony. Yet out of that suffering will come the deliverance, repentance, and salvation of Israel.

Daniel foresaw that the archangel “Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued” (Dan. 12:1).

Zechariah wrote,

“And it will come about in all the land,” declares the Lord, “that two parts in it will be cut off and perish; but the third will be left in it. And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ” Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. (Zech. 13:8-14:2)

In Matthew 24-25 Jesus was speaking of that coming time of indescribable horror in the world that will focus on the nation of Israel, a time of which Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Zechariah had already spoken in considerable detail. Although Israel as a nation and the Jewish people in general have endured many periods of great suffering throughout history, including the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70 and the extermination of many millions of them by Nazi Germany and communist Russia in modern times, the holocaust of the end time will vastly exceed those.

In 24:4-14 Jesus foretold six signs of His coming again that would be like birth pains, which come at the very end of a pregnancy and with increasing rapidity and severity until the child is born. Now He predicts the sign that will trigger those birth pains.

As explained in the previous chapter, Jesus’ use of you in the Olivet discourse does not refer to the disciples or to anyone else living at that time but rather refers prophetically to those who will be living in the end time, just before He returns.

The event that activates the birth pain signs will be the abomination of desolation and will be like the abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet. In his parallel passage, Luke adds that Jesus said, “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand” (21:20). In other words, it is while Jerusalem is encompassed by enemy nations who threaten to destroy her that this sign will occur.

For several decades, the modern nation of Israel has increasingly become a major focal point of world events, events that involve not only the Middle East but also the great powers of the United States, Russia, China, and many nations of Europe. Naval fleets from the United States and Russia continue to grow in strength and readiness in the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the other great bodies of water in that part of the world.

During the end times, the Antichrist will head a confederacy of ten European nations that will generally correspond to the territory of the ancient Roman empire (see Dan. 7:24; cf. 2:40-43), and he will at first pretend to be Israel’s deliverer from her enemies, and she will make an alliance with him (9:27). But after he is victorious over the nations from the south, north, and east who have come against Israel, he will reveal his true evil character and his hatred for Israel and for God (Dan. 11:40-45). It is while occupying Israel under the guise of being her protector that the Antichrist will commit the abomination of desolation.

Bdelugma (abomination) denotes an object of disgust, repulsion, and abhorrence. In Scripture it is used primarily to denote things associated with idolatry and gross ungodliness. The Hebrew equivalent was often used of rites and paraphernalia associated with the wicked conduct of pagan religions. In the book of Revelation it is used to represent the immoralities and spiritual uncleanness of the false religious system known as “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots” (17:45). In the new heaven and new earth there will be “nothing unclean and no one who practices abominations and lying” (21:27).

The abomination of desolation may be translated, “the abomination which makes desolate, or lays waste.” In other words, the abomination causes the desolation.

The prophet Daniel referred to the abomination of desolation three times (9:27; 11:31; 12:11). Virtually every Bible scholar, no matter what his views on eschatology, identifies that abomination as the sacrilege committed by Antiochus IV, the Syrian king who ruled Palestine from 175-165 B. C. as a surrogate of the Greek empire. He took to himself the title Theos Epiphanes, which means “manifest god,” but his enemies nicknamed him Epimanes, which means “madman” or “the insane one.” Ironically, when he died in 163, he was totally insane, outraged to the point of madness because of his military defeats by the Jewish rebel Judas Maccabaeus. The text of Daniel 11:21-35 perfectly describes the rule of Antiochus, who gained his throne “by intrigue” (v. 21), made numerous excursions into Egypt (vv. 24-27), broke his covenant with Israel (v. 28), and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem (v. 31).

The apocryphal books of 1 and 2 Maccabees vividly portray the time of Antiochus and the Jews’ zealous resistance to his brutal and sacrilegious tyranny. He slaughtered countless thousands of Jewish men, sold many of their wives and children into slavery, and tried to completely obliterate the Jewish religion. He desecrated the Temple by sacrificing a pig, the most ceremonially unclean of all animals, on the altar and forcing the priests to eat its flesh. He then set up in the Temple an idol of Zeus, the pagan deity he fancied himself as manifesting. That horrible defilement by Antiochus was a preview of the even greater abomination of desolation to be committed by the Antichrist in the end time.

Daniel had predicted: “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgressions, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place” (9:24). “Seventy weeks” is literally “seventy sevens” and refers to years (cf. 9:2). In other words, 490 years would transpire before the Messiah would return to establish His eternal kingdom of righteousness. As Daniel explained in the following verse, that measurement would begin at “the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem,” the decree issued by King Artaxerxes in 445 B. C. (see Neh. 2:5-6). The prophet also explained that “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks” (69 weeks, or 483 years) would pass “until Messiah the Prince” (Dan. 9:25). It has been calculated that exactly 483 years elapsed from that decree of Artaxerxes until Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when He was acclaimed Messiah and King by the multitude (for detailed explanations of those dates, see Sir Robert Anderson’s The Coming Prince [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1954] and Harold Hoehner’s Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977]).

After that time and before the seventieth and final week of years, “the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Dan. 9:26). That is a picture of Jesus’ crucifixion and of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70.

Then the deceitful prince “will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate” (v. 27). That last week, or seven-year period, of the seventy weeks will begin when Israel makes a covenant with the Antichrist, thinking he will be her great deliverer.

In modern Israel, fear of the Arabs and the Russians runs very deep. Not only do those combined enemies outnumber Israel in manpower and weaponry by several hundred times but their hatred for Jews is intense. Ezekiel prophesied that Magog (identified by Josephus as the land of what is now Russia), Meshech and Tubal (Asia Minor, or modern Turkey), Persia (modern Iran and Afghanistan), Ethiopia (including modern Sudan), Put (Libya), and other nations will unite against Israel (Ezek. 38:26).

I have heard Israeli soldiers say that if Arabs believe Allah tells them to kill Jews, that is what they will do, and any treaties or peace pacts that forbid such action will mean nothing.

As the modern Satan-inspired alliance of Russia and many Arab nations continues to grow, it becomes evident that the prophetic picture of the end time is unfolding. When that threat to her becomes extreme, Israel will seek security and protection from a powerful ally by making a pact with the European confederacy to the west, which will also be satanically energized.

Halfway through the final week of years, at the end of the first three and a half years, the deceptive leader of the western confederacy (Antichrist) will violently turn against Israel, set himself up as God, and commit the abomination of desolation that activates the Great Tribulation, which brings about intense persecution of Jews.

Interpreters have proposed numerous identities for the holy place, some suggesting it is the city of Jerusalem and others that it is the holy of holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple. In the only other passage where the phrase is used in the New Testament, it plainly refers to the Temple itself (Acts 21:28), and that seems to be the only reasonable meaning to take for it in Matthew 24:15. David also referred to the Temple as the Lord’s holy place (see Ps. 24:3).

“And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days” (Dan. 12:11). The desecration of the Temple will not be momentary but continuous, described by Jesus as standing in the holy place. From the time the daily sacrifice is canceled and the abomination of desolation begins, 1290 days will pass until the end, 30 more days than three and one half years. Yet according to Revelation 12:6, the Great Tribulation will last 1260 days. It seems that the best explanation for those additional days is that they will cover the time when the Messiah descends to the Mount of Olives, creates the great valley in which the nations of the world will be judged, and executes that judgment (see Zech. 14:4-5; Matt. 25:31-46).

Daniel continues by saying, “How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days!” (12:12), which adds an additional 45 days. That additional time would seem to be a transition period during which the Lord establishes His throne in Jerusalem and sets up places of leadership throughout the earth that will be governed in His behalf by His appointed representatives. So there are the 1260 days of trouble, followed by 30 days to break down man’s kingdom and 45 days to set up the Lord’s.

Further details of the abomination of desolation are given in the book of Revelation. Pictured as the beast coming up out of the sea, the Antichrist will be given “a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies; and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him” (Rev. 13:1, 5). Forty-two months translates into three and a half years, or 1,260 days, which will be the Great Tribulation, the second half of the last week of years. As the Antichrist continues his blasphemies against God’s name, tabernacle, and heavenly citizens, “it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them; and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain” (vv. 7-8). His cohort, the false prophet, will then join him and perform great signs and wonders in order to promote the worship of the Antichrist and will even enable an image of the beast to talk and cause the deaths of those who refuse to worship (vv. 11-15).

Antiochus Epiphanes set up an idol in the Temple to be worshiped by the Jews, but the Antichrist will set himself up as God and demand worship from all mankind. He will end all sacrifice in the Temple and commit the abomination that makes the holy place desecrated and desolate, a place utterly detestable to Jews.

Then the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, “the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, . . . takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). He is “the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (vv. 9-10). That is the abomination of desolation.

The exhortation let the reader understand reinforces the fact that Jesus was not giving the warnings in the Olivet discourse to the disciples themselves or to their generation but to believers in the end time, who will read those truths in Scripture and thereby be enabled to understand the trials they are enduring.