ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION

abomination of desolation

The idolatrous image to be set up by the Antichrist (the "beast," or "man of lawlessness" of 2 Thes 2:3-4) in the restored Temple at Jerusalem in the latter half of Daniel's seventieth week (Dan 9:27; 12:11). For the first part of the three and one-half years the Antichrist keeps his covenant with the Jews. At the beginning of the last half of the week he breaks it and commands the Jews as well as the whole world to worship his image. This is "the abomination (idol) of the desolator" or "the idol that causes desolation" (Dan 11:31; 12:11), which will begin the period of "Jacob's trouble" (Jer 30:7), a time of testing for the Jews to prepare them to receive their Messiah whom they rejected at His first coming, as well as a time of doom for the nations (Ezek 30). In (Dan 11:31) the reference is to the act of Antiochus Epiphanes (a type of the final Antichrist) who, in June 168 B.C. desecrated the Temple at Jerusalem. He built an altar to Jupiter Olympus on the altar of burnt offering, dedicated the Temple to this heathen deity, and offered swine's flesh. History maintains that neither Antiochus Epiphanes nor the Romans under Titus in A.D. 70 fulfilled Daniel's prophecy. Amillennial interpretation, sees a fulfillment in the advance of the Romans against Jerusalem in A.D. 70 with their image-crowned standards, which were regarded as idols by the Jews.