What is the abomination of desolation?

Question 10031.

The abomination of desolation is a phrase that comes straight from the prophet Daniel and is picked up by Jesus Himself, and it describes a supreme act of sacrilege that marks the turning point of the Tribulation. When I speak of the abomination of desolation I mean the moment the Antichrist desecrates the temple in Jerusalem and sets himself up as an object of worship, breaking his covenant with Israel and plunging the world into its darkest hour.

Jesus took this phrase with great seriousness. He told His disciples that when they saw the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, they should flee without delay. So this is no obscure detail for prophecy specialists. It is a signpost the Lord Himself gave, and understanding it helps the whole shape of the end times fall into place.

Where the Abomination of Desolation Comes From

The phrase belongs first to Daniel, who used it three times to describe a defiling act set up in the temple. He foretold a coming ruler who would put an end to sacrifice and offering, and on the wing of abominations would come one who makes desolate (Daniel 9:27). Daniel also spoke of the regular burnt offering being taken away and the abomination that makes desolate being set up (Daniel 12:11).

The Hebrew word behind abomination, shiqquts, means something detestable, especially an idol or idolatrous act that pollutes what is holy. To place such a thing in the temple of God was the ultimate insult, a deliberate trampling of the sacred by the profane. That is the flavour of the abomination of desolation: not ordinary sin but calculated blasphemy in the very house of God.

So when Jesus referred to the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel (Matthew 24:15), He was pointing His hearers back to these passages and forward to their ultimate fulfilment. He treated Daniel as a real prophet describing a real event still to come.

A Foreshadowing in History

There was a striking preview of the abomination of desolation about two centuries before Jesus. The Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes seized Jerusalem, halted the temple sacrifices, and set up an altar to Zeus in the holy place, reportedly sacrificing a pig on it. To a faithful Jew this was the abomination of desolation in the flesh, a horror that provoked the Maccabean revolt.

I take that event as a genuine foreshadowing, a pattern that shows the kind of thing Daniel described. But it cannot be the whole fulfilment, because Jesus spoke of the abomination of desolation as still future in His own day, long after Antiochus was dead and gone. The Lord looked past the historical preview to a final and greater desecration yet to come.

This is how a good deal of prophecy works, with a near event serving as a model of a far one. Antiochus showed the world what the abomination of desolation looks like; the Antichrist will exceed him. The pattern was set in history so that we would recognise the reality when it finally arrives.

The Ultimate Abomination of Desolation

The full and final abomination of desolation still lies ahead, at the midpoint of the seven-year Tribulation. The Antichrist will make a covenant with Israel and then break it halfway through, stopping the temple sacrifices and setting up the ultimate blasphemy in the holy place (Daniel 9:27). This is the hinge on which the whole Tribulation turns, dividing it into two halves.

Paul describes the same figure, the man of lawlessness, who takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). That self-exaltation in the sanctuary is the heart of the abomination of desolation: a creature demanding the worship due to the Creator alone, in the very place set apart for God’s name.

For this to happen there must be a functioning temple in Jerusalem, which is why the abomination of desolation implies a rebuilt temple and restored sacrifices during the first half of the Tribulation. The pieces fit together into a coherent picture, and they all wait for their appointed hour.

Why Jesus Made It a Sign to Flee

Jesus attached an urgent instruction to the desolating sacrilege. When you see it, He said, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and do not even go back for a cloak (Matthew 24:16-18). The desecration signals that the second half of the Tribulation, the great tribulation of unequalled distress, is about to break upon the earth.

The reason for the haste is that the that desecration unleashes the Antichrist’s full fury against Israel and against all who will not worship him. The mask is off, the covenant is shattered, and a time of persecution begins such as the world has never seen. The command to flee is the mercy of God warning His people to get clear before the storm.

So the this abomination is not only an act of blasphemy but a prophetic alarm. It tells the faithful in that day exactly where they stand in the calendar of judgement and exactly what they must do. God does not leave His people to be caught unawares.

The Abomination and the Antichrist

The desolating sacrilege is bound up with the person of the Antichrist, the beast of Revelation who demands the worship of the whole earth. His desecration of the temple is the public claim to deity that his whole career has been building toward, and it is enforced by his religious partner, the false prophet, whom I discuss in my article on the false prophet.

This is why the that desecration is such a concentrated picture of evil. It gathers up idolatry, blasphemy, covenant-breaking and persecution into a single act, and it sets the Antichrist openly against God. Everything counterfeit and rebellious in the man of lawlessness comes to a head in that moment in the holy place.

Yet even here God is not caught out. The this abomination runs on a timetable that Daniel measured in days, and its allotted span is fixed. The Antichrist rages, but only for a season, and only within limits that the God of heaven has set.

A Fixed and Limited Time

One detail comforts me every time I read it. Daniel does not leave the desolating sacrilege open-ended; he counts the days. From the setting up of the abomination there are a specified number of days, and blessed is the one who waits and arrives at the end of them (Daniel 12:11-12). Even the worst blasphemy in history is on a clock that God controls.

That numbering tells me the Antichrist is not writing the script. He struts across the stage for three and a half years after the that desecration, and then his time is up. The Lord Jesus returns in power, the beast is thrown down, and the desecration is answered by the arrival of the true King in the very city the Antichrist defiled.

So the this abomination, terrible as it is, is a bounded evil in an unbounded God’s plan. It marks the deepest point of the night, but the night has a fixed end, and the dawn belongs to Jesus.

How This Shapes My Hope

What do I take from all this? First, that the Bible is precise, and that events Daniel sketched centuries before Jesus still await a literal fulfilment. That precision strengthens my confidence that every other promise, including the return of my Lord, will be kept just as exactly.

Second, that the Church, as I understand the sequence, will already have been caught up before the desolating sacrilege ever occurs, since these events belong to God’s renewed dealings with Israel in the Tribulation. That is a comfort, not a boast, and it makes me long all the more for the appearing of Jesus.

Third, that no rebellion, however brazen, escapes the reach of God. The that desecration is the enemy’s high-water mark, and it is followed immediately by his ruin. That is the pattern of the whole Bible, from Pharaoh to the beast, and it is the pattern I stake my life on. Evil is always allowed its hour, and evil is always answered by the God who has the last word.

So, now what?

Read %s alongside %s and watch how Jesus treats Daniel as a trustworthy prophet describing a real, future event. Let the precision of prophecy strengthen your confidence that God keeps His word to the letter. The this abomination marks the darkest hour of history, yet it runs on God’s clock and ends in the triumph of Jesus. If the Lord is that firmly in control of the worst the enemy can do, will you not trust Him with the smaller storms of your own life?

“So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place… then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” (Matthew 24:15-16, ESV)