Daniel; What is an abomination of desolation?

What is an “abomination of desolation”?
This resolves itself into three questions;
What is meant by “abomination”?
What is meant by “desolation”?
And what is the connection between them?

What is meant by ‘abomination’?

The Hebrew version of this word is found many times in the Old Testament.
I think the real heart of the concept can be found in the thought expressed in Deuteronomy ch13 vv13-14, where the name is applied to the proposal “let us go and serve other gods”.
God’s first and primary directive to his people was “You shall have no other gods but me”.
Anything that breaks that command is offensive to God, and so might be called an “abomination”.

The term is used for the gods of other nations- “Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites”- 1 Kings ch11 v5.
It includes the idols associated with their worship- “Cursed be the man who makes a graven or a molten image, an abomination to the Lord”- Deuteronomy ch27 v15
For that matter, it includes anything else that has been associated with the worship of other gods- gold or silver stripped from their statues, or money brought in from sacred prostitution- Deuteronomy ch23 v18.
Finally, in Proverbs, it gets extended to any behaviour which is not really compatible with obedience to God, such as adultery and dishonesty- Proverbs ch6 vv16-18.

The meaning of the English word is that something is detestable or loathsome.
In modern translations, we may find the phrase “disgusting thing”, which expresses a similar meaning more clumsily, and slightly weakens it.
Anyway, the word is expressing God’s forceful rejection of idolatry and idolatrous behaviour, a reaction which he wants his people to share.

What is meant by ‘desolation’?

The Hebrew version of this word goes back to a verb which means “to be desolate, laid waste”.
In some cases, like Ezra ch9 v3, translated as “astonished”- perhaps because the person’s ability to think has been “laid waste”.

The English word “desolation” comes ultimately from the Latin SOLUS- “alone”. It describes loneliness or bereavement or a sense of having been abandoned.
A “desolate” land is an empty land. It might have been made empty, destructively (“laid waste”), or it might be permanently uninhabited, like the wastes of Antarctica.

The derivation of the English word doesn’t tell us anything directly about the meaning of the Hebrew, but in this case we’ve also got a Greek translation.
The Greek version of the phrase “abomination of desolation” is found in 1 Maccabees, in the Septuagint translation of Daniel, and in the gospel accounts.
The basic meaning of the word used to translate the second part of the phrase is “made uninhabited”, and it comes ultimately from EREMOS- which, again, means “alone”.
This is important, because these passages were written by Jews, who obviously accepted that word as the best rendering of their understanding of the Hebrew.
This gives us good reason to understand “loneliness” as the real heart of the concept.

How does the Abomination bring Desolation?

When Antiochus Epiphanes set up an image of Jupiter in the Temple at Jerusalem, this was described as “an abomination of desolation”.
It’s been suggested that this phrase is a deliberate distortion of the title (“Baal of heaven”) which he would have given to the image.
Even if this is true, the words which were chosen for the distortion still have a meaning, and it’s still worth considering why they seemed appropriate.

Obviously the image was an “abomination” because it offered an alternative object of worship, but in what sense did it bring “desolation”?

One common understanding links “desolation” to the wars that follow the event in the Maccabean histories, and the equivalent troubles described in Daniel and in Matthew ch24.
This view is encouraged by Daniel ch9 v26, which associates “desolations” (in the plural) with war.

But this connection is rather indirect. It goes through the people’s reaction to what the king is doing, and the king’s reaction to their reaction, and so on.
It seems to me, examining the passages closely, that when the abomination “makes desolate,” in Daniel ch9 v27 and ch11 v31, this is an immediate effect, and something distinct from the wars described in the surrounding verses.

It’s possible to find a much more direct connection between “abomination” and “desolation” if we focus on the idea that “desolation” is about loneliness and loss of contact.
To the Jewish people of the time, the Temple in Jerusalem was the primary contact point between the nation and their God, and the continual sacrifice was the primary means of contact.
But the king had “stopped the sacrifices”. Or at least he had diverted them towards his own image, which comes to the same thing.
This had the appearance of breaking the contact between the Jewish nation and their God, leaving them bereft and isolated.
And that, I suggest, is what is meant by “making desolate”. Not a delayed effect, but the immediate consequence of setting up the image.

In that case, we can take the view that” abomination” and “desolation” are two different aspects of one and the same event.
The great sacrilege becomes an “abomination” by presenting an alternative object of worship.
At the same time, it makes a “desolation” by displacing the customary, legitimate, worship, on which the people have been depending.
To put it another way, “abomination” describes God’s own judgement on the sacrilege, and “desolation” describes how the same sacrilege is experienced by God’s people.

So I suggest that anything being put forward as another “abomination of desolation”, whether it’s an event in history or an expected event, needs to be able to match both those features.
It would need to be offering an alternative to the Biblical God, which would constitute the “abomination”.
It would also, at the same time, need to be obstructing the genuine worship of the Biblical God, which would be a cause of “desolation”.

The Dome of the Rock

reply to post by mikeprodigy

Thank you for the suggestion, but on my theory that only works if the Dome is not only being offered as an object of worship but also preventing the Biblical God from being worshipped.
Is the Dome inhibiting your public worship of God?

Originally posted by mikeprodigy
The Dome of the Rock

You know, I was about to respond saying that the man of sin would seat himself in the temple of God showing himself to be God, which is the conclusion that I always drew from Daniel. However, I was shocked when I read your simple answer. I have NEVER thought about that before. Very interesting conclusion.

reply to post by BBobb

The "man of sin" interpretation would, in my opinion, be a better parallel to the Daniel/Maccabees experience than the Dome.

When its destroyed it will bring desolation. The Dome of the Rock is over the Rock where Abraham offered sacrifice.

reply to post by mikeprodigy

Have you been reading my theory in the OP that the word "Desolation" is mostly about "a sense of losing contact with God", which is what the Jews felt about the first Abomination?

reply to post by DISRAELI


The Abomination that maketh desolate, That's the old King James.

reply to post by mikeprodigy

I'm not disputing the translation.
I'm just examining what the phrase "making desolate" actually means.
This needs to be our starting-point for identifying what the text is referring to.

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: RUN

reply to post by mikeprodigy

Yes, in Matthew ch24 they're told to run because the "tribulation" is coming.
My suggestion is that the "desolation" is not the same thing as the tribulation, but something that has already happened before the tribulation starts; a state of mind following on immediately from the establishment of the Abomination.

reply to post by DISRAELI


My understanding is not the same as the widely held belief.
When the Dome was built in 687 to 691 that's when the countdown of Daniel starts the 1290 yrs. to the completion 40 yrs. later we've been in the tribulation for awhile now.
When they built the Dome you could not offer sacrifice on the temple mount at Abraham's Rock of where he tried to sacrifice his son. Because of that, that's is why God was willing to sacrifice his son.

reply to post by mikeprodigy

The Dome may prevent sacrifice on the Temple Mount, but it doesn't prevent either Jews or Christians from worshipping in the rest of the world, so they're not being "left desolate" in the sense that I'm proposing.

Incidentally, the problem with saying we are already "in the tribulation" is that tribulation, at least as Revelation understands it, includes a wholesale persecution of the church, and that's not happening yet. That's one of the hazards of trying to calculate timetables (see my thread on "The futility of date-setting").

I'm not setting a date or hour.

reply to post by mikeprodigy

OK, you didn't actually suggest a date for the final end, but your middle sentence had a year-calculation, and I was just pointing out a practical problem with making that assumption; ie that the church itself isn't actually experiencing the kind of tribulation that John had in mind.

reply to post by DISRAELI


I think it is because its Christ's church and its teaching Bible babble instead of the love.
It's teaching to conform to the world, instead of setting a standard.
In places where it's growing and setting a standard it's coming under persecution.
Some One Called US Babylon.

reply to post by mikeprodigy

I think the yardstick ought to be what was happening in John's time.
When John said to his fellow-Christians "I share with you the tribulation", the persecution, or at least the vulnerability to persecution, was effectively universal.
Anyway, the U.S. cannot be Babylon unless and until it starts joining in with the persecution of Christians, to the extent that it can be called "drunk with the blood of the saints".

reply to post by DISRAELI


I think being drunk with the blood of the Saints is a metaphor.
It means it has many churches and its drunk with them.

reply to post by mikeprodigy

The phrase following "drunk with the blood of the saints" is "and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus".
If the text is going to start talking about the "martyrs of Jesus", I think we need to take it more literally.
Compare "cause to be slain" in ch13 v15, and also compare ch18 v24.

reply to post by DISRAELI


The cause to be martyred is to establish Christ's Church.