Daniel's Abomination of Desolation

October 8, 2026 Also see the chart "From Shattering to Blessing"

The Book of Daniel concludes with a prediction of three mysterious time periods--in Daniel 12:7, 11, and 12. The only clue provided for how to begin to measure these periods is provided in verse 11, rather cryptically, when Daniel is told that the second time period will begin when "the abomination that makes desolate is set up,". What does that mean? Is it about the future Antichrist many Christians dread? Or is it about the Greek ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, who many scholars go on and on about? Or is it about when Titus desecrated and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70? Or when the Roman General Pompey defiled the Temple in 63 B.C.? Or when the Roman governor of Syria looted the Temple in 54 B.C.? There are lots of candidates for the Abomination of Desolation. (In my sermon on Matthew 24:15-28, I explained how the phrase is used there.) And what we decide about that mysterious phrase determines how we measure the final time periods Daniel is told will stretch to the end times blessing he waits for (Dan 12:7-12). 

In my last sermon on the book of Daniel, almost a decade ago, I offered an interpretation about those last three prophetic time periods mentioned in Daniel 12:7, 11, and 12--the "time, times, and half a time," the 1290 years, and the 1335 years (see that sermon for why I count those periods in years instead of days). But since that time, closer consideration of the wording in Daniel 12:7, 11, and 12 have led me to an alternative conclusion. If you're sufficiently caffeinated, let's dive into it.

Verse 7 does not specify from when the "time, times, and half a time" are to be measured. Counting the "time, times, and half a time" as 1260 years, all verse 7 says is that there would be at least that much time before these "wonders" are finished. But then, verse 11 appears to add another long period after that: another 1290 years. Verses 8-12 read like the two periods might be consecutive rather than parallel. In verse 8, Daniel asks about the final "outcome." In verse 9, he is told, basically, that it's not for him to know, and, more or less, to carry on with his life. In verse 10, he is told about the future deeds of many people, including those who appear to be the righteous (some of whom will gain understanding) and the wicked (none of whom will ever understand this). But then verse 11 provides a difficult-to-understand clue that, apparently, is intended as a help to the future righteous and wise people mentioned in verse 10. And that clue provides an anchor point from which to measure not the 1260 year period already mentioned (because Daniel was already told at least that much time would pass before all these things would happen), but another long period of time belonging to the eschaton (the end times)--another 1290 years. 

What events verse 11 identifies as the anchor point for the 1290 years is difficult to say. Many scholars assume this must be the same event prophesied in Dan 11:31 because of the similar wording--"the abomination that makes desolate" (ESV)--and that it must refer to the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Ephiphanes. But as I explained in my sermon on Daniel 11:31, the "abomination" in question there is better understood as the apostasy of the Jewish people that led to divinely appointed desolations as punishment. That is also what the similar wording is about before that in Daniel 9:27 where Daniel is told about "extreme abominations causing desolation" (my translation). Not the desecration of the Jewish Temple by a pagan ruler. But the treachery of the Jews themselves--their abominable attempts to make themselves righteous leading them to reject the "righteousness of God" in Christ Jesus (Rom 10:3). Jewish apostasy resulted in desolations in 168/167 B.C. when Antiochus Epiphanes ruled Jerusalem. And that wasn't the first time or the last time. It happened again in A.D. 30 when Pontius Pilate was Governor of Jerusalem. And it had happened long before that as well, when Jehoiakim was King of Jerusalem. In fact, that's the very first event mentioned in the Book of Daniel. "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it." (Dan. 1:1 ESV) And the 2 Chronicles is not shy about saying what that awful thing happened, and why it eventually saw the total desolation of Jerusalem.

All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem.  15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.  16 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy.  17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand.  18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.  19 And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels.  20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia,  21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate...  (2 Chr. 36:14-21 ESV)

The true nature of Judah's abominations is exposed graphically, and explicitly, by God through the prophet Ezekiel, where the Lord Himself compares their idolatry to whoredom and adultery. Read Ezekiel 23--especially about Judah in verses 11-49, where God decrees that Judah will drink the cup of her "desolation," (Eze 23:33), and the prophet is instructed to declare "their abominations," (Eze 23:36). Read it. Be disgusted by it. Be sickened and filled with revulsion. And understand that's how vile and awful and evil it is when people turn from trusting in the living God to find satisfaction in sin; when people who claim to be God's people refuse to humble themselves before God and pray for mercy, and instead rely on their own works, or on idols. The very next verses in Ezekiel 24 reveal that because of Judah's abominations, the desolations begun with Babylon's conquest of Jerusalem in 605 B.C. were now about to be completed in the siege and subsequent destruction of Jerusalem in the year 587 B.C.

So at the very end of the Book of Daniel, when Daniel is once again told about a particular time and event when abominations causing desolation will replace the regular and proper worship of God (for that translation see my sermon on Daniel 8), he would probably not assume the angel is referring to what was going to happen in 168/167 B.C., or in A.D. 30. If anything he might assume the angel is talking about what happened in 587 B.C. But as he is told, it is not for him to understand. This is all about the distant future. The end times. And the facts of history suggest an alternative interpretation to any of these. An almost identical phrase is used in Daniel 8:14, "the transgression that makes desolate." Which clarifies that the desolation is the result of people's sin. In Daniel's lifetime it was the sin of the people of Judah that was condemned as "abominations" that resulted in "desolations." But Daniel 8 foretells desolations that result from the transgressions of another people over a thousand years later. And in my sermon on that passage in Daniel 8 (see above) I explained that what was predicted there was fulfilled in the rise of Islam in the 7th century. Those who survived the Islamic conquest of the supposedly "Christian" lands of the Byzantine Empire still did not repent of their abominations. Immediately after John sees those particular desolations predicted in his vision, Revelation 9:20-21 concludes,

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.  (Rev. 9:20-21 ESV) (See here and here for my interpretation of Revelation 9)

If you measure the "time, times, and half a time" (1260 years) from 605 B.C. (Dan 1:1), you get A.D. 638 (for the math, see my article, "Daniel's Calendars,"). The very year that Jerusalem was conquered by Islamic invaders. Over the next several decades, Christianity was replaced in the Levant by Islam. That triumph was commemorated in the construction of the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, which was finished in 715. The power of the holy people in the Levant--both Jewish and Christian--was finally shattered. But exactly 1290 years after A.D. 715, "the power" of the Jews regained control of Jerusalem in the Six Day War of 1967. And exactly 1335 years after A.D. 715, "the power" of Islamic rule in Damascus was badly shaken by the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, and led to the total collapse of the Assad regime. Time will tell whether what we are witnessing right now in Syria, in Iran, in the Arabian Peninsula, and really throughout the Middle East, is the unwinding of Islamic military power that has dominated the Holy Land for 13 centuries. But by this reading of Daniel's prophecies, that seems to be exactly what's happening.

The whole book of Daniel is about the abominations that cause desolation. All the Gentile empires prophesied to rule over the Jewish people and their homeland, are the desolations that result from their apostate abominations. It's why Daniel was in Babylon instead of safely at home in Judah. And so when someone--probably an angel--asks the high priestly "man clothed in linen," "How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?"" (Dan. 12:6 ESV), the question is asking when all the prophesied desolations will finally be finished, and when the Kingdom of the Son of Man (Dan 7:13-14) will come at last. But what really ought to strike us is that in the midst of Jewish abominations that deserve such punishment from God, there is a supernatural being, speaking with profound authority, dressed like a High Priest, clothed in linen.

 "The man clothed in linen" raises his hands to heaven and swears "by him who lives forever" that the fulfillment of these awesome predictions won't be for a long but defininite period of time--1260 years. And then there will be another 1290 years. And then blessing is attached to the one who witnesses events a few decades after that. I've already discussed those verses above. But what I want to come back to now as I wrap this up, is the presence of this High Priest in the midst of prophecies of desolation because of sin. Who is he?

What you should notice in verse 7, is that he swears exactly what Yahweh God swears near the end of the Book of Deuteronomy. The passage is found right after God says He will vindicate His people and have compassion on them, “when he sees that their power is gone” (Deut. 32:36 ESV). And that too is exactly what Daniel hears the High Priest clothed in linen talking about in verse 7: "when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end." The plot thickens. But look what it says in Deut 32:40. Yahweh God says, “For I lift up my hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever,” that at that time he will avenge His children and take vengeance on His enemies (Deut. 32:40, 41-43 ESV). The fact that the "man clothed in linen" (v7), first introduced in Dan 10:5, repeats the very same oath God Himself swears in Deut 32:40 helps to identify the speaker as divine. In other words, He is Christ, the Son of God. But then, in another great book of prophecy, written half a millennium later, we find the very same oath, made in the same way, by a supernatural being with divine appearance. 

This third dramatic, divine oath is found in Revelation 10:6. The great messenger from heaven, whom John saw in his vision, also swears using the same words, raising his hand like God does in both Deuteronomy and in Daniel. And that should settle once and for all any question about who that mighty messenger from heaven is. The repetition of the oath, the form of it, the authority behind it, and the glorious weight of this thrice underlined promise, reveals the speaker as the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Taking these three oaths together, in order, a progression becomes evident--a progress bar of sorts, spanning the Scriptures from the Pentateuch to Revelation:

1. Yahweh God swears that one day He will avenge His children (Deut 32:40)

2. The Son of God swears that at a particular time in the future all these predictions will be fulfilled (Dan 12:7)

3. The Son of God swears that the era in which He will fulfill all these predictions has now come (Rev 10:6)

Daniel 12:7-12 identifies the end-times era as beginning once the "power of the holy people" is shattered. That happened in the 7th century A.D., and was commemorated by the erection of a great mosque in Damascus. The oath of Christ in Rev 10:6 gives additional light and identifies the end-times era as the period of the seventh trumpet. As I've shown in my preaching and in my podcast on Revelation 16, the era of the seventh trumpet began in the 16th century and now, in 2026, appears to be in its final stages.