Matthew 24:15-22

The end at last (Mark 13:14-20; Luke 21:20-24). ὅταν οὖν, when therefore, referring partly to the preceding mention of the end, partly to the effect of the whole preceding statement: “This I have said to prevent premature alarm, not, however, as if the end will never come; it will, when therefore, etc.”; the sequel pointing out the sign of the end now near, and what to do when it appears. τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως : this the awful portent; what? The phrase is taken from Daniel as expressly stated in following clause (τὸ ῥηθὲν, etc.), vide Daniel 9:27; Daniel 11:31; Daniel 12:11. There and in 1Ma 1:54 it seems to refer to some outrage on Jewish religious feeling in connection with the temple (ᾠκοδόμησαν β. ἐρ. ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον are the words in 1Ma 1:54, similarly in Matthew 6:7). In a Jewish apocalypse, which this passage is by some supposed to form a part of, it might be expected to bear a similar meaning, a technical sense for a stereotyped expression. Not so on the lips of Jesus, who was not the slave of phrases but their master, using them freely. Then as employed by Him it must point to some broad, easily recognisable fact, which His followers could at once see and regard as a signal for flight; a fact not merely shocking religious feeling but threatening life, which He would have no disciple sacrifice in a cause with which they could have no sympathy. Then finally, true to the prophetic as distinct from the apocalyptic style, it must point to something revealing prophetic insight rather than a miraculous foresight of some very special circumstance connected with the end. This consideration shuts out the statue of Titus or Caligula or Hadrian (Jerome), the erection of a heathen altar, the atrocities perpetrated in the temple by the Zealots, etc. Luke gives the clue (Matthew 24:20). The horror is the Roman army, and the thing to be dreaded and fled from is not any religious outrage it may perpetrate, but the desolation it will inevitably bring. That is the emphatic word in the prophetic phrase. ἐρημώσεως is genitive of apposition = the horror which consists in desolation of the land. The appearance of the Romans in Palestine would at once become known to all. And it would be the signal for flight, for it would mean the end near, inevitable and terrible. ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ, one naturally thinks of the temple or the holy city and its environs, but a “holy place” in the prophetic style might mean the holy land. And Jesus can hardly have meant that disciples were to wait till the fatal hour had come. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων, etc.: this is most likely an interpolated remark of the evangelist bidding his readers note the correspondence between Christ's warning word and the fact. In Christ's own mouth it would imply too much stress laid on Daniel's words as a guide, which indeed they are not. In Mark there is no reference to Daniel, therefore the reference there must be to the gospel (on this verse consult Weiss-Meyer).