This exact expression occurs only in Matt. 24:15 and Mark 13:14, referring to what had been revealed to Daniel 12:11, where it is connected with the great tribulation (ver. 1) spoken of by the Lord in those Gospels. Daniel 9:27 shows that the time of the abomination is in the last half of the last of the seventy weeks named in Daniel 9:24. The person who makes a covenant with the Jews in those days and afterward breaks it, we know to be the head of the future Roman empire. See SEVENTY WEEKS. Of this person an image will be made, and the people will be constrained to worship it (Rev. 13:14-15); but we do not read that it will be carried into the future temple; whereas our Lord says that the abomination will stand in the holy place. On the other hand we read that the Antichrist “exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:4). The “abomination of desolation” is evidently connected with the trinity of evil spoken of in Revelation 13, and will be the work of Satan, the Roman beast, and the false prophet. It will end in dire desolation. The desolator is the Assyrian (Isa. 8:7-8; Isa. 28:2,18), the northern king who will then hold the territory of Assyria (Dan. 11:40).