Having clarified what the sign of the coming destruction would not be, Jesus now explained what it would be. Matthew and Mark both described the destruction preceding Jesus' second coming. Luke recorded Jesus' teaching about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (Luke 21:20-24).
13:14 "But"identifies the contrast between the false and true signs. The true sign was the appearance of the abomination of desolation (cf. Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Matt. 24:15).
The abomination of desolation is something abominable associated with idolatry that would defile the temple resulting in its desertion by the godly.315The ultimate abomination would be the Antichrist, the abomination in view primarily in Matthew and Mark's accounts. The immediate abomination would be the polluting of the temple preceding its destruction in 70 A.D. A former abomination was the Syrian Antiochus Epiphanes who erected a pagan altar over the brazen altar and sacrificed a pig on it to Zeus in 167 B.C. (1 Macc. 1:41-64; 6:7).316
The abomination would be standing where it did not belong. Mark described Jesus saying that the abomination (Gr. bdelygma, a neuter noun) would stand (estekota, a masculine participle) as a person who set himself up as God in the temple. The fact that Jesus used a masculine participle to modify a neuter noun suggests that the abomination is a man.
Mark avoided referring specifically to the temple sanctuary, though Matthew did refer to it (Matt. 24:15). Perhaps Mark did this to avoid planting the idea of polluting the temple in any Roman reader's mind. His parenthetic instruction to the reader would have encouraged Roman Christians to seek the identity of the place in Daniel's prophecy (Dan. 9:25-27).
When the Zealots occupied the temple in 67-68 A.D. and installed a usurper, Phanni, as high priest, Jewish Christians fled from Jerusalem to Pella, a transjordanian mountain town.317This flight prefigured the one that will take place in the future (i.e., the Great Tribulation).
13:15-18 The point of these instructions is that the appearance of the abomination of desolation will require immediate flight from Jerusalem. The situation will be urgent.
13:19 This verse clarifies the time of the appearance of the abomination as in the Tribulation (Gr. thlipsis, Dan. 12:1; Jer. 30:7). Jesus looked beyond the destruction of Jerusalem to a much greater Tribulation.318
13:20 God will not shorten the Tribulation to a period less than the seven years He has already announced (Dan. 9:26-27). He has already chosen to shorten it to a period of seven years.319If he did not limit the Tribulation to this relatively brief duration, no one would survive. God's special love for believers led Him to shorten His judgment on the world then to only seven years.
13:21-23 Jesus repeated His warning about people who will claim to be the Messiah (cf. vv. 5-6) so His disciples would not believe them. "If possible"(v. 22) does not imply that the elect will inevitably continue to believe in Jesus and follow Him faithfully. If that were so, Jesus' repeated warnings would be meaningless. It means that the false Messiahs will do miracles with the intent of leading the elect into error if they, the false Messiahs, can (cf. 2 Tim 3:1-15). In view of this possibility, Jesus' disciples need to be discerning (Gr. blepete, v. 23).
