Mark 13:14

THE CONSPIRACY OF THE JEWISH AUTHORITIES TO PUT JESUS TO DEATH--THE SUPPER AND THE--ANOINTING AT BETHANY--JUDAS AGREES WITH THE CHIEF PRIESTS TO BETRAY HIS LORD. ( = Mat. 26:1-16; Luk 22:1-6; Joh 12:1-11). (Mar 14:1-11) After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread--The meaning is, that two days after what is about to be mentioned the passover would arrive; in other words, what follows occurred two days before the feast. and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death--From Matthew's fuller account (Mat. 26:1-75) we learn that our Lord announced this to the Twelve as follows, being the first announcement to them of the precise time: "And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings" (Mat 26:1) --referring to the contents of Mat. 24:1-25:46, which He delivered to His disciples; His public ministry being now closed: from His prophetical He is now passing into His priestly office, although all along He Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses--"He said unto His disciples, Ye know that after two days is [the feast of] the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified." The first and the last steps of His final sufferings are brought together in this brief announcement of all that was to take place. The passover was the first and the chief of the three great annual festivals, commemorative of the redemption of God's people from Egypt, through the sprinkling of the blood of a lamb divinely appointed to be slain for that end; the destroying angel, "when he saw the blood, passing over" the Israelitish houses, on which that blood was seen, when he came to destroy all the first-born in the land of Egypt (Exo 12:12-13) --bright typical foreshadowing of the great Sacrifi…

The Jews, in rebelling against the Romans, and in persecuting the Christians, were hastening to their own ruin apace, both efficiently and meritoriously, were setting both God and man against them; see Th1 2:15. Now here we have a prediction of that ruin which came upon them within less than forty years after this: we had it before, Mat 24:15, etc. Observe, I. What is here foretold concerning it. 1. That the Roman armies should make a descent upon Judea, and invest Jerusalem, the holy city. These were the abomination of desolation, which the Jews did abominate, and by which they should be made desolate. The country of thine enemy is called the land which thou abhorrest, Isa 7:16. Therefore it was an abomination, because it brought with it nothing but desolation. They had rejected Christ as an abomination, who would have been their salvation; and now God brought upon them an abomination that would be their desolation, thus spoken of by Daniel the prophet (Dan 9:27), as that by which this sacrifice and offering should be made to cease. This army stood where it ought not, in and about the holy city, which the heathen ought not to have approached, nor would have been suffered to approach, if Jerusalem had not first profaned the crown of their holiness. This the church complains of, Lam 1:10, The heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into the congregation; but sin made the breach, at which the glory went out, and the abomination of desolation broke in, and stood where it ought not. Now, let him that readeth this, understand it, and endeavor to take it right. Prophecies should not be too plain, and yet intelligible to those that search them; and they are best understood by comparing them first with one another, and at last with…

13:14-20 Jesus now gave the sign requested in 13:4 and instructed his followers how to respond when they saw it. In 13:5-13, they were told not to be alarmed. Here they are told that those in Judea must flee to the hills. 13:14 The day is coming when you will see the sacrilegious object that causes desecration: Mark did not explain what this object would be, but Jewish readers in the first century were familiar with the term. The prophet Daniel had foretold that such an object would stand in the Temple in Jerusalem (Dan 9:27; 11:31), and many Jews understood the events in Jerusalem in 167–164 BC, during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, to be a fulfillment of that prophecy. (The deuterocanonical book of 1 Maccabees, written about 100 BC, narrates Antiochus’s reign and describes how Antiochus and his followers erected a “sacrilegious object causing desecration on top of the altar for burnt offerings,” 1 Maccabees 1:54, 59). • standing where he should not be: In light of the historical background and the reference to Jerusalem (Mark 13:2, 4) and Judea (13:14), this clause clearly refers to something inappropriate happening in the Temple in Jerusalem. • (Reader, pay attention!): Mark alerted his original readers to pay attention to his description of this sign, which indicates that the expression required careful thought and discernment. Mark’s readers were to look for a sign that was similar to what had happened in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. • Although the phrase sacrilegious object that causes desecration is grammatically neuter, the word standing is grammatically masculine, so it refers to a person and not a thing. Suggestions as to who it might have been include: (1) the emperor Caligula, who in AD 39–40 attempted to erect a statue of himself in the Temple (Jos…