Abomination of Desolation

 

Revelation 18:5 RSV:  “For her sins are heaped as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”  (See Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14).

            The slaughter of their own countrymen in the civil wars, even in the Holy of Holies, was THE Abomination of Desolation, far worse than the Roman ensigns which were brought in later.  Josephus says:

And who is there that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets contain in them, – and particularly that oracle which is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? – for they foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter of his own countrymen! and are not both the city and the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen?  It is God therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge the city and temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your pollutions (Wars 6.2.1).

            This “oracle” probably refers to the prophecy of Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11, which was cited by Jesus in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 which was common knowledge in that day.  The misinterpretation that the abomination of desolation refers to the Roman ensigns is an error that has been cited numerous times and has been taken as a dogma in many churches.  The history of the times and the rabbinic usage of this phrase prove the error of the dogma.

            When John Levi arrived in Jerusalem, he incited the people, who were already strongly divided, to rebel more and more against Rome.  Other robber bands, driven out of the rest of the country, had also fled to Jerusalem making it a seething cauldron of murder, rapine, and plunder.  They even went beyond this:

Now the people were come to that degree of meanness and fear, and these robbers to that degree of madness, that these last took upon them to appoint high priests…. when they were satiated with the unjust actions they had done towards men, they transferred their contumelious behaviour to God himself, and came into the sanctuary with polluted feet….  Those men made the temple of God a stronghold for them, and a place whither they might resort, in order to avoid the troubles they feared from the people; the sanctuary was now become a refuge, and a shop of tyranny (Wars, 4.3.6-7).

The Christians who had not already fled Jerusalem surely must have seen this as “the abomination of desolation.”  The “best esteemed of the high priests”, Ananus, son of Ananus, said:

‘Certainly it had been good for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many abominations, or these sacred places that ought not to be trodden on at random, filled with the feet of these blood-shedding villains’ (4.3.9.).

 

            Ananus led the people against John and there was a great slaughter.  Many fell “by the edge of the sword”:

Great slaughter was made on both sides, and a great number were wounded.  As for the dead bodies of the people, their relations carried them out to their own houses; but when any of the zealots were wounded, he went up into the temple and defiled that sacred floor with his blood, insomuch that one may say it was their blood alone that polluted our sanctuary (4.3.11).

When Ananus and the people broke into the temple upon John, John took his army into the inner court, the Holy of Holies (4.3.11).  Josephus laments that the Romans had more respect for the Temple than did these robbers who were called Jews.

            John pretended to desire peace from Ananus, but betrayed him and sent for the Idumeans to help against Ananus.  The Idumeans rushed to the City where Simon son of Cathlas, one of the Idumean commanders, pretended to be insulted that Ananus and his followers excluded them from the City.  He promised to fight to be allowed in.  That night a violent storm broke out and Ananus, thinking they were in no danger from the Idumeans because of the storm, allowed his guards to go to sleep, whereupon John’s faction sawed the bars of the gates and let Simon’s army into the City.  The Idumeans slaughtered the priests:

And now the outer temple was all of it overflowed with blood; and that day … saw eight thousand five hundred dead bodies there (4.5.1-2).

            Multitudes of dead bodies were not buried and were eaten by wild beasts; some bodies were thrown over into the deep gorge just outside the wall.  The robbers sought out the remaining high priests to torture, mutilate and make sport of.  Some of the Idumeans soon tired of all this and went back home, but left Simon ben Cathlas with his army of robbers within the city as well as John Levi with his army.  At this point, escape from the city was almost impossible:

Many there were of the Jews that deserted every day, and fled away from the zealots, although their flight was very difficult, since they had guarded every passage out of the city, and slew every one that was caught at them, as taking it for granted they were going over to the Romans; … Along all the roads also vast numbers of dead bodies lay in heaps, and even many of those that were so zealous in deserting, at length chose rather to perish within the city; for the hopes of burial made death in their own city appear of the two less terrible to them…. They left the dead bodies to putrefy under the sun…. These men, … laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them… yet did these prophets foretell many things concerning … virtue, and … vice, which when the zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country: for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hands should pollute the temple of God.  Now while these zealots did not quite disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment (4.6.3).[1]

            With the coming of Simon ben Cathlas, the City had been divided into three warring factions.  Upon the defeat of Ananus, two were left, John‘s and Simon’s.  The city of Masada had likewise been taken over by the Sicarii who had made the countryside desolate by their ravages.

Nor was there any part of Judea that was not in a miserable condition, as well as its most eminent city also (4.7.2).

 

            During all this, even Vespasian had pitied the people.  He had marched against Gadara on the 4th of Adar, [Feb.-March ’68], where the people rose up against their own leaders and opened the gates for Vespasian.  Of those that fled some were slaughtered and some ran to Jericho.  Vespasian’s general Placidus slew 15,000 besides those that were forced into the Jordan, and took 2,200 prisoners besides the cattle and camels.

The Jordan could not be passed over, by reason of the dead bodies that were in it … the lake Asphaltitis [the Dead Sea], was also full of dead bodies that were carried down into it by the river (4.7.6).[2]

            When Vespasian heard of the trouble in Upper Germany, he wanted to settle things quickly in Judea.  One of his commanders, Trajan, had subdued the places beyond Jordan and met Vespasian at Jericho on the 2nd of Sivan [May-June] AD 68.  The rest of the country being now a desert, Vespasian prepared to take Jerusalem.  At this point:

Those that were in Jerusalem were deprived of the liberty of going out of the city; for as to such as had a mind to desert, they were watched by the zealots; and as to such as were not yet on the side of the Romans, their army kept them in, by encompassing the city round about on all sides (4.9.1).

            As if things weren’t bad enough during this tumultuous period Jerusalem gained another army of robbers.  Simon son of Giora, (another “Simon”), took Masada and attempted to take Jerusalem but was driven back by John Levi’s forces.  He then took over the government of the Idumeans and came again to take Jerusalem.  He devastated the country:

And as one may see all the woods behind despoiled of their leaves by locusts, after they have been there, so was there nothing left behind Simon’s army but a desert (4.9.7).[3]

            The zealots in Jerusalem infuriated Simon ben Giora by stealing his wife, making him even more beastly.  Upon his conquest of Idumea many of those people also fled to Jerusalem where he followed them and encompassed the wall in AD 68.

 

Jerusalem Compassed with Armies

            Right here, in the summer of AD 68, we find Jerusalem compassed with armies: Simon ben Giora outside the walls, Roman legions at Scythopolis and Caesarea, and the robber bands of John and Simon ben Cathlas within the City walls.  The signs foretold by Jesus were all there and probably John’s “oracle”, contained in the book of Revelation, came also at this time.  Surely the “catching away”, or flight of the Saints was miraculous!

            It was in the summer of 68, that Vespasian heard of Nero‘s death and sent Titus to salute Galba, the new Emperor.  Thus the Roman threat was temporarily abated.  In Jerusalem the people within the City were so desperate for relief from John Levi that they opened the gates for Simon ben Giora in Nisan [March-April], AD 69 and “the Great City” was again “divided into three (warring) parts“.  No greater tribulation has ever been recorded in history than that of the events from this time to the final end of the City.

            Later when the Roman troops both in Judea and in Egypt declared Vespasian as Emperor, he left Titus to subdue Jerusalem while he made his way to Rome to become Emperor.  Titus laid siege to the City, finally taking it on the 10th of Ab, (July-August), AD 70 (ibid., 6.4.5).

 

Signs in the Heavens

 

            The book of Revelation gives an exact date and time of day in 12:1:

And there appeared a great wonder [semeion, sign], in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

 

            This could have served as a calendar date and time of day as a signal for the Christians to gather at a certain time and come out as a body.[4]  The Jews considered the sun, moon and stars as having been created as ‘signs’ for time-telling, (Gen. 1:14).  The word ‘signs’ in Genesis 1:14 is ‘owth.  The LXX translation of this word is semeion, the word used in Luke 21:11, 25; Revelation 12:1, 3; 13:13.  John saw these “signs” in the heavens in Revelation 12:1, 3; 13:13; 15:1.

            Since time was determined by the heavens, the reference to the month when the sun would be in “Virgo”, “the woman clothed with the sun”, the day of the month when the moon would be under her feet, and the hour of the day when the handle of the Big Dipper, (the constellation called Aish/Ash in Hebrew), which points to her would be on the meridian, would be like our saying, for example, August 31 at high noon.  In that era the sun was in “Virgo” in August-September, a time that was “not in the winter.”

 

CONCLUSION:

            The Christians in Jerusalem were given an “oracle” or prophecy by which they fled to Pella.  Although they may have fled earlier, we know that they were in Pella in the year AD 68.  We know that Jesus had given them three distinct signs as a warning to flee from the City: (1) when they saw it compassed with armies; (2) when they saw the abomination of desolation in the Holy Place; and (3) that there would be “signs in the heavens“.  We know that Jerusalem was compassed with armies in the summer of AD 68.  We know that the abomination of desolation had also happened by the year AD 68.  We see that the book of Revelation contains the call to “Come Out” and the “signs” [Virgo] were in the heavens as indicated in 12:1.  We know that Jesus had warned them to pray that their flight would not be in the winter, and that those who were pregnant or had small children would suffer greatly.  Knowing this, they would not have waited, but would have fled as soon as they received the message.

            We know that Galba, the sixth Emperor reigned from summer AD 68 to January AD 69.  Thus, the book of Revelation is eminently suited to have played the role of the “oracle” that called the Christians out of Jerusalem just before its destruction.[5]

 

Remembered Iniquities

 

Revelation 18:5: “God hath remembered her iniquities.”

            This is reminiscent of Isaiah 26:21:

For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

 

            Moses Law commanded that willful murder must be avenged or the land would be polluted. (Num. 35:33-34).  The only way to cleanse the land after a murder was “by the blood of him that shed it, (innocent blood).”  Note that the Jews requested this judgment for themselves when Christ was crucified:

Then answered all the people, and said, His blood [be] on us, and on our children. (Matt. 27:25)

By AD 68, the willful murder of innocent people had reached epic proportions.

 

 

 

 

Widowhood and Childlessness

 

Revelation 18:7:  “How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.”

 

            This passage is reminiscent of Isaiah 47:7-9:

7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: [so] that thou didst not lay these [things] to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. 8 Therefore hear now this, [thou that art] given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I [am], and none else beside me; I shall not sit [as] a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: 9 But these two [things] shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, [and] for the great abundance of thine enchantments.

 

Also Jeremiah 18:21:

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their [blood] by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and [be] widows; and let their men be put to death; [let] their young men [be] slain by the sword in battle.

The most relevant referent, however, is Christ‘s words in Matthew 23:38:  “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”

            This same warning was sounded in 2 Esdras 1:33-35:

Thus says the Lord Almighty: Your house is desolate; I will drive you out as the wind drives straw; and your sons will have no children….I will give your houses to a people that will come, who without having heard me will believe [meaning the Christians].

 

            And again in 2 Esdras 2:5-7:

Because they would not keep my covenant, that you may bring confusion upon them and bring their mother to ruin, so that they may have no offspring.  Let them be scattered among the nations, let their names be blotted out from the earth, because they have despised my covenant (ibid., p. 25).