Let the Reader Understand
By D. G. Alley
As you read the Bible, you may
occasionally come across something that makes you stop and
say to yourself, “Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”
One of the instances of that phenomenon that always
caught my eye was something in the Olivet Discourse of
Jesus, as recorded in both Matthew and Mark:
Matt 24:15-16
15
"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the
abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the
prophet Daniel-- let the reader understand--
16
then let those who are in Judea flee to the
mountains.
(NIV)
Mark 13:14
14
"When you see 'the abomination that causes
desolation' standing where it does not belong-- let the
reader understand-- then let those who are in Judea flee to
the mountains.
(NIV)
Notice that both passages contain the
phrase, ‘let the reader understand.’ I
always found myself wondering, understand what?
Let’s consider that.
First, notwithstanding what a
red-letter Bible may indicate, Jesus did not utter those
words. On the Mount of Olives that day he
was speaking to his disciples, not writing to them.
Had he said something like that, he would have
referred to listeners, not readers.
Obviously, the gospel writers inserted that phrase into his
monologue.
Both Matthew and Mark thought Jesus had
said something important enough to call special attention
to. Unfortunately, neither writer seemed
to think that any further explanation would be required for
the reader to get the point. Unlike other
places in the gospels where the writers explained what Jesus
meant when he said something, or why he said it (Mark 3.30,
or John 12.33, for instance), in this case neither gospel
writer seemed to think that would be necessary.
Why? What were they
trying to point out? What was so obvious
to them that they thought their readers would ‘get it’
immediately?
To answer that, let us look first at
the prophecy Jesus was referring to, and then at the
audience he was speaking to.
Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is
talking about the prophecy of the seventy weeks, recorded in
Daniel, chapter nine:
Dan 9:24-27
24
"Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and
your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to
sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint
the most holy.
25
"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the
decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed
One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and
sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be rebuilt with streets and a
trench, but in times of trouble.
26
After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will
be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler
who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The
end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end,
and desolations have been decreed.
27
He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.'
In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice
and offering. And on a wing he will set up an abomination
that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is
poured out on him."
(NIV)
Now that we have identified the subject
of Jesus’ words, let us consider both his audience when he
mentioned the abomination of desolation, there on the Mount
of Olives, and the audience of the writers of the gospels.
Both the disciples and the first
century readers of the gospels were familiar with the
history of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, also known as
Antiochus Epiphanes. He had trashed both
the Jewish temple and the city of Jerusalem about 200 years
before the Olivet Discourse. Antiochus
had entered the temple, stole everything of value he could
find there, set up a statue of the Greek god Zeus, and
ordered the Jewish priests to start sacrificing pigs.
He also set fire to numerous buildings within the
city of Jerusalem, and took a healthy stab at tearing down
the city walls.
After Antiochus had died and the temple
had been cleaned out and rededicated some years later, the
Jews had instituted a celebration that has been observed
annually ever since. That celebration is
called Hanukah.
Those Jewish disciples listening to
Jesus on the Mount of Olives had been celebrating Hanukah
all of their lives. They knew that what
Antiochus had done was said to have fulfilled the prophecy
given to Daniel. Imagine their surprise
when Jesus uttered the words, “When you see…”
Jesus had just told them that the
prophecy recorded in the book of Daniel had not yet come to
pass. It still lay in the future.
Even though what Antiochus had done may have looked
like the fulfillment of the prophecy, Jesus had just
indicated that it was not.
And thus we have our answer.
Everyone listening to Jesus on the
Mount of Olives that day knew about the actions of
Antiochus, because they were memorialized on a yearly basis.
Since everyone knew, it was common knowledge at the
time. Therefore, no explanation was
deemed necessary by the gospel writers.
All they had to do was call special attention to the fact
that Jesus had indicated that, contrary to popular belief,
Daniel’s prophecy still awaited fulfillment.
The Jews of Jesus’ day had fallen into
a trap. They had taken what superficially
looked like the fulfillment of prophecy, and assumed that it
actually was the fulfillment. They failed
to notice that although the actions of Antiochus came close,
they didn’t actually fit.
Look again at the words of the book of
Daniel, above. The actions of the ‘prince
who will come’ appear to occur after the sixty-ninth week of
the prophecy. That would be at least 483
years after the command is issued to rebuild Jerusalem.
The actions of Antiochus happened a lot
sooner than that.
The angel’s words were, “From the
issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem…”
That decree was issued in about 444 BC.
The ravages that Antiochus visited upon the temple
and the city of Jerusalem happened in about 175 BC.
That’s only about 270 years later, not 483.
The disciples had an erroneous
understanding of the prophecy’s fulfillment until Jesus
corrected them.
Have we, as Christians, repeated their
mistake?
The disciples, along with the rest of
the Jews, had looked at what Antiochus did, and had ignored
the fact that it hadn’t happened after the sixty-ninth week.
Likewise, many Christians today look at the AD70
destruction of the temple by the Roman legions of Titus, and
assume that to be the destruction of the city and the
sanctuary referred to in the book of Daniel.
In fact, it has become common for those
who study prophecy to examine the soldiers who were in those
Roman legions, and to then attempt to draw conclusions about
the future antichrist, the ‘ruler who will come.’
Is it reasonable to do that?
Were those Roman legions actually the ‘people of the
ruler who will come?’
Daniel’s prophecy indicates that the
‘ruler who will come’ will make a seven-year treaty, then,
three and a half years later, he will put an end to the
sacrifices and set up the abomination that causes
desolation. Titus made no such treaty.
Neither did Antiochus.
Also, the ruler’s people will destroy
the sanctuary and the city. Any
common-sense reading of the prophecy would presume that the
‘people of the ruler to come’ would be alive at the same
time he was. Not a couple of thousand
years earlier.
Were the American soldiers who wintered
at Valley Forge in 1777 Barack Obama’s people?
Uh … no. Nor were they Ronald
Reagan’s people or Abraham Lincoln’s people.
They were George Washington’s people.
Similarly, were the soldiers of
Antiochus, or the soldiers of Titus, the ‘people of the
ruler who will come?’ Again, the answer
is no, and the reason is because neither man was the
prophesied ‘ruler who will come.’
The men who constituted the Roman
legions that destroyed the temple lived about two thousand
years ago. The antichrist, the ‘ruler who
will come,’ has yet to make his presence known.
When he does come onto the scene, he will have his
own people, contemporary with him. It
will be unnecessary to winnow through the annals of history
to find them. The ‘people of the ruler
who will come’ will be visible to all, and easily
identifiable to everyone. They will
proudly display his name or his number, and they will gladly
worship him and his image.
And then, when they finally make their
appearance, at some time that is still in the future, the
‘people of the ruler who will come’ will destroy the city of
Jerusalem and the sanctuary of the Jews.
That is what the reader should
understand.