Daniel 11:31

Antiochus ordered his general, Apollonius, and a contingent of 22,000 soldiers, into Jerusalem on what he claimed was a peaceful mission. However, when they were inside the city, they attacked the Jews on a Sabbath, when the Jews were reluctant to exert themselves. Apollonius killed many Jews, took many Jewish women and children captive as slaves, plundered the temple, and burned the city. Antiochus’ objective was to exterminate Judaism and to Hellenize Palestine. Consequently he prohibited the Jews from following the Mosaic Law, and did away with the Jewish sacrifices, festivals, and circumcision (1 Maccabees 1:44-54). He even burned copies of their law. As a culminating measure, he installed an image of Zeus, his Greek god, in the temple and erected an altar to Zeus on the altar of burnt offerings (cf. 2 Maccabees 6:2). This was not the first time such a sacrilege had been committed. King Ahaz had set up an idolatrous altar (2 Kings 16:10-16), and King Manasseh had installed images of pagan gods (2 Kings 21:3-5), in the first temple. Then Antiochus sacrificed a pig, an unclean animal to the Jews, on the altar. This happened on December 16, 168 B.C. The Jews referred to this act as "the abomination that caused desolation" (cf. Daniel 12:11), since it polluted their altar and made sacrifices to Yahweh on it impossible (cf. Daniel 8:23-25). Antiochus further ordered his Jewish subjects to celebrate his subsequent birthdays by offering a pig to Zeus on this altar.

Jesus Christ indicated that another similar atrocity would befall the Jews in the future (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14). By the way, Jesus Christ’s explicit reference to "the prophet Daniel" being the writer of this prophecy in these verses should be proof enough that Daniel, rather than a second-century writer, wrote this book. Jesus referred to the coming atrocity literally as "the abomination that causes desolation," the exact words used in the Septuagint version of this verse in Daniel. Thus Antiochus’ actions were a preview of similar atrocities that are yet to befall the Jews. The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by the Roman general Titus has seemed to some interpreters to fulfill Jesus’ prediction. However, Titus did not treat the Jews as Antiochus did. Furthermore the Book of Revelation, which dates after the destruction of Jerusalem, predicts the coming of a "beast" who will behave as Antiochus did, only on a larger scale (Revelation 13). [Note: See Mark L. Hitchcock, "A Defense of the Domitianic Date of the Book of Revelation" (Ph.D. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary), 2005, for defense of this date.]

"Antiochus thus becomes a type of the future man of sin and his activities foreshadow the ultimate blasphemous persecution of Israel and the desecration of their temple." [Note: Walvoord, Daniel . . ., p. 268.]

"Just as the Saviour had Solomon and the other saints as types of His advent, so also we should believe that the Antichrist very properly had as a type of himself the utterly wicked king, Antiochus, who persecuted the saints and defiled the Temple." [Note: Jerome, p. 130.]