Desolation is abominable.
There are many abominable things to God. Idolatry is abominable. He considers graven images are an abomination. Cross-dressing is an abomination to God. Religious rites involving prostitutes and/or harlots is an abomination. Divorcing a wife and taking her back after she's remarried using dishonest weights, lying, shedding innocent blood, spreading strife among brothers and many other matters are said by God to be abominable to Him. Among the most abominable things, however, is desolation.
Desolation goes all the way back to Genesis 1:2. A study of the Hebrew "
bohu," or "
wabohu" will reveal how much it runs through scripture from beginning to end (and how much God loathes it). When the people become desolate they do the many things God considers abominable. When all are combined it's the desolation itself that is abominable.....
the abomination of desolation.
Matthew 23:37-39 ESV
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
To better understand this, it's best to read the entire narrative beginning in Matthew 21:18 all the way through to Matthew 26:5. Matthew is describing the events of a single day. To understand that day even better follow Jesus' parables as he approaches Jerusalem before entering. His parables move from the matter of salvation to that of judgment. To better understand Jesus' cleaning out the temple study the OT Laws on cleaning out an infested house. For example.....
Leviticus 14:33-45
The LORD further spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: "When you enter the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a mark of leprosy on a house in the land of your possession, then the one who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, 'Something like a mark of leprosy has become visible to me in the house.' The priest shall then command that they empty the house before the priest goes in to look at the mark, so that everything in the house need not become unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to look at the house. So he shall look at the mark, and if the mark on the walls of the house has greenish or reddish depressions and appears deeper than the surface, then the priest shall come out of the house, to the doorway, and quarantine the house for seven days. The priest shall return on the seventh day and make an inspection. If the mark has indeed spread in the walls of the house, then the priest shall order them to tear out the stones with the mark in them and throw them away at an unclean place outside the city. He shall have the house scraped all around inside, and they shall dump the plaster that they scrape off at an unclean place outside the city. Then they shall take other stones and replace those stones, and he shall take other plaster and replaster the house. If, however, the mark breaks out again in the house after he has torn out the stones and scraped the house, and after it has been replastered, then the priest shall come in and make an inspection. If he sees that the mark has indeed spread in the house, it is a malignant mark in the house; it is unclean. He shall therefore tear down the house, its stones, and its timbers, and all the plaster of the house, and he shall take them outside the city to an unclean place.
Jesus entered the city and found the house of God infested with corrupt practices. He cleaned it out. He was going to be there a week. He returned the next day to find the temple re-infested. It did not take even one day for the corruption within the temple to return. The Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, teachers of the Law, ALL of them tried to challenge Jesus and by the end of the day they were conspiring to murder an innocent man.
Proverbs 6:16-19
There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.
The men that met that night did all six of the things God listed as abominable in Proverbs 6. They were the same ones who'd tried to deceive Jesus and make him stumble earlier in the day. Jesus had told them their house was desolate. He told them the guilt for the blood of the prophets and apostles would be on them. Two days later they were reported my Matthew saying...
Matthew 27:24-26
When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this Man's blood; see to that yourselves." And all the people said, "His blood shall be on us and on our children!" Then he released Barabbas for them; but after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.
We cannot fathom the desolation Jesus saw. I once lived a life surrounded by criminals and I've seen some pretty depraved things (were I to describe some of them in detail I be banned from the forum - any Christian forum in which I might post the accounts). Every reader would view that through the eyes of a former sinner now washed clean by Christ's blood but Jesus saw it as a man who knew no sin but that which others put on him. He was mocked and ridiculed, beaten and tortured multiple times (during which he was probably sodomized), scourged to the fileting of his skin,
nailed (not tied) to a cross the cursed death of a criminal, and abandoned.
The day before
they lied to his face. They presented themselves as learned authorities sincerely interested in his answers but behind that disingenuous facade they were haughty, lying, blood-shedding, wicked planners who
ran zealously into evil with lies and lies and more lies.
The entire land, its leaders, and its people were desolate. They were supposed to be God's people, an example for all the other nations, but when the Messiah came and stood right in front of them commanding the elements of creation, healing the sick, bringing people back for death, commanding demons, and bringing the TRUTH of God to them, they denied him. That is desolation.
That desolation is an abomination.
The abomination of desolation.
It's not a person.