In the half of the week. . .or, in the middle of the week, etc. Because Christ preached three years and a half: and then by his sacrifice upon the cross abolished all the sacrifices of the law.—Ibid. The abomination of desolation. . .Some understand this of the profanation of the temple by the crimes of the Jews, and by the bloody faction of the zealots. Others of the bringing in thither the ensigns and standard of the pagan Romans. Others, in fine, distinguish three different times of desolation: viz., that under Antiochus; that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans; and the last near the end of the world under Antichrist. To all which, as they suppose, this prophecy may have a relation.
Daniel Chapter 10
Daniel having humbled himself by fasting and penance seeth a vision, with which he is much terrified; but he is comforted by an angel.
10:1. In the third year of Cyrus, king of the Persians, a word was revealed to Daniel, surnamed Baltassar, and a true word, and great strength: and he understood the word: for there is need of understanding in a vision.
10:2. In those days I, Daniel, mourned the days of three weeks.
10:3. I ate no desirable bread, and neither flesh, nor wine, entered into my mouth, neither was I anointed with ointment: till the days of three weeks were accomplished.
10:4. And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, I was by the great river, which is the Tigris.
10:5. And I lifted up my eyes, and I saw: and behold a man clothed in linen, and his loins were girded with the finest gold:
10:6. And his body was like the chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as a burning lamp: and his arms, and all downward even to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass: and the voice of his word like the voice of a multitude.
10:7. And I, Daniel alone, saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw it not: but an exceeding great terror fell upon them, and they fled away, and hid themselves.