the Holy City ; in short, that very place which our Lord (as He had often done) regarded as made holy by His presence, whilst He was uttering these words : cf. Acts vii. 33. We learn certainly from Josephus, that the principal strength of the besieging army was upon the Mount of Olives : " They were commanded," says he, "to encamp on the mount which is called the Mount of Olives, which lies over against the city on the east." — Wars of the Jews, vi. 3. And that mount was con sidered holy also by the Jews, because the neighbouring temple could be looked into therefrom ; and they had also a tradition that the Shechinah had stood there for three years and a half. They called it also nrvt?E>n in, the Mount of Unction. Very per tinent to this is Zech. xiv. 4, where the very mention of the eastern quarter (plaga) appears to denote holiness. And there fore that place which St Matthew designates as " holy" is described by St Mark as " where it ought not" Both of which passages refer to that in Dan. ix. 27 ; where the region of that mount is said to be D^pfc? fpa?1 a quarter (plaga) otherwise holy, but then, on account of the idolatrous besiegers, abominable : because there the DE>t£> ppti'i the abomination that maketh desolate, Dan. xii. 11, and xi. 31, was to stand. For *pa signifies also a quarter of the world, even without mention of the wind, as in Is. xi.-12. Punishment generally begins in the more holy places, and thence spreads to other parts. — o dta- yivuffxuv vosiru, let him that readeth understand} St Mark has the same parenthesis in ch. xiii. 14, although in many copies that clause from Daniel is not to be found there. Both Evangelists, writing before the siege of the city, warned their readers to observe the accurate advice of the Lord concerning the place and the rapidity of flight. In Dan. xii. 10, the LXX. haveo/ voqfMvsg ffwqaovffi, the wise will understand : and the Hebrew has ly^1" DvatPDn, the wise will understand. — 6 amyivuff-Auv, he that readetJi) does not mean the public reader of Daniel (for at the commencement of the siege, the public lessons in the Law were taken from Leviticus, and none from Daniel were associated with them or with any others), but any reader either of Daniel
1 E. V. " The overspreading of abominations.'1'' Otherwise, pinnacle of. -(I. B.)