“Therefore, when you catch sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation, as spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place, (let the reader use discernment,) then let those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains.

Matthew 24:14-22; Mark 13:14-20.

3. When did Christianized Jews flee from the “holy place”? Why?

³ Back in the days of the apostles of Jesus Christ the “holy place” was the city of Jerusalem with its gorgeous temple for the worship of Jehovah as God. Judea was a Roman province, of which Jerusalem was the religious capital. The “disgusting thing that is causing desolation,” as referred to at Daniel 12:11, was the military legions of the Roman Empire, the Sixth World Power of Bible prophecy. By a violent military attack the “disgusting thing” of that day was “standing” for a time in the “holy place” in the autumn of the year 66 C.E. That was a warning signal to the Christianized Jews still residing in Jerusalem. So, after the “disgusting thing” withdrew temporarily from Jerusalem, the now duly warned Christians obediently fled from the doomed “holy place.” Many of these fugitives fled to the “mountains” in the Roman province of Perea on the other side of the Jordan River.

4. What things came as foretold on that Jewish generation?

⁴ It was well that those Christianized Jews did so, for, four years later, the “disgusting thing” returned. It desolated all the province of Judea and capped the desolation by destroying both Jerusalem and its holy temple in a “great tribulation” that shocked Jews inside and outside the Roman Empire. The Christianized Jews in safe places of refuge outside Judea survived Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 C.E. Some Jewish “flesh” that had remained inside the rebellious city also survived, but only to be carried off captive by the Romans. So that generation of unchristianized Jews did not act on the “sign” that Jesus Christ had foretold. For that generation he had foretold wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, persecution of Christians, lawlessness, Kingdom preaching world wide, and the standing of the “disgusting thing” in the “holy place.” All these things had come upon that generation of Jews as a “sign” to them of the fast-approaching destruction of the Jewish system of things.​—Matthew 24:3-22; Luke 21:10-23.