Daniel’s prophetic timeline: judgment of the “abomination” on the Temple Mount just around the corner

From the time the regular offering is abolished, and an appalling abomination is set up—it will be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Daniel 12:11

An insightful explanation of Daniel’s end-of-days prophecy identifies the Dome of the Rock as the “abomination”, setting out a timeline which sets the year of judgment as arriving in less than a decade.

Daniel: The abomination, the war, and the judgment

The website, Save the Hilltop Youth, clearly has a worthwhile cause that requires seeing current events through a Biblical lens. This is precisely what they did in a recent post, leading them to ask and to answer questions about what they defined as the ongoing holy war.

The author, writing under the nom de plume Dean Maughvet, begins the fascinating piece with an observation:

“We’ve been at war for millennia,” Maughvet wrote. “But now the enemy has taken the time to properly encircle us and employ all available diplomatic and communications-oriented subterfuge in an attempt to ‘finish the job’.”

But this final conflict, according to the author, will be a war of information and knowledge:

“He has armies, police, politicians, business and religious leaders, academics and the entire professional scribbling class on side – and they’re poised to march,” Maughvet wrote.

Maughvet begins his inquiry in the final verses of the Book of Daniel:

From the time the regular offering is abolished, and an appalling abomination is set up—it will be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Happy the one who waits and reaches one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.) Daniel 12:11-12

He identifies the “appalling abomination” described by the Prophet Daniel as nothing other than the Dome of the Rock that was built on top of the site of the Holy of Holies 620 years after the Romans destroyed the Second Jewish Temple. Initially a shrine towards which Muslims were forbidden to pray, the site has been usurped as a Muslim place of prayer and a symbol of Palestinian aspirations to ethnically cleanse the region of Jews.

Maughvet’s explanation suggests that the “days” referred to by Daniel were, in fact, years. If that explanation is accepted, then 1,290 “days” described by Daniel would refer to 1,290 years after the construction of the Dome of the Rock in 691-692 CE. This would mean that Daniel was referring to the years 1981- 1982, which Maughvet describes as “ precisely the years that the State of Israel, under the leadership of the faint-hearted Menachem Begin, signed a ‘Peace Agreement’ with Egypt that rendered to that lowly nation the entire Sinai Peninsula and all its thriving communities, and creating the greatest chillul Hashem [desecration of God’s name] of the third Jewish Commonwealth.”

Years and verses

Maughvet then utilizes a fascinating method of assigning a verse from the Bible to each succeeding year, beginning with the first verse in Genesis corresponding to year one in the Hebrew calendar. In this case, 1981-1982 correspond to verses in Deuteronomy:

Then My anger will flare up against them, and I will abandon them and hide My countenance from them. They shall be ready prey; and many evils and troubles shall befall them. And they shall say on that day, “Surely it is because our God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us.” Yet I will keep My countenance hidden on that day, because of all the evil they have done in turning to other gods. Deuteronomy 31:17-18

He goes on to note that Daniel’s prophecy will become complete after 1,335 days, or, in this context, 45 years after the “abomination” exists for 1,290 years, a period he describes as hester panim (God ‘hiding his face’) “at our bargaining away a part of Eretz Yisrael to the Yishmaelites”. As per this explanation, this period will end, as per the prophecy, 45 years after 1982, or precisely in the years 2026-2027, when those people who reach those years in God’s good graces will, in Daniel’s words, be counted among the “happy.”

Rabbi Meir Kahane presented a Biblical concept in his book, Forty Years, claiming that God often blocks out time in four-decade installments that are not always fixed precisely. 

We are given notice that once we stray, the hourglass is flipped, and the sands begin to fall,” Maughvet explained. “The forty year clock begins ticking.”

Maughvet noted that in 1982, Israel dismantled the Jewish communities in the Sinai as part of the agreement with Egypt. 

“Either way, good Jews and Noahides, know it well – we’re in the midst of it,” he noted. “The forty years of grace, of waiting for our return, of hoping that we might show genuine faith in our Father, our King, the Master of Heaven and Earth, and act to build Him a home to dwell amongst us… those forty years are coming to a swift end. The finale is here. And time is almost up. And that’s why the war is about to gather momentum. A great change is on the way – but a year from now according to Rav Kahane’s count (at the earliest). And a mere five to six according to Sefer Daniel.”

Maughvet then notes that the period directly following this prophetic comeuppance targeting the “abomination” sitting atop the Holy of Holies has an implicit significance. The year 2029 corresponds to the Hebrew year 5789. This number can also be expressed alphabetically by the letters תשפ”ט which when read phonetically mean “you will judge”. 

As per the method described above, the year 5789 corresponds to the 5,789th verse in the Torah, which appears in Deuteronomy:

For Hashem will vindicate [judge] His people And take revenge for His servants, When He sees that their might is gone, And neither bond nor free is left. Deuteronomy 32:36

Maughvet emphasizes that according to Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, a medieval Biblical commentator known by the acronym Rashi, this vers describes a time when God will have mercy on His servants. 

“In the year of judgment תשפ”ט,” Maughvet wrote, concluding with an ominous warning. “The time is approaching. And there’s still a great deal to be said on the matter. But that should suffice for now. May the evil ones’ judgment be bitter.”