Daniel 11:31

And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.

And arms - namely, of the human body: not weapons. meaning human forces.

And they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength. "And they," i:e., Antiochus' hosts, confederate with the apostate Israelites; these latter attain the climax of guilt when they not only, as before, "forsake the covenant" (Daniel 11:30), but "do wickedly against' it (Daniel 11:32), turning complete pagans. Here Antiochus' actings are described in language which reach beyond him, the type, to Antichrist, the antitype (Jerome), (just as in Psalms 72:1 many things are said of Solomon, the type, which in their fullest sense are only applicable to Christ, the antitype); including perhaps Rome, Mohammed, and the final personal Antichrist. Sir Isaac Newton refers the rest of the chapter from this verse to the Romans, and translates 'after him (instead of, on his, part) arms (i:e., the Romans) shall stand up.' [ mimenuw (H4480), after him: so the preposition min (H4480) is used in Daniel 11:23.] At the very time that Antiochus left Egypt the Romans conquered Macedon, thus finishing the reign of Daniel's third beast; so here the prophet natu rally proceeds to the fourth beast. Jerome's view is simpler; for the narrative seems to continue the history of Antiochus, though with features only in type applicable to him, fully to Antichrist.

And they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength - not only naturally a place of strength, whence it held out to the last against the besiegers, but chiefly the spiritual strong hold of the covenant-people (Psalms 48:1; Psalms 48:12, "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks ... For this God is our God forever and ever").

And shall take away the daily sacrifice. Apollonius, sent by Antiochus, "polluted" it with altars to idols and sacrifices of swine's flesh, after having taken "away the daily sacrifice" (see note, Daniel 8:11).

And they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate - i:e., that pollutes the temple, (Daniel 8:12, "the transgression of desolation"). Or, rather, 'the abomination of the desolater,' Antiochus Epiphanes ( 1Ma 1:29 ; 1Ma 1:37-49 ). Compare Daniel 9:27, wherein the antitypical desolating abomination of Rome primarily (the eagle standard, the bird of Jupiter, sacrificed to by Titus' soldiers within the sacred precincts, at the destruction of Jerusalem), then of Mohammed, and lastly, of the final Antichrist, is foretold. Here, the typical "abomination that maketh desolate" - i:e., the idol abomination set up in the temple by Antiochus is foretold. 1Ma 1:54 uses the very phrase: 'The fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the 145th year, they set up the abomination of desolation on the altar'-namely, an idolaltar and image of Jupiter Olympius, erected upon Yahweh's altar of burnt offerings. "Abomination" is the common name for an idol in the Old Testament. The Roman emperor Adrian's erection of a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus where the temple of God had stood, 132 AD; also the erection of the Mohammedan mosque of Omar in the same place (it is striking, Mohammedanism began to prevail in 610 AD, only about three years from the time when Popery assumed the temporal power); and the idolatry of the Church of Rome in the spiritual temple; and the final blasphemy of the personal Antichrist in the literal temple (2 Thessalonians 2:1) may all be antitypically referred to here under Antiochus, who was the type, and the Old Testament Antichrist.