_Kranichfeld and Keil_: "And a destroyer comes on the wings of idolatrous abominations." _Kuenen_, followed by others, boldly alters the text from _ve'al k'naph_, "and upon the wing," into _ve'al kannô_, "and instead thereof."[628] "And instead thereof" (_i.e._, in the place of the sacrifice and meat offering) "there shall be abominations." It is needless to weary the reader with further attempts at translation; but however uncertain may be the exact reading or rendering, few modern commentators doubt that the allusion is to the smaller heathen altar built by Antiochus above (_i.e._, on the summit) of the "Most Holy"--_i.e._, the great altar of burnt sacrifice--overshadowing it like "a wing" (_kanaph_), and causing desolations or abominations (_shiqqootsîm_). That this interpretation is the correct one can hardly be doubted in the light of the clearer references to "the abomination that maketh desolate" in xi. 31 and xii. 11. In favour of this we have the almost contemporary interpretation of the Book of Maccabees. The author of that history directly applies the phrase "the abomination of desolation" to the idol altar set up by Antiochus (1 Macc. i. 54, vi. 7). (η) Lastly, the terrible drama shall end by an outpouring of wrath, and a sentence of judgment on "the desolation" (R.V.) or "the desolate" (A.V.). This can only refer to the ultimate judgment with which Antiochus is menaced. It will be seen then that, despite all uncertainties in the text, in the translation, and in the details, we have in these verses an unmistakably clear foreshadowing of the same persecuting king, and the same disastrous events, with which the mind of the writer is so predominantly haunted, and which are still more clearly indicated in the subsequent chapter. Is it necessary, after an inquiry inevitably tedious, and of little or no apparently spiritual profit or significance, to enter further into the intolerably and interminably perplexed and voluminous discussions as to the beginning, the ending, and the exactitude of the seventy weeks?[629] Even St. Jerome gives, by way of specimen, _nine_ different interpretations in his time, and comes to no decision of his own. After confessing that all the interpretations were individual guesswork, he leaves every reader to his own judgment, and adds: "_Dicam quid unusquisque senserit, lectoris arbitrio derelinquens cujus expositionem sequi debeat_." I cannot think that the least advantage can be derived from doing so.