What is abomination that causes desolation?

in verse 14, He talks about an ‘abomination that causes desolation.’ It’s a figure of speech; it comes out of Daniel 9 and Daniel 11 and Daniel 12, and it’s used in First Maccabees as a reference to Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian general who outraged the Jews at about 160 BC., who went into the temple precincts, erected an altar for Zeus and offered burnt offerings in the temple, and brought about the so-called Maccabean Revolt under Judas Maccabeus, the plot of many an oratorio and opera. And it was, actually, the only time from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, it was the only brief period when Israel was autonomous, when it had its own government and control. --derek thomas