DESOLATION
desolation
A darkening of the mind and disturbance. of the will, caused by the evil spirit in order to withdraw the soul from God’s service. Marked by sadness, fear, despondency, agitation, scruples, an inclination towards earthly pleasures, it is sometimes permitted by God as a trial, lesson of humility, or punishment for lukewarmness.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Desolation
DESOLATION.The history of Israel had given to this word in the time of Christ a peculiar and sinister significance. To nearly all the prophets the idea of a wasted and depopulated land, such as is given in the graphic description of Isa 1:7-9, is familiar. When Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who most frequently use the words, mention or , they always have one thing in their mindthe vision of a once peaceful and flourishing place which by fire and sword has been laid waste, and is left uninhabited. Few countries have suffered so much as Palestine from the havoc wrought by civil war and foreign invasion. To understand the full force of the term desolation, we have to add to the features of war, as known to us, something which was then the frequent accompaniment of conquestthe carrying away of a whole population captive. And to the bitter memory of bygone devastation we have to add the apprehension of what might at any time happen if the country were swept by the Romans, of whose methods their own historian wrote, they make a solitude and call it peace (Tac. , 30). The word desolation, then, understood in the sense in which it was used when the Authorized Version was made (I desolateI make a countrey unhabyted, Palsgrave, a.d. 1530), gives the exact sense of both the Hebrew and the Greek (). It is in this sense that the word is used in the passage where Jesus pronounces doom upon Jerusalem (Mat 23:38, Luk 13:35). The words, Your house is left unto you desolate, are a reminiscence of Jer 22:5 (LXX Septuagint ), and it makes little difference whether stand in the text or not; the general idea is that the house (i.e. the city, not the temple) is abandoned. There is not necessarily in this passage any prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, though the context may seem to suggest this. The idea is rather that, the glory of Jerusalem consisting in her being the city of the great King, she loses all when He abandons her. If she rejects Him, and He departs, she is a forsaken city (cf. the passage in Bunyans Holy War where Emmanuel leaves Mansoul; also Josephus B.J. vi. v. 3). Grimm-Thayer interprets desolate here as bereft of Christs presence, instruction, and aid. Contrast with this the promise to the disciples in Joh 14:18, which the Authorized Version renders, I will not leave yon desolate ().
In another passage (Mat 12:25, Luk 11:17), Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, Jesus uses as a forcible illustration that fatal tendency to faction and internal discord which had so often brought His countrymen to ruin (cf. e.g. Josephus Ant. xiv. iv. 2). See also art. Abomination of Desolation.
J. Ross Murray.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
DESOLATION
as a result of sin
(1) Of Israel
Isa 1:8; Isa 24:12; Jer 2:15; Jer 9:11; Jer 12:11; Jer 19:8; Lam 1:4; Lam 5:18
Eze 20:26; Eze 33:28; Amo 7:9; Mic 3:12; Mat 23:38
–SEE Barrenness,
Wicked Forsaken, SIN
(2) Of Heathen Nations
Isa 13:9; Isa 15:1; Jer 25:12; Jer 49:9; Jer 49:17; Eze 25:13; Eze 29:12; Eze 30:14
Eze 32:15; Eze 35:3; Joe 3:19; Nah 2:10
(3) General References to
Job 15:34; Psa 34:21; Psa 40:15; Psa 73:19; Mat 23:38
–SEE Adversity, ADVERSITY
Want,
Misery, MISERY