Abomination

The umbrella term gathers what the Old Testament calls a disgusting thing and what the New Testament names a detestable thing. The label is moral as well as ritual: it covers idols and the worship offered to them, sex acts the law forbids, the slaughter of children to Molech, recourse to spiritists and sorcerers, false weights in a merchant's bag, and the ritual defilement that excludes a worshipper from the tabernacle. All of these are filed under one heading, and the Proverbs sequence shows the reach of the word: a haughty eye, a lying tongue, an unjust judge, a proud heart, the prayer of a man who turns his ear from the law — each one is "disgusting to Yahweh." The same vocabulary returns in Daniel and 1 Maccabees as a singular technical term, the abomination of desolation, the pagan altar erected on the altar of the Most High; Jesus picks up that phrase in the Olivet discourse.

Things That Are Disgusting to Yahweh

The clearest summary verse is in Proverbs: "There are six things which Yahweh hates; Yes, seven which are disgusting to his soul" (Pr 6:16). The list that follows runs from posture to deed: "Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood; A heart that devises wicked purposes, Feet that are swift in running to mischief, A false witness who utters lies, And he who sows discord among brothers" (Pr 6:17-19). Where Proverbs uses the noun, Deuteronomy applies it to whole classes of action: "For whoever does these things is disgusting to Yahweh: and because of these disgusting things Yahweh your God drives them out from before you" (De 18:12). The Sirach atom names the inner disposition the word describes — "Wrath and anger, these also are abominations, And a sinful man takes possession of them" (Sir 27:30).

A cluster of Proverbs uses disgusting as a refrain for moral types. The perverse heart (Pr 11:20), lying lips (Pr 12:22), the sacrifice of the wicked (Pr 21:27), the prayer of the man who turns from the law (Pr 28:9), the perverse man (Pr 3:32), wickedness on the lips (Pr 8:7), the way of the wicked (Pr 15:9), evil devices (Pr 15:26), the proud heart (Pr 16:5), the scoffer (Pr 24:9). Two Proverbs mark moral asymmetry from the human side: "An unjust man is disgusting to the righteous; And he who is upright in the way is disgusting to the wicked" (Pr 29:27); "The thought of foolishness is sin; And the scoffer is disgusting to man" (Pr 24:9). The teaching pairs disgust on Yahweh's side with delight on the other: "Lying lips are disgusting to Yahweh; But those who deal truly are his delight" (Pr 12:22). Jesus carries the same frame into the Gospel: "that which is exalted among men is disgusting in the sight of God" (Lu 16:15).

Idolatry and the Strange Gods

Idol-worship is the umbrella's pre-eminent example. The graven images of the Canaanite nations are themselves the disgusting thing: "The graven images of their gods you⁺ will burn with fire: you will not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it to you, or else you will be snared in it; for it is disgusting to Yahweh your God" (De 7:25). The covenant curse at Ebal binds the same word to the secret manufacture of idols: "Cursed be the man who makes a graven or molten image, a disgusting thing to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret" (De 27:15). The Song of Moses uses the plural for the foreign cult itself: "They moved him to jealousy with strange [gods]; With disgusting things they provoked him to anger" (De 32:16). Sirach reads the Hezekian and Josianic reform as the removal of these things: he "was grieved at their backslidings, And caused the vain abominations to cease" (Sir 49:2).

Offering Children and Consulting the Dead

Child-sacrifice and the apparatus of divination are bracketed together in Deuteronomy: "There will not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one telling the future, one interpreting omens, or one who uses magic, or a sorcerer" (De 18:10), "or one casting spells, or one requesting a spirit, or a wizard, or one inquiring of the dead" (De 18:11). Leviticus puts the Molech offering and the cult of the spiritists side by side: "And you will not give any of your seed to make them pass through [the fire] to Molech; neither will you profane the name of your God: I am Yahweh" (Le 18:21); "Do⁺ not turn to the spiritists or to the wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them" (Le 19:31); "And the soul who turns to the spiritists or the wizards, to go whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people" (Le 20:6). The Sinai code is unambiguous: "You will not allow a witch to live" (Ex 22:18).

The historical books register the failure to keep this. Of Israel before the exile: "And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and told the future and used magic, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger" (2Ki 17:17). Of Manasseh: "And he made his son to pass through the fire, and interpreted omens, and used magic, and dealt with spiritists and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger" (2Ki 21:6). Sirach's verdict on the practice: "Divinations, and soothsayings, and dreams are vain, As you hope so does your heart see" (Sir 34:5). The prophets close the file: "And I will come near to you⁺ to judgment; and [my Speech] will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers" (Mal 3:5). The New Testament inherits the catalogue. The works of the flesh include "idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, strife, jealousy, wraths" (Ga 5:20); the city of Babylon falls because "with your witchcraft were all the nations deceived" (Re 18:23); and the lake of fire holds "the fearful, and unbelieving, and those who have become disgusting, and murderers, and whores, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars" (Re 21:8).

Unlawful Sex

Leviticus 18 and 20 are the textual home of the sexual abominations. The bestiality and same-sex-act prohibitions both end with the umbrella term: "You will not plow a male as one plows a female: it is disgusting" (Le 18:22); "And you will not have any sex with any animal and defile yourself with it; neither will any woman have any sex with an animal: it is perverted" (Le 18:23). Leviticus 20 adds the penalty: "And if a man plows a male as one plows a female, both of them have done something disgusting: they will surely be put to death; their blood will be on them" (Le 20:13). Adultery sits in the same chapter under its own statute: "And the man who commits adultery with another man's wife — who commits adultery with his fellow man's wife — will surely be put to death, both the adulterer and the adulteress" (Le 20:10). The Decalogue states it bare: "You will not commit adultery" (Ex 20:14).

Deuteronomy extends the disgust to two further cases. A man may not take back the wife he divorced after she has remarried and been sent away, "for that is disgusting before Yahweh: and you will not cause the land to sin" (De 24:4). Cross-dressing falls under the same verdict: "A woman will not wear that which pertains to a man, neither will a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is disgusting to Yahweh your God" (De 22:5). The temple economy is sealed against profits from sex-work: "You will not bring the wages of a whore, or the price of a sissy, into the house of Yahweh your God for any vow: for even both these are disgusting to Yahweh your God" (De 23:18). The wisdom tradition warns against the adulteress in the same register — "Do not give your soul to a prostitute; Or else you will turn away your inheritance" (Sir 9:6) — and remembers the adulterer's self-talk: "[There is] a man who goes astray from his own bed, And says in his soul: 'Who sees me? Darkness is around me, And the walls hide me, And no one sees me; whom should I fear?'" (Sir 23:18). Job tracks the same posture: "The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, Saying, No eye will see me" (Job 24:15). Paul keeps the catalogue: "neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men" will inherit the kingdom (1Co 6:9).

Sodom and Gomorrah

The pre-Sinai paradigm of the abomination is the city of Sodom. The narrator names the residents before the cry rises: "Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against Yahweh exceedingly" (Ge 13:13). Yahweh's own statement frames the destruction: "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous" (Ge 18:20). The Song of Moses uses the cities as a metaphor for Israel's coming corruption: "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter" (De 32:32). Isaiah keeps Sodom on hand for two purposes: the remnant ("Except Yahweh of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah," Is 1:9) and the public face of impenitent sin ("they declare their sin as Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to their soul!" Is 3:9). Lamentations reads Jerusalem as worse: "For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid on her" (La 4:6). Sirach's sapiential summary: "And he did not spare the place where Lot sojourned; Those who were furious in their pride" (Sir 16:8). Jesus uses the destruction as a paradigm for the day of the Son of Man: "but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Lu 17:29). The Apocalypse spiritualises the name onto Jerusalem itself: "the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified" (Re 11:8).

Dishonest Weights and the Crooked Court

The Deuteronomic statute sets the rule before stating the abomination: "You will not have in your bag diverse weights, a great and a small. You will not have in your house diverse measures, a great and a small. A perfect and just weight you will have; a perfect and just measure you will have: that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you" (De 25:13-15). The verdict closes the paragraph: "For all who do such things, [even] all who do unrighteously, are disgusting to Yahweh your God" (De 25:16). Proverbs takes the same theme into commercial life and the courthouse. "A false balance is disgusting to Yahweh; But a just weight is his delight" (Pr 11:1). "Diverse weights, and diverse measures, Both of them alike are disgusting to Yahweh" (Pr 20:10). "Diverse weights are disgusting to Yahweh; And a false balance is not good" (Pr 20:23). The same noun reaches the bench: "He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are disgusting to Yahweh" (Pr 17:15). The umbrella thus binds commercial dishonesty, perjury, and judicial corruption to ritual and sexual sin under one word.

Ceremonial Uncleanness

A second use of the vocabulary covers ritual rather than moral defilement, but the law treats the boundary as real. Leviticus 13 and 15 catalogue the pollution of leprosy and bodily discharge: "the priest will look at him, and pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy" (Le 13:25); "And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes will be rent, and the hair of his head will go loose, and he will cover his upper lip, and will cry, Unclean, unclean" (Le 13:45); "And this will be his uncleanness in his discharge: ... it is his uncleanness" (Le 15:3). The Day of Atonement is covenanted against this constant pressure: the priest "will make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins: and so he will do for the tent of meeting, that stays with them in the midst of their uncleannesses" (Le 16:16). The danger is concrete: "you⁺ will separate the sons of Israel from their uncleanness, that they will not die in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is in the midst of them" (Le 15:31). Hezekiah's Passover shows the law bending to mercy when many had not "cleansed themselves" (2Ch 30:18). Sirach asks the question the system poses: "What can be made clean from an unclean thing? And how can that which is true come from a lie?" (Sir 34:4); and judges the man who washes after a corpse only to touch it again — "What profit does he have by his washing?" (Sir 34:30).

The Abomination of Desolation

The phrase moves from common noun to technical term in Daniel and 1 Maccabees. Daniel sees the seventieth-week settlement: "And he will make a firm covenant with many for one week. And in the midst of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease; and on the wing of detestable things [will come] one who makes desolate even to the full end, and that which is determined will be poured out on the desolator" (Da 9:27). The closing chapter dates the count from that act: "And from the time that the continual [burnt-offering] will be taken away, and the detestable thing that makes desolate [is] set up, there will be a thousand and two hundred and ninety days" (Da 12:11). 1 Maccabees gives the historical referent: under Antiochus IV, "On the fifteenth day of the month Kislev, in the hundred and forty-fifth year, they set up the abomination of desolation on the altar, and they built altars in the cities of Judah round about" (1Ma 1:54). The same chapter records the demand to "build altars, and temples, and idols, and to sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts" (1Ma 1:47), and that the people should "leave their sons uncircumcised, and let their souls be defiled with all uncleannesses, and detestable things" (1Ma 1:48). The cleansing of the sanctuary later in the book frames the act in reverse: the Seleucid envoys plead that the Hasmoneans "had thrown down the detestable thing which he had set up on the altar in Jerusalem, and that they had compassed about the sanctuary with high walls as before" (1Ma 6:7).

Jesus takes the phrase out of its Maccabean setting and reapplies it. "But when you⁺ see the detestable thing of desolation standing where it ought not (let him who reads understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" (Mr 13:14). The prior atom — Sirach 19:23, "There is a form of wisdom which is abomination, And there is a fool who lacks wisdom" — keeps the umbrella in view: the sign Jesus names is the climactic instance of the same word that has run through the law, the wisdom tradition, and the prophets, and the only adequate response to it, in his teaching as in Daniel's, is flight.