Daniel 12:11

The daily sacrifice. See on Daniel 8:11.

Taken away. The clause may be translated literally, “and from the time of the taking away of the continual, even in order to set up the abomination.” This would indicate that the “taking away” was done with the direct intent of setting up the abomination. The focus may be upon the preparatory “taking away” rather than upon the subsequent “setting up.”

The words of this passage are so clearly similar to those of Daniel 8:11, 12, and Daniel 11:31 (see comments there) that they must all refer to the same event.

A thousand two hundred and ninety days. This time period is mentioned in close connection with the “time, times, and an half’ (verse 7), or 1260 days, and the events to occur at the end of these periods are presumably identical. It seems reasonable to understand, then, that these two periods cover approximately the same historical era. The excess of the 1290 over the 1260 is probably to be understood in view of the fact that the beginning of the 1290 days is focused on the taking away of the “daily sacrifice,” preparatory to the establishment of the “abomination.”

Those who hold to the view that the “daily” represents “paganism” (see on Daniel 8:11) subtract 1290 from 1798 and arrive at the date 508. They see in the events surrounding this date, such as the conversion of Clovis, the king of the Franks, to the Catholic faith, and in the victory over the Goths, an important stage in the establishment of the supremacy of the Catholic Church in the West.

Those who hold to the view that the “daily” refers to the continual priestly ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary and to the true worship of Christ in the gospel age (see on Daniel 8:11) find no satisfactory explanation of this text. They believe that this is one of those Scripture passages on which future study will shed further light.