Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

by armies--encamped armies, that is, besieged: "the abomination of desolation" (meaning the Roman ensigns, as the symbols of an idolatrous, pagan, unclean power) "spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (Dan 9:27) "standing where it ought not" (Mar 13:14). "Whoso readeth [that prophecy] let him understand" (Mat 24:15). Then . . . flee, &c.--EUSEBIUS says the Christians fled to Pella, at the north extremity of Perea, being "prophetically directed"; perhaps by some prophetic intimation still more explicit than this, which still would be their chart.