“Standing where he ought not to be”
So when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (Mark 13:14 BSB)
What it sounds like today
Apocalyptic code, and it is, but code with a known referent.
The cultural key
The phrase is Daniel's (9:27; 11:31), and for Jesus' hearers it had already happened once: in 167 BC Antiochus IV erected a pagan altar, likely to Olympian Zeus, on the temple's altar and sacrificed swine, the desecration 1 Maccabees calls by this exact name. It ignited the Maccabean revolt; every family retold it at Hanukkah. Jesus reapplies the label to a desecration still coming ('let the reader understand' is a nudge to decode), and Luke's parallel decodes it plainly: 'Jerusalem surrounded by armies.' Within the generation, Rome's standards stood in the burning temple (AD 70); those who fled early survived. Mark's grammar carries a signal Matthew's lacks: 'standing' is masculine, agreeing not with the neuter noun 'abomination' but with a person; the desolator is a he. For readers who remembered Caligula's attempt to erect his own statue in the temple (AD 40), the gendered participle plus 'let the reader understand' is a nudge with a direction.
Recovered meaning
'The Antiochus horror will repeat, and when the sacrilege stands in the holy place, don't rally to defend the temple as the Maccabees did. Run.' The instruction reverses the heroic script every hearer was raised on.