Literally, it may be rendered, "How long the vision

[concerning] the continuance and the transgression of

desolation?" the word desolation being related to both
continuance and transgression, as though it were
expressed in full, thus: "The continuance of desolation
and the transgression of desolation". By the
"continuance of desolation," or the perpetual desolation,
we must understand that paganism, through all its long
history, is meant; and by "the transgression of
desolation" is meant the papacy. The phrase describing
this latter power is stronger than that used to describe
paganism. It is the transgression (or rebellion, as the
word also means) of desolation; as though under this
period of the history of the church the desolating power
had rebelled against all restraint previously imposed
upon it.