Revelation 16.16 – Another way to look at Armageddon

The word Armageddon only appears one time in the Standard Works, and that is in Revelation 16.16. It is in the context of angels pouring out plagues upon men, specifically those who do not repent. From the text we read the following:

And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon (Revelation 16.16).

The following is an excerpt from Michael Heiser’s book entitled The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. In this book, Heiser demonstrates how the ancients viewed their world, and in seeing things the way the ancients did, modern readers of the Bible can understand the text of the Bible in the ways the original authors did, thus enabling us to “see” the text with greater clarity. In this excerpt, Heiser makes the case that Armageddon is not the plain of Megiddo, rather, it is the city of Jerusalem, and this is where the final showdown between the forces of good and evil will do battle. Now, for Heiser’s explanation:

Even people who have never studied the Bible have heard of Armageddon. Anyone who has ever investigated the term has undoubtedly read that it refers to a battle that will take place at or near Megiddo, the presumed geographical namesake for the term Armageddon. Further research would perhaps detect the fact that in Zechariah 12:11 the place name “Megiddo” is spelled (in Hebrew) with an “n” on the end, tightening the association between that place and the term Armageddon.

As coherent as all that sounds, it’s wrong. As we’ll see in this chapter, an identification of Armageddon with Megiddo is unsustainable. With respect to the word itself, the scriptural description of the event, and the supernatural concepts tied to both those elements, the normative understanding of Armageddon is demonstrably flawed.

THE MEANING OF “ARMAGEDDON”

John, the author of Revelation, tells us explicitly that “Armageddon” is a Hebrew term. John does that in part because the book of Revelation is written in Greek. There’s something about the Greek word translated “Armageddon” that required, for Greek readers, clarification that the term had been brought into the verse from Hebrew.

Those who can read Greek, or at least know the alphabet, will notice that the Greek term (Ἀρμαγεδδών) would be transliterated into English characters as h-a-r-m-a-g-e-d-o-n. If you don’t know Greek, you’ll wonder right away where the initial “h” in the transliteration comes from. The “h” at the beginning of the term corresponds to the superscripted apostrophe before the capital “A” in the Greek letters—what is known as a rough breathing mark in Greek. The Greek language had no letter “h” and so instead used this mark to convey that sound.

As a result, the correct (Hebrew) term John uses to describe the climactic end-times battle is harmagedon. This spelling becomes significant when we try to discern what this Hebrew term means. The first part of the term ( har ) is easy. In Hebrew har means “mountain.” Our term is therefore divisible into har-magedon, “Mount (of) magedon .” The question is, what is magedon?

Two options have historically been offered for answering this question. The first is the traditional “Megiddo,” which I mentioned at the start. The meaning of the phrase would be “Mount Megiddo.” Many well-meaning Bible teachers accept this phrase after looking at pictures of Megiddo, like the one below:

The problem is that this is an archaeological tell —an artificial mound created by successive layers of building and occupation over millennia. It is not a natural formation. It is not a mountain, and there are no mountains in the entire region. The photograph shows just how flat the area of Megiddo actually is.

Revelation 19:11 -21 informs us quite clearly that when Jesus returns bodily to earth, he will do so to end the conflict of Armageddon and defeat the beast, the antichrist. According to 16:16, this climactic event occurs at Armageddon. Students of biblical prophecy will find these verses very familiar.

Now let’s take a look at Zechariah 12:9—11, recalling that 12:11 is the verse I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, wherein we find the Hebrew for “Megiddo” spelled with a final n. If we read 12:11 in context, we will see that Armageddon cannot be at Megiddo, so the appearance of the final n in that verse cannot prove that the term points to that city:

9 “And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. 11 0n that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo” (Zech 12:9-11 ESV).

It is crystal clear that the final conflict occurs at Jerusalem, not Megiddo. Megiddo is referenced only to compare the awful mourning that will result. Not only does Zechariah 12 place the final battle where the nations see the risen, pierced Christ at Jerusalem, but verse 11 tells us explicitly that Megiddo is a plain, not a mountain!

So where does this leave us? Does magedon point to Jerusalem? It would seem that it has to, in light of (1) the term har-magedon, which describes this final battle, and (2) Zechariah 12:9-11, which plainly sites the conflict at Jerusalem.

THE SUPERNATURAL MOUNT OF ASSEMBLY

In fact, magedon does indeed point to Jerusalem, in an especially dramatic way. Harmagedon is Jerusalem. The key is remembering that the term derives from Hebrew.

To those who do not know Hebrew, “Megiddo” seems like an obvious explanation for magedon since both words have m-g-d. But in Hebrew there are actually two letters that are transliterated with “g” in Greek (and English translations). Here are the Hebrew letters behind “Megiddo”:

mem – gimel – daleth

M-G-D

The same “m-g-d” can be represented another way, with a different Hebrew letter in the middle: mem – ‘ayirt – daleth

M – ‘ – D

Neither Greek nor English has a letter (other than hard “g”) that approximates the sound of ayin. That is why it is represented in academic transliteration as a backwards apostrophe. The sound of the letter ayin is made in the back of the throat and sounds similar to hard “g.” Perhaps the best example of a Hebrew word that begins with the letter ‘ayin in Hebrew but is represented by “g” in English transliteration is “Gomorrah” (‘amorah ). That familiar word is not spelled with a Hebrew “g” (gimel) like the “g” in “Megiddo.” It is spelled with ayin.

This means that the Hebrew phrase behind John’s Greek transliteration of our mystery Hebrew term is actually h-r-m-‘-d. But what does that mean? If the first part (h-r) is the Hebrew word har (“mountain”), is there a har m-‘-d in the Hebrew Old Testament?

There is—and it’s stunning when considered in light of the battle of “Armageddon” and what we discussed in the previous chapter about the supernatural north and antichrist.

The phrase in question exists in the Hebrew Bible as har mo’ed? Incredibly, it is found in Isaiah 14:13, a passage many readers will immediately recognize:

12 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of dawn!

You are cut down to the ground, conqueror of nations!

13 And you yourself said in your heart,

“I will ascend to heaven;

I will raise up my throne above the stars of God;

and I will sit on the mountain of assembly [har mo’ed ]

on the summit of Zaphon;

14 I will ascend to the high places of the clouds,

I will make myself like the Most High.”

15 But you are brought down to Sheol,

to the depths of the pit (Isa 14:12-15).

Back in chapter 11 we saw that the phrase har mo’ed was one of the terms used to describe the dwelling place of Yahweh and his divine council—the cosmic mountain. The phrase obviously would have been filled with theological meaning to anyone who knew Hebrew and the Old Testament well. But why would Yahweh’s dwelling place be called “the summit of Zaphon”? Didn’t we just learn in the last chapter that was Baal’s abode?

Recall that, in Psalm 68:15-16, Yahweh desired “Mount Bashan” as his own—that is, he wanted to defeat the forces of darkness and claim their customary abode as his own. The same is true of Zaphon. Look at what Psalm 48 says:

1 Yahweh is great and very worthy of praise

in the city of our God, in his holy mountain.

2 Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth,

is Mount Zion, in the far north (Lit., “heights of the north”),

the city of the great king.

Psalm 48 makes a bold theological statement. It evicts Baal from his dwelling and boots his council off the property. The psalmist has Yahweh ruling the cosmos and the affairs of humanity, not Baal. Psalm 48 is a backhanded smack in the face to Baal.

So is Isaiah 14.

Both of these passages are textbook examples of how biblical writers adopt and then repurpose material found in the literature of other (pagan) cultures—in this case, Ugarit—to exalt Yahweh and to slight lesser gods. The Hebrew Bible has many examples, but they are obvious only to a reader of Hebrew who is informed by the ancient worldview of the biblical writers.

The result in the case of Armageddon is dramatic. When John draws on this ancient Hebrew phrase, he is indeed pointing to a climactic battle at Jerusalem. Why? Because Jerusalem is a mountain—Mount Zion. And if Baal and the gods of other nations don’t like Yahweh claiming to be Most High and claiming to run the cosmos from the heights of Zaphon/Mount Zion, they can try to do something about it.

And of course they do. Armageddon is about how the unbelieving nations, empowered by the antichrist, empowered by the prince of darkness—Lord (baal ) of the dead, prince Baal (zbl baal), Beelzebul—will make one last, desperate effort to defeat Jesus at the place where Yahweh holds council, Mount Zion, Jerusalem. Revelation and Zechariah agree. Armageddon is a battle for all the supernatural and earthly marbles at Jerusalem. Megiddo doesn’t fit the profile in any way.^[1]Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, p.368-373.