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Question

Where was Megiddo, the Armageddon of Revelation?

Megiddo is the mound of Tel Megiddo in northern Israel, at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley, where the pass of Wadi Ara comes through the Carmel ridge; it is about 90 km north of Jerusalem in a straight line.

The mound guarded the main road between Egypt and Syria, and armies met here for three thousand years: Thutmose III of Egypt routed a coalition of Canaanite kings before its walls in the fifteenth century BC, the Song of Deborah tells of the kings of Canaan fighting "by the waters of Megiddo", and in 609 BC Pharaoh Necho slew King Josiah at Megiddo. Iron Age Megiddo had palaces, a six-chambered gate and a tunnel to its spring; whether these belong to Solomon's tenth century or to the ninth century of Ahab's dynasty is one of the main disputes of biblical archaeology. The mound was abandoned about the fourth century BC.

Revelation names the place where the kings are gathered "in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon", and the name is usually explained as "mount of Megiddo", though the mound is low and the reading is not certain; the place card on the map lists the other proposals, among them Mount Carmel and the Jezreel Valley itself.

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Scripture: Judg 5:19; 2 Kgs 23:29–30; Zech 12:11; Rev 16:16

Sources

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