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(Revised Version ; Armageddon Authorized Version )
According to Rev_16:16 this is the name in Heb. of the scene of ‘the war of the great day of God, the Almighty’ (Rev_16:14), against whom the three unclean spirits (Rev_16:13) have gathered together ‘the kings of the whole world’ (Rev_16:14). There are variations in the form of the name in the Gr. texts and very different interpretations of its meaning, but if Ἅñ Ìáãåäþí is accepted as the correct form, the most satisfactory explanation is that which takes it to mean ‘the mount of Megiddo’ ( Ἅñ = Heb. äַø ‘a mountain’). By its geographical conformation and strategical situation the plain of Megiddo was better suited than any other place in the Holy Land to be the arena of a great battle, and the historical memories that gathered round it would fill the name with suggestion for the readers of the Apocalypse. The primary reference, no doubt, would be to Israel’s victory ‘by the waters of Megiddo’ over the kings of Canaan (Jdg_5:19), which might be taken as typical of the triumph of God and His Kingdom over the hostile world-powers; but the defeat and death of Saul and Jonathan at the eastern extremity of the plain (1Sa_31:1), the disastrous struggle of Josiah on the same field against Pharaohnecoh (2Ki_23:29, 2Ch_35:22), and Zechariah’s reference to ‘the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon’ (Zec_12:11), would heighten the suggestion of a great day of overthrow and destruction. The chief objections offered to this interpretation are that a mountain is an unsuitable battlefield, and that the historical battles are described as taking place ‘by the waters of Megiddo’ (Jdg_5:19) or ‘in the valley of Megiddo’ (2Ch_35:22). Against this, however, must be set the statements that Barak with his 10,000 men ‘went down from mount Tabor’ to meet Sisera (Jdg_4:14), that Zebulun and Naphtali ‘jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field’ (Jdg_5:18), and that Saul and Jonathan fell ‘in mount Gilboa’ (1Sa_31:1; 1Sa_31:8; cf. 2Sa_1:21). And the place given to ‘the mountains of Israel’ in Ezekiel’s prophecy of the destruction of Gog and Magog (Eze_38:8; Eze_38:21; Eze_39:2; Eze_39:4; Eze_39:17), to which the Apocalyptist subsequently refers in his description of the final overthrow of Satan and his hosts (Rev_20:8), may have served to confirm the idea that a mountain would be the scene of ‘the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.’
Of recent years considerable support has been given to the view, first propounded by Gunkel (Schöpfung und Chaos, 268), that ‘Har-Magedon’ preserves the name of the place where in the Babylonian creation-myth the dragon Tiämat was overthrown by Marduk, the passage Rev_16:13-16 being presumably a fragment from some Jewish apocalypse in which the Babylonian mythology had been adapted to an eschatological interest. This theory, however, rests upon grounds that are very speculative, and even its supporters admit that the author of the Apocalypse would be ignorant of the mythological origin of the name, and would probably understand it to mean ‘the mountain of Megiddo.’
Literature.-The articles ‘Har-Magedon’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and ‘Armageddon’ in Encyclopaedia Biblica ; J. Moffatt, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Ravelation,’ 1910; H. Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos, 1895.
J. C. Lambert.