StrongerBible

Armageddōn

Ἀρμαγεδδών

GreekG0717Armageddon, Har-Magedon

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

Rev 16:16
Word studyResearch-gradehar-mah-ged-DOHNnoun

What Armageddōn means

Armageddon: the symbolic place where the kings of the world are gathered for the final battle against God

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyStrong

This is a place name that the book of Revelation invents and uses exactly once. Revelation marks it as a Hebrew word, then describes the unclean spirits gathering all the world's kings to it for the great day of God Almighty. So the word names a location, but the location is a picture, not a dot on a map.

The name almost certainly echoes Megiddo (מְגִדּוֹ), an ancient city on the plain of Jezreel where some of Israel's most famous and most bitter battles were fought, including the defeat that killed good King Josiah. Revelation calls it a mount, yet there is no Mount Megiddo (מְגִדּוֹ), which is the first clue that the writer is reaching for memory and resonance rather than coordinates. Other Hebrew phrases seem to ring inside the word as well: the cosmic mountain where God's enemies gather to be judged (מועד), and the destroying mountain that Babylon is called when she herself is about to be cut down.

Most scholars read it the way they read Revelation's other loaded names, like Babylon, Sodom, and the Euphrates. Each one is a theological cipher built out of Old Testament memory rather than a literal address. Armageddon condenses every Hebrew tradition of an end-time mustering of the nations for judgment into one ominous word, and the writer never resolves it to a single place precisely so it can sound on several frequencies at once.

In Revelation's own structure the verse does not describe a battle at all. It describes a gathering. The actual confrontation comes later, and the same gathering, the same kings, and the same Old Testament backdrop return there, so Armageddon names the staging point of the last conflict between evil and God, wherever and however that conflict is finally pictured.

Rev 16:16

What scholars say about Armageddōn

Scholars broadly agree that Armageddon is a symbolic, theological name John coins for a single occurrence, welding together Old Testament traditions of an end-time gathering of the nations for judgment, rather than a real point on a map. They disagree about which Hebrew phrase underlies the Greek. The standard reading takes it as Mount of Megiddo (Hebrew har megiddon), evoking Israel's archetypal battlefield; John Day strengthens this by combining Zechariah 12:11 with the mountains of Israel in Ezekiel 38-39. A persistent minority, advanced by C. C. Torrey and revived by Meredith Kline, reads it as the mount of assembly of Isaiah 14:13, the cosmic council mountain identified with Zion. A third line, traced to patristic commentators and developed by G. B. Caird, Hans LaRondelle, and Marko Jauhiainen, derives it from a Hebrew root for cutting down and reads it as the destroying mountain of Babylon awaiting her own ruin. Both Joachim Jeremias and David Aune conclude that the name has never been satisfactorily explained, which itself suggests John intended it to resonate on several frequencies at once.

Where scholars disagree about Armageddōn

What Hebrew phrase lies behind the coined Greek name, and which Old Testament battle it most evokes. The name appears only here in the Bible and has no earlier attestation, so the etymology is reconstructed rather than known.

  • majorityMount of Megiddo (Hebrew har megiddon), evoking Israel's archetypal battlefield on the plain of Jezreel. Held to be only typological, since there is no actual Mount Megiddo. John Day strengthens it by combining Zechariah 12:11 with the mountains of Israel in Ezekiel 38-39.; Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999, 838-41.; Mounce, R. H. The Book of Revelation. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, 300-302.; Day, J. "The Origin of Armageddon: Revelation 16:16 as an Interpretation of Zechariah 12:11." In Crossing the Boundaries, ed. S. E. Porter et al., 315-26. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
  • minorityMount of assembly (Hebrew har moed) from Isaiah 14:13, the cosmic council mountain identified with Zion, where arrogant powers are judged. Appeals to the regular rendering of the Hebrew letter ayin by Greek gamma and to the pairing with Abaddon, the other Hebrew-flagged name.; Torrey, C. C. "Armageddon." Harvard Theological Review 31 (1938): 237-48.; Kline, M. G. "Har Magedon: The End of the Millennium." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39 (1996): 207-22.
  • minorityMountain of slaughter or destruction, from a Hebrew root meaning to cut down, read as an ironic name for Babylon herself, the destroying mountain of Jeremiah 51:25 that is about to be cut down. Notes that the Septuagint of Zechariah 12:11 already renders Megiddo with the sense of cutting.; Caird, G. B. The Revelation of St. John. Black's New Testament Commentary. London: A. & C. Black, 1984, 207.; Jauhiainen, M. "The OT Background to Armageddon (Rev 16:16) Revisited." Novum Testamentum 47 (2005): 381-93.
  • contestedThe etymology cannot be cleanly resolved at all because John built a deliberately layered name that rings on several Hebrew traditions at once, so no single derivation should be forced.; Jeremias, J. "Ἁρμαγεδών." In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, 1:468. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.; Aune, D. E. Revelation 6-16. Word Biblical Commentary 52B. Dallas: Word, 1998, 898.
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Jeremias, J. "Ἁρμαγεδών." In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, 1:468. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.lexicon
  • Aune, D. E. Revelation 6-16. Word Biblical Commentary 52B. Dallas: Word, 1998, 898.commentary
  • Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999, 838-41.commentary
  • Mounce, R. H. The Book of Revelation. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, 300-302.commentary
  • Day, J. "The Origin of Armageddon: Revelation 16:16 as an Interpretation of Zechariah 12:11." In Crossing the Boundaries, ed. S. E. Porter et al., 315-26. Leiden: Brill, 1994.article
  • Torrey, C. C. "Armageddon." Harvard Theological Review 31 (1938): 237-48.article
  • Kline, M. G. "Har Magedon: The End of the Millennium." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39 (1996): 207-22.article
  • Jauhiainen, M. "The OT Background to Armageddon (Rev 16:16) Revisited." Novum Testamentum 47 (2005): 381-93.article
  • Caird, G. B. The Revelation of St. John. Black's New Testament Commentary. London: A. & C. Black, 1984, 207.commentary
  • Charles, R. H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920, 2:50-51.commentary
  • Koester, C. R. Revelation. Anchor Yale Bible 38A. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.commentary
  • Metzger, B. M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994, 681.reference

All attested forms of Ἀρμαγεδδών

accusative n s

Ἁρμαγεδών

Rev 16:16