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| Ruins of Ancient Tel Mediggo |
We have previously presented articles on General Allenby' 1918 victory at the Battle of Megiddo HERE and HERE. Located in a valley commonly called Armageddon in modern times, Megiddo was a powerful city-state in Canaan during the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd millennia BC. Before the 20th Century, it was located at the crossing of two trade and military routes. In this article we examine the Biblical and some historical references to that battlefield. There's reason why the Book of Revelation places the final battle between Good and Evil there, suggests Professor Eric Cline of George Washington University.
The Apocalypse. Judgment Day.
The End of Times.
Armageddon
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| The Valley Today |
Students of the Bible know it as the place where the cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil will unfold. Many believe that this battle will take place in the very near future, but few know that Armageddon is a real place—one that has seen more fighting and bloodshed than any other spot on earth.
Armageddon is a corruption of the Hebrew Har Megiddo and means literally "the mount of Megiddo." During the past 4000 years, at least 34 bloody conflicts have already been fought at the ancient site of Megiddo and adjacent areas of the Jezreel Valley. Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Midianites, Amalekites, Philistines, Hasmonaeans, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, Mamlukes, Mongols, French, Ottomans, British, Australians, Germans, Arabs, and Israelis have all fought and died here. [The first recorded battle here—fought with chariots—was an Egyptian victory over the Canaanits.] The names of the warring generals and leaders reverberate throughout history: Thutmose III, Deborah and Barak, Sisera, Gideon, Saul and Jonathan, Shishak, Jehu, Joram, Jezebel, Josiah, Antiochus, Ptolemy, Vespasian, Saladin, Napoleon, and Allenby, to name but a few of the most famous.
Throughout history, Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley have been Ground Zero for battles that determined the very course of civilization. It is no wonder that the author of Revelation believed Armageddon, the penultimate battle between good and evil, would also take place in this region!
Megiddo, a fascinating site of twenty cities built directly on top of one another and inhabited continuously from 3000 to 300 BC, lies at a strategic junction of roads running north-south and east-west. Whoever had control of Megiddo had control of one of the major trade routes of antiquity, the Via Maris (the "Way of the Sea") Wending its way directly through Israel, right past Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, this strategically placed road ran between Egypt in the south and Mesopotamia (modern Iran/Iraq) or Anatolia (modern Turkey) in the north. Virtually every invading army that came through this region during the past 4000 years fought battles for control of Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley. The only exception was the army of Alexander the Great, who didn't have to fight because the area surrendered to him first.
One lesson that can be learned from the history surrounding the area is the importance of maintaining a strategic presence on military and/or mercantile routes. We also see that, while weapons and technology have changed over the millennia, the strategies and tactics frequently have not. Often the strategies used in the battles fought at such places are repeated by different commanders and different armies in different eras. Finally, we learn that, probably as a result of the necessity of occupying such strategic positions, certain areas of the world have seen consistent fighting for literally millennia.
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| Australian Light Horse Assembled for Armageddon, 1918 |
There were so many battles in this little valley, which measures only 20 miles long by seven miles wide, that one might paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill and say "never in the field of human conflict have so many fought so often over so little space!"
Source: "The Battles of Armageddon," Neil Dearberg The Bible and Interpretation, December 2001
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