The prophesied battle of Armageddon—to take place sometime near the end of the world—has gripped the imagination of millions of people for at least two millennia, but there is a great deal of confusion about what this battle is, where it is supposed to take place, and who is to fight in it. This is partly because the various biblical prophecies about the End Time do not agree with each other on these points. This paper will look at the prophecies and connect them to what we know of historical events.According to the Revelation to John at the end of the New Testament, the last battle before the return of the Messiah will be at Armageddon, though this place is spelled Harmagedon in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Revelation 16:16 says that this is a Hebrew term, and most scholars believe Armageddon or Harmagedon is a transliteration of the Hebrew har megiddo, or mountain of Megiddo. Megiddo is a town located in the Jezreel Valley, which is also called the Plain of Esdraelon. This valley is located about halfway between Haifa, on the Mediterranean coast, and Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, both located in Israel.Some scholars disagree with this identification of Armageddon, because there is no mountain at Megiddo. Nonetheless, there is a tell or hill of about seventy feet, which, in an area with few mountains, would be sufficient to explain why the city might be called har megiddo in the first century. We will also see that Megiddo had been the location of many major battles by the time Revelation was written, which supports the identification of the city as Armageddon, the place where the final battle would be fought.
[...] This section of Genesis is a description of the descendants of Noah who repopulated the earth after the great flood. Gomer, Magog, Tubal, and Meshech, who appear as enemies of Israel in Ezekiel, are all listed as descendants of Noah's son Japeth. Cush and Put are the descendants of Ham, whose descendants also included the Canaanites. Ham is described as accursed because he had seen his father's nakedness and had done something not specified to Noah while Noah was intoxicated (Gen. [...]
[...] The Last Battle What exactly is the battle of Armageddon supposed to be? There is a lot of confusion about this question. Some people seem to think that Armageddon is the battle at the end of the world, but in the Book of Revelation it is the battle before the Messiah comes. After the Messiah comes there is a millennium (perhaps symbolic for a very long time) of peace while Satan is held in captivity. Satan eventually escapes from captivity to deceive people into rebelling against God again, and God defeats him for the last time. [...]
[...] The battle of Armageddon in the Revelation to John is not a great disaster, as many believe, but a simple battle in which God easily defeats Satan. Most of the horrors predicted in the Revelation take place before the battle of Armageddon. After the battle Jesus returns a Messiah and resurrects saints to rule with him. In the Hebrew Scriptures, of course, the Jewish Messiah comes and rules the world, and the Islamic tradition predicts an Islamic Messiah. Bibliography Ali, Maulana Muhammad. [...]
[...] Many interpreters of prophecy tend to describe the battle of Armageddon as though it includes all the calamities of the Apocalypse as described in the Revelation to John. Armageddon has become synonymous with disaster. However, John and other prophetic writers, such as Zechariah, say this is a simple battle in which a huge army will come against Israel and be defeated by the intervention of God. After this battle the Messiah will come. Most interpreters assume that the Messiah will come immediately in the midst of this battle, but since we know that biblical time is often symbolic and, therefore, extremely inexact, the exact details of the prediction are unclear. [...]
[...] Megiddo had been the location of many major battles by the time Revelation was written, which supports the identification of the city as Armageddon, the place where the final battle would be fought.[1] The name Armageddon appears in the Bible only in Revelation 16:16, but a reference to Megiddo appears in Zechariah 12:10–11. The writer of Revelation may have gotten the idea that the last battle would happen in Meggido from that reference in Zechariah. The Final Battle The theme of a great battle between good and evil that will take place before God or the Messiah will take control of the world runs through the Hebrew Scriptures (that were adopted by the Christians as the Old Testament), though the details of the various prophecies do not agree. [...]
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