For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty… and they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.  (Revelation 16:14&16)

Armageddon has become the byword for complete and utter catastrophe; but in the Bible, it is location associated with several battles.  Transliterated from Hebrew to Greek, Ἁρμαγεδών, this is Harmagedon, from הַר har, ‘hill country’ and Megiddo, a city in the old tribal land of Manasseh overlooking the Jezreel Valley.  Today, the site is known as Tel Megiddo and is found 19 miles south-east of Haifa in the north of modern Israel.

The city-state of Megiddo pre-existed the Israelites, as the king of Megiddo is listed as one of the ‘the kings of the land whom Joshua and the people of Israel defeated on the west side of the Jordan’ (Joshua 12:7&21).

The last ‘good’ king of Judah, Josiah, imprudently gambled on intervening in the conflict between Egypt and Assyria, and died in battle opposing the Pharoah Neco that took place at Megiddo (2 Kings 23:29) and in this there is a foreshadowing of a greater battle.

Prophetically, Daniel describes this battle that erupts between a ‘king of the south’ and a ‘king of the north’ in some detail in chapter eleven of the book of Daniel.  The upshot of this battle is that king of north prevails:

At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him, but the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind, with chariots and horsemen, and with many ships. And he shall come into countries and shall overflow and pass through. He shall come into the glorious land. And tens of thousands shall fall, but these shall be delivered out of his hand: Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape.He shall become ruler of the treasures of gold and of silver, and all the precious things of Egypt, and the Libyans and the Cushites shall follow in his train.  (Daniel 11:40-43)

This then is a prelude to the final battle of Armageddon, because this occurs at the end of the seventieth ‘week’ (a prophetic period of seven years, not seven days) of Daniel’s early prophesy brought to the prophet by the angel Gabriel:

‘Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. …and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.’  (Ibid 9:24&27)

At the end of a terrifying three-and-a-half year period, the ‘prince of the people’ (aka, the king of the north) is alarmed by an event that spells his end.

But news from the east and the north shall alarm him, and he shall go out with great fury to destroy and devote many to destruction. And he shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him.  (Ibid 11:44-45)

And what event is this?  The head quotation omits the verse in Revelation 16:15, which is itself a quotation:

(“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”)

This is an interjection in the narrative of the angels pouring the seven bowls of God’s wrath upon the world, thus it is shown in parathesis, but it is clear who speaks these words, for they are a direction reiteration of what Jesus tells his closest disciples:

‘But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 

 ^‘But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’  (Matthew 24:36-38;43-44)

And the apostle Paul uses the same figure of speech:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2)

On descending to Mount of Olives, Jesus the Messiah, gathers his heavenly forces (including those faithful who have been taken directly or ‘raptured’ – see Matthew 24:40-42) and destroys the coalition of world leaders headed by ‘king of the north’, who, as the false Messiah, had been revealed as the worst of all the world’s rulers. The apostle John knows him as the ‘beast’:

These (world rulers) are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.  (Revelation 17:13-14)

This battle takes place across the Har Megiddo, the hill country some sixty miles to the north of Jerusalem.  None know when this battle will take place, but God has declared that it will happen and where.   The world is told by prophets and apostles, and directly by Jesus, of the divine purpose.  By the time of Armageddon occurs the battle lines are drawn and it will be too late to change sides.  Humanity is warned in advance so none may be on the wrong side.  There is still time to join the winning army through trusting in God and believing that his son, Jesus, is soon to return as the King of Kings.