Revelation 16:16

16. THE MUSTER FOR THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON

16. συνήγαγεν. The subject is not ὁ θεός, as in A. V[572] but the unclean spirits. The sentence goes on from the end of Revelation 16:14; Revelation 16:15 being strictly parenthetical.

[572] Authorised Version.

Ἁρμαγεδών. The meaning, according as we read Ar or Har, is “the City” or “the Mountain of Megiddo.” But the insertion of “in the Hebrew tongue” perhaps indicates, that the meaning of the name Megiddo (which is apparently “cleaving”) is more important than the geographical note. There is some truth (though some exaggeration) in the description of the plain of Esdraelon as “the battle-field of Palestine”: but the only occasions when Megiddo is mentioned in connexion with a battle are Judges 5:19; 2 Kings 23:29 (cf. Zechariah 12:11 where LXX. translates ἐν πεδίῳ ἐκκοπτομὲνου). Of course Megiddo or its neighbourhood (“the Mountain of Megiddo” might be Tabor or that conventionally called Little Hermon) may be the destined scene of the gathering and overthrow of the Antichristian powers: but it is hardly to be assumed as certain. In Zechariah 14:4-5 the Mount of Olives, in Joel 3:12 the Valley of Jehoshaphat (wherever that is: it must be a proper name, though a significant one; but it is a convention, and an improbable one, that identifies it with the gorge of the Kidron) seem to be represented as the scene of the Judgement.