Har Magedon in Revelation 16:16 – Part 1

by Ptr. Art Calaguas

Shalom.

Previously, the plight of the very many hostages (~240) of many different nationalities taken by Hamas last October 7, including women, elderly, children and babies seemed to have been relegated to the backstage by the world’s media as the fighting hogged news coverage. But now, it seems our prayer together with hundreds of millions of Christians across the globe for the hostages to be released have borne fruit. At least partly. We even have a Filipino hostage released together with Thais and Israelis. We should continue to pray for the release of all hostages and a just end to this war.

Last time, we found the place name “Gaza” first mentioned in the Old Testament (OT) in Genesis 10:19. Reproduced below is the Hebrew MT text (read left to right) followed by my formal equivalence translation:

וַֽיְהִ֞י גְּב֤וּל הַֽכְּנַעֲנִי֙ מִצִּידֹ֔ן בֹּאֲכָ֥ה גְרָ֖רָה עַד־עַזָּ֑ה בֹּאֲכָ֞ה סְדֹ֧מָה וַעֲמֹרָ֛ה וְאַדְמָ֥ה וּצְבֹיִ֖ם עַד־לָֽשַׁע׃

¹⁹And the Canaanite territory is situated from Sidon as you go toward Gerar as far as Gaza, then as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboim, as far as Lasha.

For good measure, below is the Greek LXX translation of Genesis 10:19 containing these place names (also highlighted and color-coded accordingly; read right to left):

καὶ ἐγένοντο τὰ ὅρια Χαναναίων ἀπὸ Σιδῶνος ἕως ἐλθεῖν εἰς Γέραρα καὶ Γάζαν, ἕως ἐλθεῖν ἕως Σοδόμων καὶ Γομόρρας, Ἀδαμὰ καὶ Σεβωὶμ ἕως Δασά.

From the highlighted words, we see that גְרָ֖רָה in Hebrew, and Γέραρα in Greek is transliterated as Gerar; while עַזָּה in Hebrew, and Γάζαν in Greek is transliterated as Gaza; while סְדֹם in Hebrew, and Σοδόμων in Greek is transliterated as Sodom; and עֲמֹרָ֛ה in Hebrew, and Γομόρρας in Greek is transliterated as Gomorrah.

Note that both עַזָּה and עֲמֹרָ֛ה start with the 16^th Hebrew letter ע, “ayin” but gets the hard “g” sound in the LXX. From last week, we saw that there are 2 different ways the letter ע, “ayin” is vocalized: “silent” or unpronounced, or pronounced with the hard “g” sound. This “g” sound makes it “Gaza” instead of “Azzah” and “Gomorrah” instead of “Amorah” in our English Bibles.

But Hebrew also has another letter that has the sound of the hard “g.” This is the 3^rd Hebrew letter ג, “gimel” and we find it also in Genesis 10:19. This is the place name גְּרָר, transliterated as Gerar. It is found only 10x in the OT; 8x in Genesis, and then once in 1 Chronicles 14:13; and once in 1 Chronicles 14:14. Notice that it begins with ג, “gimel” and so has the proper hard “g” sound. This Hebrew letter “gimel” is actually the source of the 3^rd Greek letter γ, “gamma.” We find this in Γέραρα in the LXX version of Genesis 10:19 for Gerar (see above).

From the foregoing, we can see that Hebrew has 2 different letters that may give us the hard “g” sound: ג, “gimel” or ע, “ayin.” However, Greek only has 1 letter that produces the hard “g” sound: the letter γ, “gamma” (uppercase is Γ, as in Γαζα for Gaza). This nuance of the Hebrew letter ע, “ayin” now leads us to an unexpected discovery. 

Last year, my daughter in Canada gave me a book I requested: The Unseen Realm (Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible) written by Michael S. Heiser in 2015. Dr. Michael S. Heiser holds a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages and an MA in ancient history and Hebrew studies. He is the author of numerous best-selling books (I own a few of them); a Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife Corporation; Executive Director of the School of Theology at Celebration Church; a regular contributor to Bible Study Magazine; and served as an editor of the Faithlife Study Bible. Unfortunately, Dr. Heiser died last February 2023.

In The Unseen Realm, Chapter 41 (The Mount of Assembly), pp. 368-375, Dr. Heiser makes an assertion based on his extensive knowledge of the OT and the Hebrew language that a word in Revelation 16:16 has not been transliterated/translated properly throughout Christian history. Revelation 16 is about the Bowls of Wrath poured out on the earth as part of God’s eschatological judgment. The immediate context is Revelation 16:12-16 (about the 6^th Bowl) and the word in question is “Armageddon” found at the end of Revelation 16:16. The Greek text from the SBL GNT of this verse followed by my formal equivalence translation is given below:

καὶ συνήγαγεν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν τόπον τὸν καλούμενον Ἑβραϊστὶ Ἁρμαγεδών.

¹⁶And he gathered them unto the place called in Hebrew Harmagedon.

The highlighted last Greek word Ἁρμαγεδών has traditionally been transliterated as the place name “Armageddon.” However, as Dr. Heiser correctly points out, those of us who know Biblical Greek would say that the rough breathing mark in front of the beginning “A” (Greek alpha) and the fact that Greek does not have a letter that sounds like our “h” would make us pronounce the word as Harmagedon not “Armagedon.” This fact and that the writer, the Apostle John has a specific phrase “the place called in Hebrew” before Ἁρμαγεδών alerts us that we must rely more on Biblical Hebrew for the word’s meaning.

In Hebrew, this word can be broken up into 2 words. The 1^st word “har” would be known as “mountain” or “mount.” The 2^nd word would then be “magedon.” Taken together, the place would be “Har Magedon” which is “Mount Magedon” or “Mountain of Magedon” in English. A quick check in https://biblehub.com/revelation/16-16.htm shows that a few of the different Bible translations of Revelation 16:16 actually read “Har-Magedon.” Of the more than 30 versions listed, majority translate it as “Armageddon” while 10 use “Har-Magedon” (NASB, Amplified Bible, ASV, ERV, etc.), or “Harmagedon” (NRSV). Only the Aramaic Bible in Plain English translates it as “Megiddo” while the New Heart English Bible uses “Har Megiddo.”

So this question can be asked: where is “Har-Magedon” situated? This place name is only found in Revelation 16:16; it is a hapax legomenon so there are no clues in the Greek. Is it the same as Har Meggido? Is Armageddon really Mount Megiddo? If one has visited or sees a picture of the place called Tel Megiddo in Israel, the question is answered in the negative. I had been able to visit Tel Megiddo in 2013 during one of our pilgrimages to Israel. There is no mountain there.

Tel Megiddo is actually an archaeological site of the ancient city of Megiddo in the Lower Galilee region of northern Israel. Archeologists say that the city was built during the Early Bronze age and had been built over approximately 26 layers deep. It is not a natural mountain but an artificial, man-made mound (tell) of ancient ruins built on top of one another over millennia. And the area it lies in is a plain or relatively flat area. Megiddo is strategically located astride the Megiddo Pass (Wadi Arah) inside the Jezreel Valley (see the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary map, [p. 1916] below followed by my photographs).

Megiddo and Jezreel Valley

So if there is no mountain of Megiddo nor Mount Megiddo, where is Har Magedon, the place of gathering for God’s judgment referred to in Revelation 16:16?

We will continue next week.

God bless us all.