Definition of Armageddon
ARMAGED'DON (ar-ma-ged'on; Grk. Armageddon, from Heb. har Megiddo, "hill or city of Megiddo."). Megiddo occupied a marked position on the southern rim of the plain of Esdraelon, the great battlefield of Palestine. It was famous for two great victories: of Barak over the Canaanites (Judg 4:15) and of Gideon over the Midianites (chap. 7); and for two great disasters: the deaths of Saul (1 Sam 31:8) and Josiah (2 Kings 23:29-30; 2 Chron 35:22). Armageddon became a poetical expression for terrible and final conflict.
To John the Revelator the ancient plain of Megiddo, the battleground of the centuries, furnished a type of the great battle in which the Lord, at His advent of glory, will deliver the Jewish remnant besieged by the Gentile world powers under the Beast (Rev 13:1-10) and the false prophet (13:11-18). Apparently the besieging hosts, whose advance upon Jerusalem is typically set forth in Isa 10:28-32 and who are demon-energized (Rev 16:13-16; Zech 12:1-9), have retreated to Megiddo after the events of Zech 14:2. There their decimation commences and is completed in Moab and Edom (Isa 63:1-3). This last grand battle of "the times of the Gentiles" and of this present age finds fulfillment in the striking-stone prophecy of Dan 2:35 and ushers in "the day of the Lord," when God actively and visibly manifests His glorious power to the discomfiture and utter destruction of His enemies.
(from The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright © 1988.)
To John the Revelator the ancient plain of Megiddo, the battleground of the centuries, furnished a type of the great battle in which the Lord, at His advent of glory, will deliver the Jewish remnant besieged by the Gentile world powers under the Beast (Rev 13:1-10) and the false prophet (13:11-18). Apparently the besieging hosts, whose advance upon Jerusalem is typically set forth in Isa 10:28-32 and who are demon-energized (Rev 16:13-16; Zech 12:1-9), have retreated to Megiddo after the events of Zech 14:2. There their decimation commences and is completed in Moab and Edom (Isa 63:1-3). This last grand battle of "the times of the Gentiles" and of this present age finds fulfillment in the striking-stone prophecy of Dan 2:35 and ushers in "the day of the Lord," when God actively and visibly manifests His glorious power to the discomfiture and utter destruction of His enemies.
(from The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright © 1988.)