Armegeddon!

In my last post I touched on how reading the Bible in the original Hebrew can add a lot of depth to and potentially change the meaning of some scriptures. An interesting example. During our road trip to the Galilee area, we visited Megiddo, which is believed by many to be the site of a final battle, commonly known as Armageddon. This is based on Revelations 16:16. Armegeddon is the English derivative of Har Meggido. Har in Hebrew means mountain, so the phrase translates as "Mountain of Meggido".

A bit of geographical background: The city of Megiddo was a very important one in ancient times because of its location. Due to its location, whoever controlled the city also controlled the Megiddo valley. This valley was a major gateway in ancient times, and control of it would have important for waging a successful military campaign anywhere in that area. There is one problem though. There is no mountain of Meggido, just a large flat valley.

The Meggido Valley

This is where the Hebrew translation comes into play. The word Meggido is spelled in Hebrew with a mem, gimel, and a dalot(I wish I had the ability to show the Hebrew letters here). Another word that is similar to the Hebrew word for Megiddo is the Hebrew word for gathering, which is spelled with a mem, an ein, and a dalot. The Hebrew letter ein (pronounced ine) does not signify a consonant sound. It signifies a sound that is produced in the back of the throat(the closest description I can think of is clearing your throat). Hebrew speakers trying to translate this sound into Greek would have had a difficult time coming up with an equivalent since that sound is not present in Greek. They may have ultimately resorted to using the Greek equivalent of "G", since that would be the closest sounding letter they have, thus changing the phrase from "the mountain of gathering" to "the mountain of Megiddo". The significance? The Mountain of Gathering was a common reference of the time to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. However, this transliteration made sense to the Greeks, since the Megiddo Valley was known as a strategic place at the time.

In the era of intercontinental ballistic missiles and mobile warfare, the strategic value of a remote valley such as Megiddo is all but obsolete, but Jerusalem maintains it's status as one of, if not the most, disputed area in the world.

Note that this fits with the prophecy of Zechariah 12.

Alexander