Question: Can you explain the meaning of “Armageddon” in Hebrew and what is referred to as “the battle of Armageddon”?
What is the literal meaning of Armageddon?
(In the Bible) the place where a final battle will be fought between the forces of good and evil: probably so called in reference to the battlefield of Megiddo. The last and completely destructive battle: The arms race can lead to Armageddon.
Armageddon, (probably Hebrew: (“Hill of Megiddo”), in the New Testament, place where the kings of the Earth under demonic leadership will wage war on the forces of God at the end of history. Armageddon is mentioned in the Bible only once, in the Revelation to John, or the Apocalypse of St. John (16:16).
In Christianity
Most authorities regard early Christianity as a fervently apocalyptic religion, intent on the imminent “Second Coming” of Christ to preside over the Last Judgment and the end of the world. Early Christian apocalypticism is evident in the Gospels, which are permeated with language taken from Daniel. The so-called Little Apocalypse, a sermon by Jesus found in Matthew (24–25) with parallels in Mark (13) and Luke (21), foretells the imminence of collective tribulation and chastisement before the coming of the “Son of Man” who will “sit upon the throne of his glory” and separate “the sheep from the goats”. Some Pauline epistles also contain apocalyptic content.
The last book of the New Testament, the Revelation to John, also known as the Apocalypse of St. John (the Greek term apokalypsis literally means revelation), concludes canonical Christian scripture in a ringingly apocalyptic key. Written in Asia Minor about (it is considered) 95 ce by a Christian named John (the fact that the author gives his true name is the one major exception to the rule of pseudonymity), the Revelation offers a vibrant, sometimes lurid, account of imminent crisis, judgment, and salvation. Evidently obsessed by the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire, which he refers to as “Babylon,” John recounts a series of visions that foretell a crescendo of persecutions and martyrdoms followed by universal judgment, retribution for the forces of evil, and rewards for the faithful. Details are often impenetrable because of esoteric allusive language (e.g., “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet…being with child [and] travailing in birth”). Moreover, the narrative is bewildering because it repeats itself frequently. Nevertheless, the psychedelic imagery is easily etched in the mind, and the mysteries found in the text have proved endlessly fascinating. Nor can there be any doubt of their ultimate message: the world, which is already suffering, will soon be washed in blood, but the “King of Kings” will come to “tread the winepress of the wrath of God”, and everlasting rewards will be given to those who have “washed their robes in the blood of the lamb.” (Revelation 14:19). (Google)
Revelation Study Notes; for use with your Bible:
http://www.revelationsmessage.co.uk/P2%20BACKUP.html
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