Armageddon

The word only occurs once in the Bible - at Revelation 16.14-17 - to describe the ‘battle of the great day of God the Almighty'. The Greek word used is harmagedon, which many scholars think is itself a translation of the Hebrew phrase har megiddon (‘mountain of Megiddo'). The city of Megiddo held a strategic position in the ancient world. It was built on a mound and enabled those who held it to control the area. It was therefore the scene of many bloody battles.

Based on this, many interpreters believe that the description of evil forces ‘gathering at Megiddo' is symbolic (somewhat like ABBA singing that they were finally ‘facing their Waterloo'). They think it means a final defeat of evil, rather than a physical gathering for battle. Others, however, understand Armageddon as a literal bloody battle that will take place among the nations in Israel, which will end when Christ returns to put a stop to it. The word Armageddon has now entered popular usage to refer to disasters that could spell the end of planet earth (e.g. a nuclear war or an asteroid on collision course with earth as in the 1998 CE film Armageddon).