“Be sure not to miss next week’s exciting episode!”
Who hasn’t groaned when words like this left a viewer or listener with a whole week to worry about how the hero would get himself out of some terrible fix?
Bowls six and seven are a bit like this. They set up a massive battle, the battle of the great day of God Almighty, at a legendary place “that in the Hebrew is called Armageddon,” and then the reader is just left hanging. What happens next isn’t covered until almost three chapters later.
Please keep in mind that John is telling about visions he saw. Visions are not the same as hearing from an on-the-scene reporter. Instead, they are powerful pictures that capture the emotion of what’s going on. For example, frogs coming out of a beast’s mouth graphically convey the concept of evil spirits drawing together the kings of the earth and their armies for this strategic battle.
And is there a word more loaded than “Armageddon” to communicate the world’s final battle? Har megiddô literally means “the Mount of Megiddo.” It’s from a Hebrew word meaning “to slay,” and slaying has marked these grounds for a considerable time.
Long ago, in the days of Deborah and Barak, “kings came, they fought … at the waters of Megiddo” (Judges 5:19).
Judah’s good king Josiah was killed here by an archer of Pharaoh Necho (2 Chronicles 35:20-24).
Unlike its name, Armageddon is not actually a mountain, but a vast plain in Israel located between the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the Sea of Galilee on the east.
This chapter finally closes in absolute chaos. There’s thunder and lightning, tremendous earthquakes, cities collapsing, mountains and islands vanishing completely, plus huge hundred-pound hailstones falling.
More specifically, Babylon the Great receives a cup filled with the fury of God’s wrath. Giving Babylon an identity is the task of the chapters in Revelation that follow.
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