Unfulfilled Revelation › Final Events

Battle of Armageddon

Beast and kings of the earth gathered; defeated by the Word of God; Beast and False Prophet cast alive into the lake of fire.

Key Hebrew Terms

הַרְמַגְּדוֹן (Harmagedon, H2022+H4023)

Key Greek Terms

θηρίον (therion, G2342); ψευδοπροφήτης (pseudoprophetes, G5578); λίμνη (limne, G3041)

Linked Verses (12)

KJV

The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.

KJV

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.

KJV

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

KJV

In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.

KJV

And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.

KJV

In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.

KJV

The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.

KJV

In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.

KJV

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

KJV

And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

KJV

And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

KJV

And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

Church Fathers

Hippolytus (On the Antichrist 64-65) reads Armageddon as the literal final battle in which Christ defeats the Antichrist and the gathered kings. Lactantius (Divine Institutes VII.16-19) gives the most detailed eschatological schema of any early Father: the kings of the east (Persia) defeating the Antichrist, then Christ's descent and the final battle. Victorinus reads the gathering as the final mustering against Jerusalem, paralleling Zechariah 12 and 14. Augustine treats it spiritually but affirms a real final conflict.

Ancient Text Cross-References

Gad the Seer 1
Gad the Seer ch. 8
The nations shall be gathered together against Jerusalem, and the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives.
Preserved via Cochin Jewish tradition; a late-surviving prophetic witness paralleling Zechariah 12 and 14.