What Does Armageddon Mean? The Unclean Sacrifice of the Crowd

There is a Hebrew word that means “to gather in a crowd.” The same word also means “to cut yourself.” And that word is built right into the name of the place where the whole world will be gathered for its final battle: Armageddon.

Revelation 16 says three unclean spirits like frogs go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them. But that gathering isn’t only a future event. Those spirits are working right now, and they are gathering people for a reason. The troop wants you to make a sacrifice. Not the kind God asks for, but an unclean one, the kind that cuts you and costs you far more than it ever gives back.

This post goes with Episode 2 of our video series, The Place of the Crowd. Watch the video on our YouTube channel.

What Does Armageddon Mean?

Armageddon is Har-Megiddo, Hebrew for “the mountain of Megiddo” (Revelation 16:16). Strong’s Concordance traces the name Megiddo to the Hebrew root gadad, which means both “to gather in troops” and “to cut yourself.” Armageddon is the place of the crowd, where the world is gathered to make an unclean sacrifice.

Where Is Armageddon?

"And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." — Revelation 16:16 (KJV)

Armageddon is Har-Megiddo in Hebrew, “the mountain of Megiddo.” Megiddo was a real city in northern Israel. It sat on a hill overlooking the wide, flat valley of Jezreel.

That valley was a crossroads. Armies marched through it. Traders moved through it. Anyone traveling between Egypt and the empires to the north passed right by Megiddo. It was a place where crowds came through.

It was valuable enough that Solomon fortified it. 1 Kings 9:15 lists Megiddo among the cities built up by “the levy which king Solomon raised,” which means forced labor and taxation. Even in its history, Megiddo sits right where power and money meet.

The Name Hidden Inside Megiddo

Strong’s Concordance defines Megiddo as “rendezvous,” a meeting place, and traces it to the Hebrew root gadad. In Hebrew, putting the letter M on the front of a root often turns an action into the place where that action happens. So Megiddo is basically “the place of gadad.”

The first meaning of gadad is to gather in troops, to band together. But it isn’t a friendly gathering. The noun from this root, gedud, means a troop, specifically a raiding party that strikes and plunders.

"Gad, a troop shall overcome him." — Genesis 49:19 (KJV)

When raiders burned David’s town and carried off the families, David asked the LORD, “Shall I pursue after this troop?” (1 Samuel 30:8). The place of the crowd isn’t a place where people gather for a picnic. It’s a place where people are pulled into a band that exists to raid.

The Unclean Sacrifice

Here is the second meaning, and it explains why the troop gathers you at all. Gadad also means to cut, to gash yourself.

"Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves." — Deuteronomy 14:1 (KJV)

God forbade His people from cutting themselves the way the pagan nations did in their worship. That word for “cut yourselves” is gadad.

Now watch where it shows up. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah stands on Mount Carmel against 450 prophets of Baal. They dance around their altar all day, and nothing happens. So they go further.

"And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." — 1 Kings 18:28 (KJV)

That is gadad. And what did all that blood get them? “There was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded” (1 Kings 18:29). Mount Carmel sits on the edge of that same valley, and Elijah brought those prophets “down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there” (1 Kings 18:40). The Kishon runs right through the valley by Megiddo.

This is what the troop is really after. It doesn’t gather you to give you something. It gathers you to get you to sacrifice, and it is an unclean sacrifice. God asks you to offer yourself whole: “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” (Romans 12:1). Baal asks you to cut yourself open. One sacrifice gives you life. The other bleeds you out and never answers.

The Crowd That Cuts

Once you know this word, you start seeing it all through the Old Testament.

"...they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses." — Jeremiah 5:7 (KJV)

“Assembled themselves by troops” is gadad. The crowd rushed into the harlot’s house. The harlot pictures this same idea of cutting: wounding yourself for a supposed gain. And in Revelation, the great harlot has a name: Babylon.

"They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood." — Psalm 94:21 (KJV)

Gadad again. The crowd gathers against the righteous.

"Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." — Micah 5:1 (KJV)

Read the very next verse: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah... out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Messiah. Micah 5:1 was fulfilled when the crowd gathered and struck Jesus. The gadad crowd struck the very Judge who came from Bethlehem.

Bethlehem means house of bread, and Ephratah means fruitfulness. Jesus’s words are life. They are the place of true fruitfulness, but the world will do all it can to call you away from Jesus and His teachings, as you will see in the next post. They don’t want you to sit at the feet of Jesus, and they will draw you to sacrifice yourself instead through many other outlets. Those outlets can sound like a beast, a false prophet, or a dragon. In upcoming episodes, we will dissect each of those, so stick with us.

A Table Set for Fortune

A closely related word, gad, is also the name of a pagan god: Fortune, or luck.

"But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number." — Isaiah 65:11 (KJV)

“That troop” is gad. People set a table for Luck, hoping for gain. They made an offering to please the crowd of numbers. Notice, they left the mountain of God for the world’s table of gain. God’s answer comes in the next verse: “Therefore will I number you to the sword” (Isaiah 65:12).

That is the trade the troop always offers. Look at the kings of Canaan who came to fight at Megiddo: “they took no gain of money” (Judges 5:19). They came for plunder. They left with nothing.

The unclean sacrifice always costs more than it pays. The crowd takes your time, your money, your conscience, and sometimes your life. Jesus put the math plainly:

"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" — Matthew 16:26 (KJV)

Life, and Life More Abundantly

Now put the two side by side. Jesus said:

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." — John 10:10 (KJV)

The troop is a raiding band. It comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and it gets you to do the cutting yourself. The prophets of Baal bled all day for a god who never answered. Jesus came to give life, and to give it more abundantly.

Not every gathering is unclean. God gathers too. Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together.” Paul exhorted in 1 Timothy 4:13:

"Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." — 1 Timothy 4:13 (KJV)

We are told in Colossians 3:16:

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." — Colossians 3:16 (KJV)

And listen to Jesus over Jerusalem:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" — Matthew 23:37 (KJV)

Jesus wanted to gather Jerusalem under His wings, and they refused. Not long after, a crowd gathered in Jerusalem and shouted, “Crucify him.”

Four Questions Before You Join the Crowd

When you feel yourself being pulled into a crowd, whether it’s a political side, an online pile-on, a religious movement, or a money rush where everybody’s getting in, stop and ask:

• 1. Who is gathering me?Is it the Lord, or a frog voice that wants me to sacrifice myself to the troop? What do the Scriptures say?
• 2. What’s the gain?What am I actually after: eternal riches, or temporary gain?
• 3. What did God say?Did He say “don’t go,” or did His teachings tell me something different?
• 4. Who carries the burden?Who is going to get cut when this is over?

Next Time: A Good King at the Place of Cutting

You might think only wicked people fall for the troop. They don’t.

One of the most godly kings Judah ever had walked into Megiddo and never walked out. Scripture says there was no king before him like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart. Before the battle, he was warned, clearly, not to come. He heard the warning, disguised himself, and went anyway.

Why would a man that good make an unclean sacrifice? And why did the warning come from the least likely messenger? That’s the next post in The Place of the Crowd.

Missed the beginning? Start with Part 1: Why Frogs?