The Great Ribulation

m Is FINISHEOI 143
several important military engagements in Biblical
history. Megiddo is listed among the conquests of
Joshua (Joshua 12:21), and it is especially important
as the place where Deborah defeated the kings of
Canaan (Judges 5:19). King Ahaziah of Judah, the
evil grandson of King Ahab of Israel, died at Megiddo
(II Kings 9:27). Perhaps the most significant
event that took place there, in terms of St. John’s imagery,
was the confrontation between Judah’s King
Josiah and the Egyptian Pharaoh Neco. In deliberate
disobedience to the Word of God, Josiah faced
Neco in battle at Megiddo and was mortally wounded
(II Chronicles 35:20-25). Following Josiah’s death,
Judah’s downward spiral into apostasy, destruction,
and bondage was swift and irrevocable (II Chronicles
36). The Jews mourned for Josiah’s death, even
down through the time of Ezra (see II Chronicles
35:25), and the prophet Zechariah uses this as an
image of Israel’s mourning for the Messiah. After
promising to “destroy all the nations that come
against Jerusalem” (Zechariah 12:9), God says:
And I will pour out on the house of David
and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit
on grace and of supplication, so that they will
look on Me whom they have pierced; and they
will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only
son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like
the bitter weeping over a first-born. In that day
there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like
the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of
Megiddo. And the Land will mourn, every
family by itself. . . (Zechariah 12:10-11).