FOR about four and a half millenniums, two great organizations have been on a collision course. The eventual impact will hurl the world into the most devastating war in history. The Bible calls it “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” But it is, perhaps, better known by a more ominous-sounding name​—Armageddon.a​—Revelation 16:14, 16.

[Footnotes]

‘To the Place Called Har–Magedon’

In the Bible book of Revelation it was foretold that “unclean inspired expressions” would “go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” Goaded onward by Satan-inspired propaganda, the “kings” would be gathered together “to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon [“Mountain of Megiddo”].” Revelation 16:13-16.

No mountain by that name actually exists. True, in Bible times many battles were fought near a city named Megiddo. But there was and is no mountain there​—only a mound. Nor could all the armies of the world squeeze into the Plain of Esdraelon, below Megiddo, as some imagine. Though the word “Har–Magedon” is apparently drawn from Megiddo, its real significance lies in the meaning of the word, that is, “mountain of assembly of troops.” All of this shows that Armageddon is not a place but, rather, a situation: the assembling or lining up of the world against Jehovah God and his people.