Megiddo

מְגִדּוֹ

Where was biblical Megiddo? At Tel Megiddo National Park, at the mouth of Wadi Ara, about 30 km southeast of Haifa. I mark it certain.

Megiddo
Photo: Ian Scott, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

King Josiah rode out against Pharaoh Necho here and was killed, a disaster the prophets mourned for generations.

By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker

Site today
Tel Megiddo National Park, at the mouth of Wadi Ara
How sure
Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
Other names
Megiddon, Tell el-Mutesellim, Armageddon, Har Megiddo, Legio, Lajjun
Location
32.5865° N, 35.1861° E (Google Maps)
Megiddo on the hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel
Megiddo on our hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel. Get the full map as a print →

How we know where it was

To understand Megiddo, look at the road. The great international highway ran up the coast. To reach the Jezreel Valley and the routes beyond it, the road had to cross the hills through a pass, Wadi Ara, Nahal Iron in Hebrew. Megiddo sits right where that pass opens into the valley. Whoever held the mound held the door.

That is why armies keep arriving here. Pharaoh Thutmose III fought his famous battle of Megiddo at this spot, and his annals describe it. Centuries later Necho marched north through the same gap, and Josiah went out to stop him. Before that, the kings of Canaan fought Deborah's war "at Taanach, by Megiddo's waters." Ahaziah of Judah, wounded by Jehu's men, fled here and died. The Romans later camped a legion right beside the tel, at Legio. Tell el-Mutesellim is the only great city mound at the mouth of the pass, so there is no real question where Megiddo stood.

Josiah's death here was a national grief. He was the king who had cleansed the Temple and renewed the covenant, and he died at thirty-nine. Jeremiah lamented him. "The breath of our nostrils, G-d's anointed, was caught in their pits," he wrote in Lamentations, and Rashi reads those words as Josiah. The singers of Judah went on mourning Josiah in their laments for generations. Zechariah still speaks of "the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon," and the Targum connects it with the mourning for Josiah.

The ground backs it up. Excavators found some 20 cities stacked one on top of another, with Canaanite palaces and temples, Iron Age gates and a massive water system. Some buildings may be stables or storehouses. Solomon fortified Megiddo along with Hazor and Gezer. A seal found here reads "Shema servant of Jeroboam," and it belonged to an official of an Israelite king.

Visiting today

Tel Megiddo National Park has a museum, Canaanite and Israelite gates, the stable complexes and an Iron Age water tunnel you can walk through.

Read it in the Bible

Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.

See Megiddo on the interactive map →

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Nearby places

Sources and further reading