“Following is the account of the forced labor levied by King Shlomo for building the house of Adonai, his own palace, the Millo, the wall of Yerushalayim, and the cities of Hatzor, Megiddo and Gezer.”-1 Kings 9:15
We continue our wonderful slog through the place names Solomon mentioned in verse 15 (copied and pasted above).
Next up are the cities HATZOR and MEGIDDO.
Both of these cities were located in the Galilee territory.
And both were key military forts situated alongside the Via Maris trade route.
Via Maris is Latin for “Way of the Sea.”
It connected Egypt with Canaan, Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.
It made the land of Israel a kind of international crossroads.
See, here’s what a lot of homies don’t understand.
Israel wasn’t and ain’t some isolated little patch of land on planet Earth.
It sits on a land bridge between Egypt and the great civilizations stretching northward and eastward.
All major international routes passed right through this territory in the ancient world.
Ya feel me here?
So if you ever wondered why places such as Gaza, Megiddo, Hazor, and the Jezreel Valley keep showing up in military campaigns and political history, well, that’s your answer.
This leads us to the next topic of discussion: MEGIDDO.
The significance of this city is huge.
In Gentile Christian land, the territory goes by the name of Armageddon.
But in Hebrew, it’s HAR MEGIDDO.
HAR means “hill” or “mountain” in Hebrew.
So literally, it means the “Hills of Megiddo.”
It guarded the main pass into the Jezreel Valley.
As I just said, this is where major trade routes crossed from north to south and east to west.
The valley was also famous for its rich farmland.
But Megiddo wasn’t only about trade and farming.
Thanks to popular culture, every homie and his grandmother knows Armageddon.
This is where the war to end all wars will take place.
And true to its military nature, Solomon appears to have made Megiddo one of his main chariot cities outside Jerusalem.
So what’s the takeaway here?
The lesson here is simple.
What I find amazing about Scripture is that the place names it mentions are just as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago.
End-times prophecy says that the nations of the world are gonna lie up against Israel to try and destroy it.
And where is that gonna take place?
At HAR MEGIDDO, homie.
Heck, we’ve already seen a taste of this when delegations from dozens of countries walked out as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began speaking during his recent speech at the UN General Assembly.
Nearly 70 countries either walked out or were absent from the chamber.
In closing, I leave you with these verses from the prophet Zechariah that make it abundantly clear that the “Old” Testament is anything but:
“I will make Yerushalayim a cup
that will stagger the surrounding peoples.
Even Y’hudah will be caught up
in the siege against Yerushalayim.
When that day comes,
I will make Yerushalayim
a heavy stone for all the peoples.
All who try to lift it will hurt themselves,
and all the earth’s nations
will be massed against her.”
-Zechariah 12:2-3
Leave a Reply