The great Arab victory in the battle of Yarmuk (August, 634) did not immediately give them possession of western Palestine.

The remnants of the Byzantine army withdrew west, across the Jordan to the ancient city of Beth-Shan, known as Scythopolis under Roman rule. Beth-Shan occupies a strong defensive position on the crest of basalt flows at the foot of the Gilboa range. The east side, overlooking the Jordan, forms a three hundred-foot basalt cliff cut by narrow ravines. The Byzantines fortified the cliff and the north face of the city, and they diverted water flowing from Ain Jalud into the marshy lowlands of the Jordan valley north of Beth-Shan at the east end of the Vale of Esdraelon.

The Arab army settled down on the east bank of the Jordan to wait for summer to dry out the marshes. The Byzantines, however, chose not to wait for summer but to surprise the Arabs on their own ground. Their impatience got the better of them, and the Arabs inflicted a second defeat on the Byzantines outside the fortress of Pella in February, 635. The Byzantines abandoned Pella and Beth-Shan, leaving their inhabitants to surrender. The Moslem calendar commemorates the surrender as the Day of Beisan because it secured their control of the roads to Damascus and western Palestine.

Damascus fell to the Arabs in August or September 635. The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius raised a new army in 636 and sent it to reclaim Syria. The Arab forces annihilated it in a second battle at Yarmuk. They then completed their occupation of the Judean highlands in 638 by negotiating the surrender of Jerusalem. The Day of Beisan thus entered Moslem history as the equivalent of the Day of Armageddon.

The Byzantine Empire inherited the province of Palestine after the division of the Roman Empire in 330AD. Eastern Christianity flourished there and the ancient battlefield of Armageddon lay quiet until the Seventh Century. Thirty years of warfare between the Byzantine and Persian Empires weakened both, allowing a new force, Islam, to emerge in Arabia, consolidate itself, and challenge both empires.
Persian forces under King Chosroes II invaded Syria early in the Seventh Century, bent on avenging recent defeats. Jews in Palestine and Syria rallied to the Persians, and a strong contingent joined the Persian division that marched south across the Plain of Esdraelon to attack the Byzantine stronghold at Jerusalem. Joined by Arabs and more Jews from southern Palestine, the combined force stormed Jerusalem amid great slaughter in July 614. Persians and Jews then ravaged Christian cities and buildings throughout the rest of Palestine, including Esdraelon.
The Jews hoped that the Persians would allow them to form a new commonwealth, but Chosroes merely raised their taxes until the return of the Byzantines after fourteen years. They did not stay long.
The year 570 saw the birth of Mohammed, the future Prophet of Islam, at Mecca. The house of his birth lay within half a mile of the Kaaba, an ancient shrine. Mohammed’s revered grandfather successfully defended the Kaaba from an Abyssinian attempt to destroy it in 570. Mohammed had a vision of the archangel Gabriel in 610 that changed his life. He began preaching three years later, but made slow progress until 620, when he began preaching to pilgrims to the Kaaba. By 622, seventy pilgrim converts pledged their support. From their refuge in Medina, the new Muslims began raiding the countryside, at first to support themselves, and then to make converts. They consolidated their control of the Arabian peninsula by in 630 by occupying Mecca and making the Kaaba the destination of annual pilgrimages.
Mohammed next turned his attention to the Byzantine Empire and led a bloodless expedition to Tebook that resulted in neighboring rulers making peace and paying tribute. He gave orders for a second expedition in 632, but died that June. A year of turbulence followed until Mohammed’s elected successor Abu Bekr reunited Arabia under his rule and resumed Mohammed’s policy of expansion. Within fifty years, the Arab Empire and Islam extended from the Atlas Mountains of North Africa to the Indus River of India.
Jerusalem surrendered to the Arabs during the winter of 637-638, following their victory over the Byzantines at Yarmouk in 636. This great victory won access to the Jordan Valley, the great Vale of Esdraelon, and control of all the routes south to Jerusalem. For the Byzantines, the Arab victory at Yarmouk was a disaster that led to the loss of their empire—an “Armageddon.”

What is the connection between Handel and Armageddon?

George Frederick Handel never went near that ancient battleground. He did, however compose an oratorio about Judas Maccabeus (1748), the hero of the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid kings of Syria, heirs to a portion of Alexander the Great’s empire. The Seleucids murdered Judas near Beth Shan, at the southeastern end of the ancient battleground.

The most famous chorus from Judas Maccabaeus is “See, the Conqu’ring Hero Comes!” It’s a grand tune and still beloved in England. It’s such a grand tune that “The Conqu’ring Hero” fits it as well as a wagon hitched to a racehorse.

The Swiss hymn writer Edmond Louis Budry (1854-1932) noticed the disparity long before me and borrowed Handel’s chorus for his Easter hymn, “À toi la gloire, O Ressuscité!” Richard Birch Hoyle (1875–19390 translated the hymn into English in 1923 as “Thine is the Glory.”

Thine is the glory, risen, conqu’ring Son;
Endless is the victory, Thou o’er death hast won;
Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
Kept the folded grave clothes where Thy body lay.

Refrain
Thine is the glory, risen conqu’ring Son,
Endless is the vict’ry, Thou o’er death hast won.

Lo! Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb;
Lovingly He greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
Let the church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing;
For her Lord now liveth, death hath lost its sting.

Refrain

No more we doubt Thee, glorious Prince of life;
Life is naught without Thee; aid us in our strife;
Make us more than conqu’rors, through Thy deathless love:
Bring us safe through Jordan to Thy home above.

Refrain

It’s safe to say that “Thine is the Glory” fits Handel’s chorus better than the original words. After all, did not Jesus Christ win a greater victory at Gologotha than Judas Maccabeus ever did. And is he not the ultimate victor in the apocalyptic battle against evil at Armageddon?

To quote from another oratorio by Handel, “The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!”

Where is He, born in a stable,
Laid in a manger cut from rock?
Grown in grace, He walked among us,
                Preaching a kingdom built on rock.

Where is He who walked among us,
Preaching a kingdom built on rock?
           They took Him, tried Him, and flogged Him,
           Nailed Him to a cross set high on rock.

Where is He whom they took from us,
Nailed Him to a cross set high on rock?
            We took Him down before nightfall,
           Borrowed a tomb dug deep in rock.

Where is He who suffered for us?
Lying in a tomb hewn from rock?
Death could not keep Him from us:
              Risen, He lives and reigns: our Rock!

* * *

Jesus and the Widow of Nain
We don’t habitually associate the life of Jesus with Armageddon, the Greek name given to the Plain of Esdraelon that is the scene of the apocalyptic battle and final overthrow of evil in Revelation. 16:16.
Nazareth actually sits in a range of hills bounding the north side of Esdraelon, which is not a single plain but several separated by low ridges. Jezreel occupied one, and Nain and Shunem lay two miles away (as the crow flies) on the north and south flanks of another, the Hill of Moreh, which is separated by a four-mile wide valley from Mt. Tabor. Part of the Philistine army camped there when they came to fight King Saul at Mt. Gilboa, on the south side of the valley of Jezreel. Shunem was the home of Elisha’s patroness, whose son he brought back to life (2 Kings 4:8-37).
The hills of Lower Galilee bound the northeast side of Esdraelon, and Nazareth lies about six miles northwest (as the crow flies) on the north face of one of these hills. To approach Lake Galilee ( about 15 miles east of Nazareth, Jesus would normally follow the trail down the Turan Valley. His visit to Nain (Luke 7:11-17) follows his first circuit of the west side of the lake, ending at Capernaum (Luke 7:1-10).
Luke does not explain Jesus’ itinerary or reasons for visiting Nain during a funeral procession. Luke says, simply,

 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry” (verses 12-13).

As we near the end of this Holy Week, Jesus’ concern for the widow appears prophetic. He did not wait to be asked to intervene. He immediately comforted the widow and revived her son with a command.
We can imagine that Jesus thought of his own mother, now widowed and soon to lose him. He knew about the plight of widows in those days—destitution threatened them if they lacked sons. Jesus did not always do as his mother wished, but he did not disappoint her at the wedding in Cana or in the hour of his own death. Just as he provided wine for the wedding, so he appointed a guardian for his mother.
Luke’s brief account of Jesus’ skirmish with death in a corner of the historic battlefield of Armageddon bears a lesson for the end of this solemn Holy Week. His Kingdom, which is not of this world, will disappoint our worldly expectations. Nevertheless, he is the steadfast hope who will not disappoint us, leave us, or forsake us.

Great is the mystery of faith:
Christ has died;
Christ has risen;
Christ will come again!

The First Jewish War, which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 AD, began as a case of civil unrest–nothing new during Roman rule. This time turbulence got so out of hand that all Judea fell into a state of lawlessness that threatened to spread to Egypt. When the Roman governor Florus left Jerusalem in 66 AD, a mob captured the Antonia fortress. Other rebels stormed Roman outposts, including a garrison at Mt. Tabor and Herod the Great’s fortress at Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea. The Roman governor of Syria, Cestius had to intervene in order to protect Roman interests and collect taxes.

Cestius himself was ineffective and his troops were more trained for war than peace-keeping and police duties. The 12th Legion’s tactics, moreover, were ill-adapted for guerilla warfare. Cestius botched his assault on Jerusalem and Jewish guerillas mauled his legion to pieces during their retreat.

Cestius’s failure gave the Jews time to organize their resistance, and they set up military districts thoughout Judea. They consolidated their defenses by the time Nero appointed his best general, Vespasian, to take command. Vespasian took his time to assemble three legions at Ptolemais before marching inland. He deployed screeens of lightly armed auxiliaries to clean out ambushes ahead of his advance guard and the legions. A rear guard of cavalry and infantry prevented guarilla attacks from the rear.  Vespasian proceeded systematically across Galilee.

While laying siege to Gamala on the east side of Lake Kinnereth (Galilee), Vespasian dispatched a cavalry detachment of 600 up the Vale of Esdraelon to scout the situation at Mt. Tabor, which rises above the southeast  end of the ancient battleground of Armageddon. It’s plainly visible across the valley of Esdraelon from Mount Carmel. A larger force of Jewish rebels occupying the Roman fort on Mt. Tabor prepared for battle. Placidus, the Roman commander, invited the rebels to meet him and make a truce that would spare their lives.

The rebels answered by pouring downhill to attack the Romans. Placidus feigned a retreat and drew the rebels out into the open plain, where his counter-attack cut off the rebels’ retreat and slaughtered those who did not surrender. The rebels had forgotten the example of Deborah and Barak when they defended Mt. Tabor from Sisera’s army and waited for Sisera’s vaunted charioteers to get mired in the muddy valley before attacking.

Jewish rebels did not give up elsewhere in Judea. The Romans needed another three years to subdue Jerusalem and three more to capture Masada. The defeat of the Jewish rebels at Mt. Tabor was therefore by no means their #Armageddon, but it was a part of the beginning of the beginning of the fall of Jerusalem. Secure in their control of the valleys of Jezreel and Esdraelon, the Roman war machine advanced on Jerusalem from the north by the highland route.

NOTE

The existence of the Roman fort on Mt. Tabor, confirmed by archeology, makes it unlikely that it was the Mount of Transfiguration, as claimed by some traditions. The geographic background details in Mark’s gospel make it much more likely that the Transfiguration of Jesus occured on Mount Hermon.

Conflicts within the great battleground of Armageddon did not end with the death of King Josiah and the destruction of Judah’s army at the the hands of the Egyptians in 609 BC. Two great, decisive battles, and at least as many bloody, small-scale engagements followed over the next two and a half milennia. Before them, however, the great plain of Armageddon becomes the scene of treachery and betrayal during Judah’s struggle for independence.

The armies of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Alexander the Great marched at will through the plains of Esdaelon and Jezreel. Then Alexander’s successors in Egypt and Syria fought for control of the former territories of Israel and Judah. The Seleucid kings of Syria won, but their heavy-handed tactics brought on a Jewish rebellion led by the priest Mattathias of Modein.

Antiochus III determined to suppress Jewish resistance by outlawing their religion. His troops occupied Jerusalem in 168 BC, and desecrated the Second Temple by sacrificing pigs on a pagan altar. He ordered the building of pagan altars throughout the land and sent his troops to force the Jews to sacrifice pigs and eat thei flesh.

Mattathias refused to comply. Instead, he killed both another Jew who obeyed and the Sryian officer in charge. He and his five sons fled to the hills, gathered other rellious Jews to their cause, and launched a guerilla campaign against the Syrians. Mattathias died in 166 BC, but not without comissioning his first son, Judas Maccabeus, the Hammer, to carry on the struggle. Judas recaptured Jerusalem the following year and initiated the cleansing of the Temple that is comemorated by the Feast of Lights. War with the Syrians raged on in every direction, prolonged by treachery on both sides. The apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees records much of the campaigns and Judas Maccabeus” treaty with Rome. The Syrians, in turn, embroiled the Egyptians in the war.

Following the death of Jadas Maccabeus in battle, his brother Jonathan succeeded him and carried on the war against the Seleucids. He renewed the treaty with Rome and met the Seleucids near Beth-shan, at the east end of the great plain of Megiddo. Jonathan had intended to prevent another Seleucid invasion, but their general Trypho betrayed and took him captive. Trypho sent troops and cavalry to detroy Jonathan’s army, but they maintained their discipline and turned back Trypho’s troops.

Simon, the last of Mattathias’s five sons, took command, rallied the people of Judah behind him, and lured Trypho and his army into Judah, with Jonathan as hostage. Simon wore out the Syrian forces by leading them around the land as far south as Hebron without engaging them. A heavy snowfall forced Trypho to retreat to Gilead, where he murdered Jonathan. Returning to Syria, he assassinated the king and plunged the country into civil war over succession to the kingship.

Simon took advantage of the anarchy to secure Judah’s independence as a sovreign, priestly state. Simon himself was elected great high priest, commander and leader of the Jews. He honored his father and brothers by having monuments erected in their memory at Modein.

“The land had rest all the days of Simon. He sought the good of his nation; his rule was pleasing to them, as was the honor shown him, all his days” (1 Maccabees 14:4, NRSV).

The Romans recognized Judah’s independence. Their subsequent intervention in the affairs of Seleucid Empire gave Judah nearly a century of  independence until the arrival in Jerusalem of Pompey the Great in 63 BC.

The Treasures of Megiddo

The University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute excavated the ancient site of Megiddo between 1925 and 1939. The Institute houses hundreds of treasures unearthed from the Tel Megiddo, the  fortress overlooking the Biblical battlefied of Armageddon.

ASOR has published Ancient Israel: Highlights from the Collections of the Oriental Institute, a gallery guide to showcase the excavation’s many unique finds and discoveries, including the beautiful Megiddo ivories, proto-Aeolic capitals that may have adorned Solomonic buildings and a wide assortment of Syro-Palestinian pottery spanning the millennia.

The book, which is available for purchase or as a free pdf download, also includes informative discussions about Megiddo’s complex and controversial stratigraphy, the origins of the Israelites and ongoing debates over the Solomonic date of many of the site’s most famous structures.

View the Oriental Institute’s Megiddo gallery guide online at http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oimp/oimp31/html. For more information,  go to

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/oriental-institute%e2%80%99s-guide-to-megiddo-ancient-israel-available-online/

“Solomon’s  Stables” at Megiddo

Structures identified as stables were among the ASOR discoveries at Megiddo. In answer to questions about their identification as stables, equestrien Deborah O’Daniel Cantrell has completed a doctoral study of Megiddo and the use of horses and chariots in Israel.  Her findings appear in The Horsemen of Israel: Horses and Chariotry in Monarchic Israel (Ninth-Eighth Centuries B.C.E) (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011, 143 pp). Cantrell concludes that the Megiddo excavations uncovered a major fortified equine complex. It included stables, an exercise area, watering troughs, hitching stalls, and a granary for feed. Her evidence includes signs of crib-biting and pawing by impatient horses.

Reviewed by Ziony Zevit in “Hippology of Ancient Israel”, Biblical Archeological Review, 38-2, 62-63.

As to whether these are Solomon’s stables, that’s another matter.

Egyptian Pharaoh Shishak (Shoshenq I,  circa 931-910 BC) invaded Judah and Israel five years after Israel’s northern tribes seceded from the kingdom of Solomon’s successor Rehoboam in 921 BC. The Bible record Shishak’s looting of Solomon’s Temple, but not his further exploits in Israel. Shishak, however, listed Megiddo among the cities that he conquered. A wall of the temple to Amun-Re at Karnak preserves Shishak’s list. At Megiddo, Shishak erected a victory stele. A surviving fragment bears his name.

The kings of Israel rebuilt the fortifications and stables at Megiddo. One of them, possibly Ahab, had a water shaft dug to protect Megiddo’s water supply. About the same vinatge as another water shaft at Hazor, the shaft is about 75 feet deep and 210 feet long. It brought water from a natural spring at the foot of Tel Megiddo.

The Assyrians demolished the Israelite fortress during their campaigns in Israel and Judah in the 8th century BC and replaced it with a spacious city that became their provincial headquarters.  Riven by assassinations, the Asyrian empire began to fall apart in the 7th century, and King Josiah of Judah claimed control of parts of the former territory of Israel, including Megiddo. He made Megiido his base when he attempted to prevent an Egyptian expeditionary force from supporting the weakened Assyrians agaist the rising Babylonian empire. Though the Egyptians fatally wounded Josiah  during a battle on the plain near Megiddo, the Egyptians were no match for the Assyrians

What the Assyrians did not detroy at Megiddo in 609, the Babylonians did during the succeeding final thirty years of the kingdom of Judah.  A small fort fell into disuse after the 4th century BC, and the site went unoccupied until the Romans  established the fortress of Legio as a regional defensive center. The Arabic name of the village of al Lujun preserves the Roman name.

Current Excavations at Megiddo

Megiddo continues to yield discoveries. The current Megiddo Expedition has been active since 2010. The team works under the auspices of Tel Aviv University, in conjunction with The George Washington University as Senior Consortium Member and Chapman University, Loyola Marymount University and Vanderbilt University as Consortium Members. The Expedition is directed by Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin (Tel Aviv University), with Eric Cline (The George Washington University) serving as Associate Director (USA).

Biblical Archeology staff report the Expedition has  recently discovered a hoard of gold, silver and bronze jewelry dating to around 1100 B.C.E. The jewelry was found wrapped in fabric and hidden inside a ceramic vessel that had been excavated in the summer of 2010 from an early Iron Age dwelling at the site. The archeologists that further analysis of both the textiles and jewelry will reveal important clues as to their origins and use.

For photograps and more information,  go to http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/jewelry-from-the-time-of-the-judges-found-at-megiddo/

Dredging discovery

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff • 02/29/2012

A Greek bronze helmet, covered with gold leaf and decorated with snakes, lions and a peacock’s tail (or palmette), has been discovered in the waters of Haifa Bay in Israel. But how this helmet ended up at the bottom of the bay is a mystery.

The helmet dates back around 2,600 years and likely belonged to a wealthy Greek mercenary who took part in a series of wars, immortalized in the Bible, which ravaged the region at that time. Archaeologists believe that he likely fought for Pharaoh Necho II, who defeated King Josiah in a battle near Megiddo. Necho led part of his army to the Plain of Esdraelon, and his fleet of mercenaries met him near Haifa.  Neecho planned to oust the weakened Assyrians from Syria, but they smashed his army and went on to occupy Judah and  Egypt.

 The helmet was discovered accidentally in 2007 during commercial dredging operations in the harbor. After it was discovered, conservators with the Israel Antiquities Authority went to work cleaning it and archaeologists began to analyze it.

Second Chronicles 35:20-26 adds a footnote  to the terse account of Josiah’s defeat in II Kings 23:

After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco of Egypt went up to fight at Carcemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to meet him in battle. But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What quarrel is there between you and me, O King of Judag? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destoy you.”

Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Neco had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo.

Archers shot King Josiah, and he told his officers, “Take me away; I am badly wounded.” So they took him out of his chariot, put him in the other chariot that he had and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died.

Did Josiah suffer defeat for opposing God?

That appears to be an open question, considering Josiah’s piety and Neco’s arrogance in claiming to speak for God. Neco lied, and the last of the Assyrians, weakened as they were, soundly defeated Neco in  battle at Carcemish. Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon subsequently demolished the Assyrians and set about appropriating their former dominions, including Judah.

Devout as Josiah was, I would like to think that he followed Hezekiah’s example in consulting God about what to do about the Egyptians. Considering his family history, it’s not improbable that he acted in haste and vanity.

Josiah certainly knew Neco lied. Perhaps Josiah recognized God’s hand in the downfall of the Assyrians brief rise of the Babylonian Empire and hoped to ally himself with them. However, he simply lacked the means and tactical skill to fight the Egyptians on their own terms and would have been better advised to use guerilla tactics in the hill country as opportunities arose.

Whatever the case, Josiah’s defeat at Megiido broght about the occupation and eventual obliteration of Jerusalem and Judah.

Josiah’s batlle was not the last to be fought on the plains of Megiddo, but it and earlier battles provided the prototype for later prophecies of a final day of reckoning in a climactic battle at Armageddon.

Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, … These became a tradition in Israel …

Judah’s King Josiah (641 -609 BC) was a godly man whom 2 Kings 23:25 rates as Judah’s finest king.

Josiah inherited the throne at the age of 8 after the murder of his father, Amon. At the age of twenty, Josiah began asserting himself as ruler and initiated  religious reforms in Judah and even parts of Israel.  He benefited from the ministries of the prophetess Huldah and the prophets Zephaniah and Jeremiah. Josiah and Jeremiah were born about the same time, though Scripture does not record that the two ever met.

The Assyrian Empire, which had destroyed Israel, ravaged Judah during the reigns of Hezekiah and Manasseh, and subdued Egypt, fell into internal turmoil about two years after Josiah began his reforms and one year after Jeremiah answered God’s call to the prophetic ministry. The Empire fell apart when Nabopolassar freed Babylonia and Cimmerian and Scythian hordes stormed into the western portion of the empire. The Babylonians took the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, in 612 BC,  fulfilling the  prophecies of Zephaniah and Nahum.

Josiah’s reforms spared Judah from Assyria’s fate, however, and the power vacuum following the downfall of Assyria gave Judah a respite and a brief interlude of prosperity and freedom from paying tribute. Josiah began to take control of the former territory of Israel and may have had ambitions of building a new United Kingdom of Israel and Judah.

The power vacuum did not last long enough. Nabopolassar began to take control of the remnants of the Assyrian Empire and its former tributaries. Egypt had thrown off the Assyrian yoke within twenty years. Pharaoh Psammetichus I (Psamtik) rebuilt Egypt’s army and fleet. His son,Pharaoh Neco (609-593 BC), dispatched ships to circumnavigate Africa and set about reclaiming Egypt’s former territories in Palestine and Syria ahead of the Babylonians. His fleet landed troops at Gaza in Philistia, where Neco assembled a large army and proceeded to lead them north along the ancient coastal warpath, the Highway of the Sea.

Against the advice of his counselors, King Josiah decided to block Neco’s “peaceful” passage though the pass of Megiddo. The Egyptians overwhelmed Josiah’s force. Wounded in action, Josiah died in Jerusalem.

With Josiah’s death, the independence of Judah ended and it became a vassal first of Egypt and then, in 605 BC, of Babylonia until Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC.