Megiddo

Megiddo sits on the southern edge of the great northern plain that drains toward the Kishon, paired again and again in the text with its neighbor Taanach. From the conquest under Joshua through Solomon's building program and on into the death of Josiah, the city is the place where Israelite history is decided by battles in a single wide valley. The prophet Zechariah, looking forward, makes "the valley of Megiddon" the figure for a national mourning.

A City on the Plain

Megiddo lies in the territory allotted to Manasseh inside the lots of Issachar and Asher: "And Manasseh had in Issachar and in Asher Beth-shean and its towns, and Ibleam and its towns, and the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, and the inhabitants of En-dor and its towns, and the inhabitants of Taanach and its towns, and the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns, the third height" (Jos 17:11). The Chronicler gives the same string of border towns: "and by the borders of the sons of Manasseh, Beth-shean and its towns, Taanach and its towns, Megiddo and its towns, Dor and its towns. In these dwelt the sons of Joseph the son of Israel" (1Ch 7:29). Taanach and Megiddo are spoken of together so habitually that one of the Levitical city-lists pairs them in turn: "And out of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Taanach with its suburbs, and Gath-rimmon with its suburbs; two cities" (Jos 21:25).

Conquest and Continuing Canaanite Presence

Joshua's roster of defeated kings counts the two cities as separate victories: "the king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, one" (Jos 12:21). Yet the conquest was not complete. The Judges narrator records the same towns as a list of places Manasseh failed to clear: "And Manasseh did not drive out [the inhabitants of] Beth-shean and its towns, nor [of] Taanach and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns; but the Canaanites determined to dwell in that land" (Jg 1:27). Megiddo therefore enters Israel's life as a possession on paper and a foreign town in fact.

Solomon's Building and Administration

Under Solomon the city is brought firmly into the royal system. It is walled by the king's corvée labor, named alongside Hazor and Gezer: "And this is the reason of the slave labor which King Solomon raised, to build the house of Yahweh, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer" (1Ki 9:15). It is also folded into the administrative grid that supplies the king's table. The fifth district takes Taanach and Megiddo as its anchor towns: "Baana the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is beside Zarethan, beneath Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as beyond Jokmeam" (1Ki 4:12).

The Waters of Megiddo: Deborah and Sisera

The plain is a battleground long before it becomes a royal district. Deborah's song fixes the field of the victory over Sisera at exactly this junction of the two towns: "The kings came and fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan. In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo: They took no gain of silver" (Jg 5:19). The same line of text appears in both the MEGIDDO and TAANACH material — the song treats the place as one battlefield with two names.

The Death of Ahaziah

Megiddo is also where Jehu's purge ends for the Judahite king who happened to be visiting. As Jehu hunts down the house of Ahab, Ahaziah king of Judah is struck on the road and finishes his flight at the city: "But when Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden-house. And Jehu followed after him, and said, 'Him too. Kill him.' [This happened] in the chariot at the ascent of Gur, which is by Ibleam. And he fled to Megiddo, and died there" (2Ki 9:27, within the longer account of 2Ki 9:16-27).

The Death of Josiah

The most weighty death in the city is Josiah's. His reign is itself the fulfillment of an old word: "And he cried against the altar by the word of Yahweh, and said, O altar, altar, thus says Yahweh: Look, a son will be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places that burn incense on you, and man's bones they will burn on you" (1Ki 13:2). He comes to the throne young — "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem" (2Ch 34:1) — and Jeremiah's call falls "in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign" (Je 1:2).

The Kings record gives the death in one terse sentence: "In his days Pharaoh-necoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and King Josiah went against him; and [Pharaoh-necoh] slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him" (2Ki 23:29). His body is brought home: "And his slaves carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead" (2Ki 23:30).

The Chronicler tells the same death at greater length and explicitly locates the battle in the plain: "Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and didn't listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at King Josiah; and the king said to his slaves, Take me away; for I am critically wounded. So his slaves took him out of the chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem; and he died, and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah" (2Ch 35:22-24).

Sirach's praise of Israel's worthies returns to Josiah and remembers the loss as a national grief, weighed against his rare goodness: "The name of Josiah is as sweet incense, That is well mixed, the work of the perfumer. The memorial of him is sweet in the palate like honey, And as music at a banquet of wine" (Sir 49:1); "For he was grieved at their backslidings, And caused the vain abominations to cease" (Sir 49:2); "And he gave his heart wholly to God, And in days of violence he showed kindness" (Sir 49:3); "Except David, Hezekiah, And Josiah, they all dealt corruptly, And forsook the law of the Most High,-- The kings of Judah, until their end" (Sir 49:4).

The Mourning in the Valley

Zechariah hears the memory of these deaths still ringing in the plain, and uses it as the figure for the mourning that will fall on Jerusalem on the day of the Lord: "In that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon" (Zec 12:11). The valley where Sisera lost his silver, where Ahaziah died on the run, and where Josiah's archers shot him down, becomes the standing image of grief on a national scale.