by By Phares Barine
News and gory images of the military conflagration that started in the “Holy Land” on October 7 has gripped my mind endlessly (and I suppose the minds of a few others too), literally making a prisoner of me.
“My God! It looks so much like in the Old Testament times, where glory went to the one who killed the highest number!” My wife quipped.
True. The drama going on in Palestine appears like a re-enactment of the book of Joshua, and of Judges, and of Samuel, and Kings, and Chronicles… It is akin to Exodus even — what with the forced evacuation of the Palestinian people towards the South, towards Egypt!
The irony of this gruesome spectacle of forceful migration has got me even more entranced. A live horror movie.
“Steer clear of the horrid news,” You’ll advise. Well, it’s no use. I can’t escape the mental connections with the news bytes: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jerusalem, Israel, Palestinian, Egypt… Each of these names to me are laden with meaning, meaning beyond their use on TV today.
You see, I am currently doing Bible translation work for a project in Kenya. Nearly every day of the last three years I’ve been waking up to pore over Holy Scripture — every verse and every word, both in New and Old Testament.
This task has placed a magnifying glass into my hands, as it were. I have to scrutinise any peculiar words I encounter in the Holy Book, much as a scientist examines unusual phenomena. Certain words that would ordinarily keep their abstract aloofness, in the process of translation spring into sharp focus, demanding attention. And so it was with this big, forbidding word: Armageddon.
Watching the happenings in the Middle East has thrust into my memory the words in the book of Revelation 16: 16: “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”
We get to learn from Revelation that the forces of good led by Jesus Christ (leading an army of angels) will fight and defeat the gathered kings of the world led by the beast and the false prophet (Revelation 19:11- 21). It is believed by Christians that this final battle on earth — The Armageddon — will be fought at Har Megeddon (Hill of Megiddo), also known as Jezreel Valley — an actual location in Israel — and that it will be between Christ and Satan, and that Christ will win this last battle against Satan and against all evil forces, once and for all. A victory for God’s people. Oh, what a wonderful picture; all evil defeated once and for all and God’s people finally free from the continual torment by the Prince of Evil, Satan! Then humankind would no longer have to witness the kind of gut-wrenching massacre we are beholding presently.
Is this that ultimate battle then? Hhmn! The arena — Israel — seems right. The battle of Armageddon would probably fit the kind of carnage that is going on now: Annihilate everything with the label “evil”– babies, great grannies and all!
The rulers of the world are gathering for sure, and have stated their objective clearly enough: To crush, erase from the face of the earth those “animals” who have wreaked “pure, sheer unadulterated evil” on good law-abiding people. This holocaust has potential to spread to the whole world too, going by the drumbeats around the arena.
Yet something in the picture is not quite right...
The actual site of the battle should have been the Hill of Megiddo also known as Jezreel Valley. And this would have fitted the bill perfectly, for Jezreel Valley has witnessed some of the bloodiest conflicts over time. Here is where King Saul and his three sons met their death at the hands of the Philistines (1 Samuel 31). Jezreel’s rulers killed Ahab’s 70 sons here, put the heads in baskets and brought them to Jehu (2 Kings 10: 1-11); Queen Jezebel murdered Naboth in his own vineyard here, because her hubby desired it but was too timid to grab it (1 Kings 21: 1-23). She herself was killed and her body eaten by dogs.
Deborah and Barak fought and won against the Canaanites (Judges 4); Gideon’s famous victory against the Midianites, the Amalekites and the Children of the East (Judges 6:3) happened on this valley. And for all his devotion to God, King Josiah of Judah was defeated and killed by King Necho of Egypt on this plain.
Finally, the principal players too are suspect. Armageddon was to be fought between Jesus Christ and Satan. Pointing out the evil, satanic forces is a no-brainer. But pray, where is Jesus Christ and his angelic army in all this hell on earth?
I opine that what is going on in Palestine is going to sorely put to the test people’s faiths… it is already testing the faith of not a few Christian believers. We are going to be forced to re-evaluate our faith, our norms, our morality, our beliefs and values concerning good and evil.
What is going on in Palestine is going to sorely put to the test people’s faiths… it is already testing the faith of not a few Christian believers. We are going to be forced to re-evaluate our faith, our norms, our morality, our beliefs and values concerning good and evil.
The “Hell’s Kitchen” in the Holy Land must force us to reconsider our stand concerning concepts of retribution and justice, revenge and punishment, godliness and mere human egoism, on tenets of good neighbourliness, brotherhood and communal self-interest, on humanity even.
As I search inside myself to find meaning in the inferno in Gaza, words of the Poet John Donne come to mind: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece, a part of the main… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind… And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We are spellbound, glued to our information channels, watching and listening as the bell tolls, as it were, to announce… the death of mankind?
Instead of sitting and wondering if Armageddon has finally come (or even when it will come), the Christian can prepare to counter the evil that so provocatively bestrides this present world. How? We can evangelise Christ, let as many people as possible know who Jesus Christ is and what He stands for — divine peace and love to all mankind. Do it not just by making noise but by leading Christ-like lives, amongst all communities that we live in. We can reject evil, in all its forms, boldly and loudly. And we can pray, pray to God to vanquish evil and all its agents, by whatever means, and to restore peace and all that is good. That should be every Christian’s Armageddon.
Phares Barine is currently working on Bible translation work for a project in Kenya.
Photo: Getty Images/AFP
