ARMAGEDDON WILL be fought at Jerusalem. A mysterious group of warriors called “Joel’s army” by some will play a role—but they’re not the good guys.

We revisit the scholarly explanation behind identifying the Temple Mount as Armageddon. In a nutshell, the name is based on the transliteration the phrase har mo`ed (“mount of assembly”) from Hebrew into Greek. Then we discuss who will be involved in that battle.

Ezekiel identifies giants as warriors in the army of Gog (the Antichrist), both as “the Travelers” (Eze. 39:11, “travelers” being a term used by the Canaanites for the spirits of the Rephaim) and as “the mighty” (Eze. 39:18), which is confirmed by the Septuagint translation which renders “mighty” as gigantōn—giants.

We explain why Joel’s army is not something you want to be part of. At the end of Joel chapter 2, God tells the prophet that the army, an instrument of His judgment on the Day of the Lord, will be destroyed (Joel 2:18–20).