Judges 5:19-21
By the waters of Megiddo
The song names the place and the river together. They took no gain of money, and the river of Kishon swept them away.
Places of the Bible
Megiddo
A pass that armies cannot avoid, which is why it collects battles and eventually a name for the last one.
The town sits at the mouth of a narrow pass through the Carmel ridge, and the road from Egypt to Mesopotamia has to come through it. That single fact explains the whole biblical record of the place. Whoever holds Megiddo controls the traffic of the ancient world, and the account keeps returning to it not for what it is but for what has to pass through it.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Megiddo
- 01
- 02
2 Kings 9:27
He fled to Megiddo, and died there
Ahaziah is caught in Jehu’s purge on the road and gets as far as this town before the wound finishes him.
- 03
2 Chronicles 35:20-22
He hearkened not unto the words of Necho
The warning is explicit and comes from an enemy. Josiah disguises himself and goes into the valley anyway.
- 04
2 Kings 23:29-30
The archers shot at king Josiah
His servants carry him dead in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem, and the last good reign of Judah ends at a crossroads.
Why it matters
Deborah’s song places the fight there: the kings came and fought, then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, and adds that the river of Kishon swept them away. Ahaziah dies there fleeing from Jehu. And Josiah, the best king since David, goes out against Pharaoh Necho who is only passing through, is told plainly that the quarrel is not with him, and is shot by archers at Megiddo. The reforming reign ends on a road somebody else was using.
4 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
