“1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your
face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal,
and prophesy against him 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am
against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech[b] and Tubal. 4 And I will turn you
about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your
army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all
of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. 5 Persia, Cush, and Put are
with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all his hordes;
Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many
peoples are with you…
…14 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus
says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely,
will you not know it? 15 You will come from your place out of the uttermost
parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses,
a great host, a mighty army. 16 You will come up against my people Israel, like
a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land,
that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness
before their eyes.”
An
alternative translation for verse 2 is: “Or Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech.”
So some people draw a connection from ’Rosh’ to ‘Rus’ to ‘Russia’. However,
Rosh simply means chief or captain. It has nothing to do with the Viking Rus
from which Russia get’s its name. People also note that Gog will come out of
the “uttermost parts of the North” and use this to help draw this conclusion. This,
at least, is an interesting idea. But it is far from conclusive. Sweden is far
to the North, so is Norway, or Finland and many other nations.
Indeed, the
land of Magog is associated with the descendants of Japheth, who are generally
believed to be the European peoples, Genesis 10:2, “The sons of Japheth: Gomer,
Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.” 1 Chronicles 1:5, “The sons of
Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.” But it is
almost impossible to identify the modern descendants of these ancient peoples
in any specificity, all we have in general ideas. The European peoples have
since this time spread out across large parts of the world, the Indo-Aryan peoples
even further. In fact so have many other peoples. All you can conclusively say
is that Gog will be a descendant of Japheth, but this is hardly an identifying
marker for us today. We very likely won’t know until after the fact.
It is also
important to understand that the last time that God told the Israelites that he
was bringing them an enemy from the North, it was Babylon:
“22 Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I
will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I
will bring them against you from every side: 23 the Babylonians and all the
Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable
young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown,
all of them riding on horses. 24 And they shall come against you from the north
with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples. They shall set themselves
against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit
the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments”
(Ez. 23:22-24).
In fact, if
you look up the word North in the Bible you will see again and again, God says
he brings Babylon from the north. Babylon was East of Israel, but you had to
travel from the north to bypass the desert to get to Babylon and back. It was also
far away. You could argue that the “uttermost parts of the north” refers to a
nation as far away as Russia, but I think you would have to ignore a lot of scriptures
to do so. This is especially true in the book of Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 25:8-9 - “8 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:
Because you have not obeyed my words, 9 behold, I will send for all the tribes
of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my
servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and
against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and
make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.”
Jeremiah 46:20 - “A beautiful heifer is Egypt, but a biting
fly from the north has come upon her.”
Jeremiah 46:24 – “The daughter of Egypt shall be put to
shame; she shall be delivered into the hand of a people from the north.”
Jeremiah 47:2 - “Thus says the Lord: Behold, waters are
rising out of the north, and shall become an overflowing torrent; they shall
overflow the land and all that fills it, the city and those who dwell in it.
Men shall cry out, and every inhabitant of the land shall wail.”
Jeremiah 50:3 – “For out of the north a nation has come up
against her, which shall make her land a desolation, and none shall dwell in
it; both man and beast shall flee away.”
Jeremiah 50:9 – “For behold, I am stirring up and bringing
against Babylon a gathering of great nations, from the north country. And they
shall array themselves against her. From there she shall be taken. Their arrows
are like a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed.”
Jeremiah 50:41 - “Behold, a people comes from the north; a
mighty nation and many kings are stirring from the farthest parts of the earth.”
Am I saying
Gog of Magog is from Babylon? No. But if I were to assert it I could use a lot
of passages to do so, many more than anyone could use for Russia. I just happen
to think Ezekiel is far too unclear. So, let’s stop theologically claiming the
nation of Russia is almost certainly Gog and Magog. There is no way you can
know this. No way I have seen. Certainly not from Scripture. This idea appears
more to be driven by the influence of Cold War era action movies and the idea of Russia as the
big bad guy on the world stage - which is all the rage again right now - than sound principles of interpretation.
All we can
say for certain is that Gog and Magog have a part to play in God’s future plan. What it is exactly, and who they are exactly is not for us to know, yet.
If it was God would have told us more of the details. However, we really only
have a few passages like this one:
Revelation 20:7-10 – “7 And when the thousand years are
ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive
the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather
them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 And they marched
up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and
the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 10 and the
devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where
the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night
forever and ever.”
So, when
someone says that God and Magog are Russia then we can say that they are almost
certainly wrong. We can’t say for 100% certain, because we don’t know. But there
really is no good argument for Gog and Magog being Russia, other than a general
geographical marker. You need much more than that.
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