It is written:
Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, (Ezekiel 38:2)
In our studies of Ezekiel 38-39, we have learned that Gog is another name for the person the New Testament identifies as the antichrist, and that he will lead a coalition of nations against Israel near the end of the Christian Age before the Second Coming. Gog and his coalition will be demonically guided and empowered.
Now, we turn to a study of the different nations mentioned in this text. The first we will examine is the one known as “Magog.”
Magog is first mentioned back in the Book of Genesis, in what is known as the Table of Nations (Genesis 10).
Genesis 10:2-The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
The Table of Nations lists some seventy nations that were formed after the Tower of Babel incident. Many in our world claim that this table of nations is historically inaccurate; however, the facts show a different story!
“When I first came across this problem some fifty years ago, I found it most perplexing. On the one hand I had the Bible itself claiming to be the very Word of God, and on the other I was presented with numerous commentaries that spoke with one voice in telling me that the Bible was nothing of the kind. It was merely a hotch- potch collection of Middle- Eastern myths and fables that sought to explain the world in primitive terms, whose parts had been patched together by a series of later editors. Modem scientific man need have nothing whatever to do with it. Now, it simply was not possible for both these claims to be valid. Only one of them could be right, and I saw it as my duty, to myself at least, to find out which was the true account and which was the false….Either way, I would discover once and for all whether the Biblical record was worthy of my trust or not. It seemed a little irreverent to treat a book that claimed to be the very Word of God in such a fashion. But if truth has any substance at all, then that Book would surely be able to bear such a test. If Genesis contained any falsehood, error or misleading statement of fact, then a severe testing would reveal it and I would be the first to add my own voice to those of all the other scholars who declared the Book of Genesis to be little more than fable…What I had not expected at the time was the fact that the task was to engage my attention and energies for more than twenty- five years. Nor had I expected the astonishing degree to which Genesis, particularly the tenth and eleventh chapters, was to be vindicated. These chapters are conveniently known to scholars as the Table of Nations, and the sheer breadth and depth of the historical evidence that was available for their study astonished me….Today I can say that the names so far vindicated in the Table of Nations make up over 99% of the list, and I shall make no further comment on that other than to say that no other ancient historical document of purely human authorship could be expected to yield such a level of corroboration as that!” (Bill Cooper, After The Flood: The Early Post-Flood History Of Europe Traced Back To Noah, 80-111 (emphasis added, M.T.), (Kindle Edition))
Who exactly descended from Magog?
We are told in several ancient Hebrew history books that the descendants of Magog settled in the land of Scythia.
For example, Ken Johnson has noted:
“The Ancient land of Scythia is now called southern Russia. This land extended north from the Caucasus Mountains to the west as far as Kazakhstan, and to the east as far as the Ukraine. “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.” Genesis 10: 1-2 KJV Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews 1.6, wrote the descendants of Magog settled north of the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea and they were called Scythians by the Greeks. “Magog founded those that from him were named Magogites, but who are by the Greeks called Scythians.” Josephus Ant. 1.6.1 Scythian Kings Magog Boath Feinius Farsa According to Historia Regum Britanniae, written by Irish historian Geoffrey of Monmouth, Magog crowned his firstborn son, Boath, the first king of Scythia. In time Boath turned the kingdom over to his first-born son, Feinius Farsa. Notice the difference in the names. You can tell the Tower of Babel had fallen and the languages had been created before Feinius took the throne. For full details on Feinius’ School and his descendants forming the country of Scotland, see the chapter on Ireland. Jasher indicates some of the sons of Meshach and Tiras settled in the areas of southern Russia and Mongolia. Ongolis = Mongolia Cura River = Sura River Tragan River = Volga River Jabus Sea = Caspian Sea Me’at = Arctic Ocean “And the children of Meshech are the Shibashni and the children of Tiras are Rushash, Cushni, and Ongolis; all these went and built themselves cities; those are the cities that are situated by the sea Jabus by the river Cura, which empties itself in the river Tragan.” Jasher 10: 14 “Magog [dwells in] all the inner portions of the north until it reaches to the sea of Me’at.” Jubilees 9: 9 Moscow is on the Moskva River which empties into the Volga (Tragan) River. It should also be noted that some of the sons of Meshech and Tubal settled in the areas of Greece and Italy. The sons of Magog, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras are as follows: “And the sons of Magog were Elichanaf and Lubal.” Jasher 7: 4 “And the sons of Tubal were Ariphi, Kesed and Taari. And the sons of Meshech were Dedon, Zaron and Shebashni. And the sons of Tiras were Benib, Gera, Lupirion and Gilak;” Jasher 7: 1-9 So, modern Russians are descended from Magog.” (Ken Johnson, Ancient Post-Flood History, 3517-3598 (Kindle Edition))
Now, all of these ancient historical sources point out that Magog settled in the land of Scythia.
What land is that in our day and age?
Russia.
It also needs to be pointed out however that Magog and his descendants actually are the ancestors of other nations.
Notice:
“There later follows a succession of strange and ancient names, of which the table of descent that opens this chapter is a somewhat simplified extract. The important thing for us to notice in this table of descent, though, is the unequivocal statement that the decidedly pagan Irish traced their origins back to the Biblical patriarch, Magog, the son of Japheth. This is in direct contrast to the claims of the Britons and other European nations, whose genealogies were traced back to Javan, another son of Japheth. Now, Magog, as we shall see in Appendix 3, was considered, with Ashchenaz, the father of the Scythian peoples, and the early Irish chroniclers were most emphatic in their insistence that the Irish were of Scythian stock. And there is good etymological evidence for this. The Irish were long referred to as Scots even before some of them migrated to the country that today bears their name, and as Brewer tells us: “Scot (is) the same as Scythian in etymology; the root of both is Sct. The Greeks had no c, and would change t into th making the root skth, and by adding a phonetic vowel we get Skuthai (Scythians), and Skodiai (Skoths). The Welsh disliked s at the beginning of a word, and would change it to ys; they would also change c or k to g, and th to d; whence the Welsh root would be Ysgd, and Skuth or Skoth would become ysgod. Once more, the Saxons would cut off the Welsh y, and change the g back again to c, and the d to t, converting the Ysgod to Scot.” 9 It would be no strange thing to find Scythian peoples as far west as Ireland. After all, the land in Asia Minor known of old as Galatia, was populated by a migrating colony of Gallic Celts (the Gauls) from whom the country got its name. St Paul wrote his famous epistle to their descendants. Many other examples from history are known of nations seemingly popping up in places where one would normally not expect to find them, so it requires no great stretch of the imagination to accept what the early Irish chroniclers so often insisted upon, namely their descent from the Scythian races.” (Bill Cooper, After The Flood: The Early Post-Flood History Of Europe Traced Back To Noah, 1473-1482 (Kindle Edition))
The descendants of Magog included the Russians, the Irish, and the Chinese.
There is another important fact that needs to be pointed out just here about Magog. In addition to the evidence listed above, there are also well-known connections between Magog and Rome.
“In his multi-volume work called The Natural History, Pliny identifies the ancient Lydian city of Hierapolis as being part of Magog. Built atop the cliffs, the city of Hierapolis controlled the water supply of the Lydian city of Laodicea six miles to the south. The city of Hierapolis was built by the Lydians and always under Lydian control until the Lydian Kingdom became part of the Persian Empire in 546 BC and then part of the Greek and Roman Empires that followed. Like Pliny, today’s archeologists also identify Magog with the ancient nation of Lydia, which was in western Asia Minor. Indeed, written records from the Assyrian royal court show that the Assyrians used the name Magog as an eponym for the nation of Lydia. In his book Pliny writes, “Bambyx the other name of which is Hierapolis, but by the Syrians called Magog.”* In other words, Pliny identifies the famed Lydian city of Hierapolis as being part of Magog. In this we see that Magog is another name for the ancient nation of Lydia….The identification of Magog with Lydia and not Scythia is consistent with the ancient texts of the Assyrians, who at various times were either the allies or the foes of the Scythians yet had peaceful dealings with the Lydians. The identification of Magog as Lydian, and not Scythian is also consistent with the writings of the ancient historian Herodotus (ca 490-424 BC), a Greek who was born in, lived in, and traveled throughout all of ancient Asia Minor. Herodotus’ famed book, The History, which gives a detailed history of all the ancient nations of Asia Minor, was written about 100 years after Ezekiel’s writings. 14 Herodotus, who is considered the Father of History, wrote detailed information about the three different Scythian tribes and the ten different tribes that neighbored them, including their ever changing and opportunistic alliances….He says that Magog (Lydia), as led by the historical figure Gog (Gyges to the Greek, Gugu to the Assyrians) and the Scythians, were in fact enemies! In Gyges of Lydia we have the leader the Assyrians called “Gugu, King of Ludu,” and “Gugu of Magugu,” the Bible’s Gog of Magog. 15” (Jeffrey Goodman, Ph.D., The Comets Of God: New Scientific Evidence For God-Recent Archaeological, Geological, And Astronomical Discoveries That Shine New Light On The Bible And Its’ Prophecies, 473-476 (Kindle Edition); Tucson, ARIZONA; Archaeological Research Books L.L.C.).
Now, here is the fascinating thing about Magog (Lydia): it was one of the leading nations that eventually formed the Roman Empire.
This is especially interesting when we remember that according to many ancient Jewish sources, Gog was the product of Armilus and Rome:
“In the period immediately preceding the coming of the MESSIAH there will be a great war of Gog and Magog against Israel, bringing destruction in its wake (see ESCHATOLOGY). These legendary nations are based on the prophecy of Ezekiel about Gog from the land of Magog (Ezek. 38: 2). Armilus, their king, was born from sexual intercourse between Satan and the stone statue of a girl in Rome. He will finally be defeated by the Messiah and his army in a war to end all wars.” (Alan Unterman, Dictionary of Jewish Lore & Legend, 279 (Kindle Edition); Thames & Hudson)
Recall also that according to our studies in Zechariah and 2 Thessalonians 2, there are definite connections between the man of sin, the lawless ones (the nephilim), antichrist, and Rome.
“All roads lead to Rome.”
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
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