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It is written:
Ezekiel 38:1-2-Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.
In Part One of this series, we noticed that Ezekiel 38-39 contains a prophecy of something that will take place during the Christian Age. It invokes a wicked leader that will arise who is akin to what we as Christians known as the Antichrist. I also pointed out that when I studied this passage years ago, I came across a puzzling statement that I pondered for years, and have finally had another piece of the puzzle put into place.
Let’s study.
The text tells us that this person will arise from the land of Magog. The big question is, where is this land? Using the Bible and extrabiblical sources, we can safely identify this land.
We are always wise to begin with the Bible.
Genesis 10 recorded the descendants of the nations from Ham, Shem, and Japheth (the sons of Noah) after the Flood, and after the Tower of Babel incident.
Genesis 10:1-2-1 Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood. 2 The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
Notice that in the Table of Nations (as this passages is historically referred to), there was a nation sprang up from Magog. He was connected specifically with Japheth, one of the sons of Noah. 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): BibleFacts Ministries)
Thee lands were found in the land that we know as Russia. Cooper tells us:
“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): Creation Science Movement)
So, Gog (Antichrist) will be “of” (either from or intimately connected with) the land of Russia.
That seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?
Yet here is where the puzzle came in years ago.
While researching on this passage, I came across this curious reference.
“Gog is described by the prophet as belonging to “the land of Magog,” the situation of which is defined by its proximity to the isles of the Aegean. It is clear that Lydia is meant, and that by Magog we must understand “the land of Gog.” Scholars have sought to identify Gog with Gugu (Gyges), king of Lydia, and with Gagaia of the Amarna Letters.” (Merrill F. Unger, R. K. Harrison, The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, 804 (Kindle Edition): Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers)
Magog was somehow connected with the ancient nation of Lydia. That was strange! Why would the nation of Lydia be connected with Russia? The mystery only deepened as I learned that Lydia was one of the founding nations that formed the Roman Empire!
“Not many people know that the roots of Roman culture and legal authority historically come from Magog or Lydia.† Rome’s relationship to Magog Recall that Gog is the Hebrew spelling of the name of the militant leader from western Asia Minor who was known as Gyges of Lydia to the Greeks. Migrants from Lydia called the Etruscans took control of the struggling local population of central Italy and put them on the fast track to becoming the powerful Roman Empire. The Penguin Dictionary of Archeology says “the influence of the Etruscans on Roman civilization was enormous.” Grahame Clark in World Prehistory states “Roman civilization was deeply indebted to the Etruscans.” 18 In the 5th century BC the famed Greek historian Herodotus, who is called the Father of History, told how the Etruscans came to Italy as a result of a migration from Lydia. Herodotus in The History (1.94) wrote that the Lydians set sail across the Mediterranean and colonized Etruria (Tuscany) because of a severe eighteen year famine in Lydia. 19 To relieve the strain upon their food supply, half of the Lydian residents left with the King’s son, and called themselves the Etruscans after his son, Tyrrenius. Lydian oriental customs were at the heart of the Etruscan culture of Italy. According to Plutarch, Livy and Vergil, when Romulus (twin of Remus) founded Rome in 753 BC, he sent for men of Etruria (Tuscany) who directed him in all sacred ceremonies, ordinances and religious rites according to the Disciplinia Etrusca. 20 These same ceremonial rites were used when Rome began establishing its own colonies in the fourth century BC and later. 21 By 600 BC the Etruscans took control of Rome and became the ruling aristocracy in a new society with an economy based on trade and commerce. The Etruscans were responsible for the urbanization of Rome, as well as it’s army and its economic advancement. They made Rome the leading state in Latium. (See Illustration E) Between 753 and 509 BC Rome was ruled by seven kings; the last three were Etruscan. Then in 509 BC the Romans revolted and overthrew the monarchy and established Rome as a Republic. The Etruscan king on the throne at this time was a tyrant called Tarquinius Superbus. During the Etruscan rule of Rome, the king served as commander of the army, judge and priest. The Etruscans built temples, introduced the worship of the mother goddess and even began the wearing of the purple embroidered toga. The eagle or falcon was a symbol of Lydia, which the Etruscans also used, and in time the eagle headed scepter became a symbol of Rome. The symbol of Rome’s political power was the “fasces” (a tightly bound bundle of rods enclosing a double edged ax–see the 1916-1945 US Mercury dime reverse) also came from the Etruscans. Thus, both of the favored symbols of the Roman Empire, the fasces and the eagle were of Lydian origin. From fancy pottery to oriental style burial tombs, the culture of Lydia was lifted and replanted just to the north of the city of Rome. As Gog’s descendents became the Kings of Lydia, their Etruscan cousins became the Kings of Rome (Herodotus 6: 22), and they even used the word “Etruria” as a synonym for Italy. Now we can see the genius in using Gog and Magog as types of the antichrist and the final expression of the Roman Empire. Gog from Magog represents the rightful legal heir to the throne of the Roman Empire, since it was an Etruscan who last sat on the throne of Rome, and the Etruscan right to rule traces back to Lydia, whose eponym during Biblical times was Magog which means “the land of Gog.” Recognition that Herodotus was correct about the Etruscans’ origins and that the Etruscans were the true source of Roman culture and Roman legal authority (imperium) is something that was not confirmed until recently. On April 3, 2007, the New York Times ran a feature story entitled “DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy.” The Times’ report gave new findings that support Herodotus’ specific account of the Etruscan migration to Italy from Lydia. The Times reported three new and independent studies by geneticists from different universities in Italy and Spain that support Herodotus’ account of the Etruscans migration to Italy from Lydia. 22 One study cited was based on bone samples taken from ancient Etruscan tombs in the Tuscan area of Italy. It showed that based on DNA evidence, Etruscans were genetically different from the general population of modern Italy. Another study published in the April 2007 issue of the “American Journal of Human Genetics,” “supports a direct and rather recent genetic input from the Near East, a scenario in agreement with the Lydian origin of the Etruscans.” 23 According to this study, “the roots of Etruscans were in the ancient Lydian region of Anatolia.” 24 (See Illustration E) A third study has since shown that DNA from four unusual ancient breeds of cattle currently found in Tuscany (Etruria) is different from that of seven other breeds of cattle also currently found in Italy. The DNA of the Tuscan cattle has been related to cattle typically found in Anatolia (western Turkey) and the Near East; while the DNA from the other breeds of cattle found in Italy has been related to herds found in northern Europe. When people migrate by sea to a new land, it is not unusual for them to take their herds of livestock with them. The Etruscans having taken their cattle with them is consistent with Herodotus’ early account of them taking “everything useful that would go aboard ship” and setting sail from the ancient port of Smyrna in Western Turkey (ancient Lydia). 25 The New York Times article quoted a technical report by Dr. Ajmone-Marsan and other geneticists showing that evidence from DNA indicates “both humans and cattle reached Etruria from the Eastern Mediterranean by sea.” 26 Dr. Anthony Tuck, an archeologist at the University of Massachusetts Center for Etruscan Studies, admits that “three clear genetic threads linking a Tuscan population, human and bovine, to groups in the Near East is pretty compelling evidence.” 27”. (Jeffrey Goodman, THE COMETS OF GOD- New Scientific Evidence for God: Recent archeological, geological and astronomical discoveries that shine new light on the Bible and its prophecies, 342-345 (Kindle Edition): Tucson, AZ: Archaeological Research Books LLC)
There seemed to be no denying it: Magog was somehow connected with both Russia AND Rome.
Yet how could this be?
How could Russia and Rome be connected?
This made no sense to me, but I tucked it away for further study and asked God to help me understand it one day if it was His will.
It just so happens, that day was today (Wednesday, February 26, 2025). I was having a cordial discussion with some good friends on Facebook about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One of them shared an article that referenced something that floored me.
It said that Russia claims to be the Third Roman Empire.
!!!!
I found the book referenced, and share this quotation.
“It seemed odd for a KGB officer who’d spent his career serving a state that outlawed the Orthodox Church to profess religious belief. But one by one, the KGB men who came to power with Putin, and who stood behind his rise, followed suit. From the beginning, they were searching for a new national identity. The tenets of the Orthodox Church provided a powerful unifying creed that stretched back beyond the Soviet era to the days of Russia’s imperialist past, and spoke to the great sacrifice, suffering and endurance of the Russian people, and a mystical belief that Russia was the Third Rome, the next ruling empire of the earth. It was ideal material with which to rebuild a nation out of hardship and loss. According to one oligarch who viewed the surge in religious belief with scepticism, it was conveniently designed to make serfs out of Russians again, and keep them in the Middle Ages, so that Putin the tsar could rule with absolute power: ‘The twentieth century in Russia–and now the twenty-first–has been a continuation of the sixteenth century: the tsar is above all else, and this is a sacred and heavenly role … This sacred power creates around itself an absolutely impenetrable cordon of guiltlessness. The authorities cannot be guilty of anything. They serve by absolute right.’ 64”. (Catherine Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, 258 (Kindle Edition): New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Again:
“Putin’s KGB men had chosen an ideological rationale for the drive to restore Russian empire that resonated with those who felt left by the wayside in the tumult of globalisation, as well as with base innate prejudice. They turned to once-marginalised philosophers such as Alexander Dugin, a long-bearded political thinker straight out of the pages of a Dostoevsky novel, to propound theories of Russia’s destiny as a Eurasian empire that would take its rightful place as the world’s one true power, as the Third Rome. They had been grasping for an ideology that would unite their allies against the liberal West, and Putin had long been discussing these ideas, and those of other exiled White Russian imperialists, with de Pahlen and the other Geneva money men.”. (Catherine Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, 421-422 (Kindle Edition): New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Apparently, this connection between Russia and The Third Roman Empire was not “new” information, only new to me! As I delved deeper, I discovered that the “Third Rome” argument was used by some to try and fight against the Roman Catholic misapplication of Matthew 16:18-19 in their attempts to justify the papacy.
Another work I found had this:
“Filofey’s “Third Rome” letter should be read as a refutation of the Unity Accord’s claim that “the Roman pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world and … is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church.” In contrast, Filofey claims Vasily’s realm to be “the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,” using the word “Catholic”—as does Western Christianity—in its original meaning from the Greek, katholikos, or universal (from kata-“according to” and holos “whole”). Filofey was looking back, but he had unintentionally given the tsars a weapon by which they would subjugate the Pravoslavie (i.e., the faith) in the future. The tsars loved his epistle just as much as the popes loved Matthew 16: 19. The dynasty made it the “rock” upon which they built their own view of themselves as Lord and Master of all. The descendants of Vasily III saw themselves as combining the temporal powers of Caesar with the spiritual powers of the Vicar of Christ. Historians term this fusion “Caesaropapism.” In the ROC view, the tsars would stray from the true path because they imported false ideas from the West and used them against the church.” (John Garrard, Carol Garrard, Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia, 167-168 (Kindle Edition): Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press)
Of course, the idea of Russia being the Third Rome has been used by Moscow as a way to attack the United States.
“Although it is difficult to compare the versions of the Third Rome myth as extensively laid out and analysed in the main chapters of this book with the references to the Third Rome in the particular context of the Ukrainian crisis, we can identify three tendencies. First, there has been little change in the myths of the Third Rome as told by the three still-living authors–Kholmogorov, Dugin and Narochnitskaia. Their post-Euromaidan versions of the myth are very similar to their previous ones. The quote by Kholmogorov encapsulates his familiar blend of politicized Orthodoxy, imperialism and militarism. Dugin’s recent statements on the Third Rome may perhaps sound less extreme than some of his previous ones, but he still claims that the values of Russia are radically different from and superior to those of the West. The portrayal of the West as pure evil is run-of-the-mill Dugin. The image of Russia as absolute good (through her role as the only ‘restraining force’) is as clear as ever, and makes clear Dugin’s extreme exceptionalism. Narochnitskaia’s version is largely a cut-and-paste of what she has written on the subject earlier: the West is, as always, trying to deceive and put Russia in a bad light by spreading its own ‘myth of filofeistvo’ which is diametrically opposed to the ‘true Third Rome idea’. Second, we can note that the myth of the Third Rome has now entered the mainstream. While the Kremlin’s spin-doctors and ‘political technologists’ have certainly made (selective) use of nationalist intellectuals’ concepts and ideological constructs earlier, the specific idea of the Third Rome had remained largely idle. Now, this has changed. This is not to say that Putin is referring explicitly to the Third Rome in his speeches–so far, he has not done so, even on the occasion of the ceremony marking the integration of Crimea into Russia. Nor has Patriarch Kirill made any explicit references to this idea. The myth of the Third Rome still remains in the background. But the aforementioned conference–by virtue of its timing, location, organizers and invited participants–clearly demonstrates that among the mainstream Russian intellectual public, it is not only acceptable to refer to the Third Rome–this is even encouraged by the regime. Third, in the mainstream, the myth of the Third Rome is used to promote the message of ‘Russian traditional values’, above all the ideal of a strong state and a symphony between secular power and the Orthodox Church. At the conference in the Manege Hall, the contributions differed in style and thematic orientation, but they were all oriented towards these ‘traditional values’. The geopolitical aspect of the myth remained in the background: even Dugin refrained from entering the geopolitical domain. Nevertheless, these Kremlin-promoted values are not to be understood as ‘soft’, i.e. removed from ‘hard’ political realities. The combined message of the speeches was: The West is afraid and envious of Russia. Russia is a civilization in itself, to which ‘Western values’ are alien. Among these values, we find, in Dugin’s opinion, liberal democracy. Applied to international politics, and taken to the extreme–as done by, for instance, Dugin–the intrinsic exceptionalism of the political myth of the Third Rome implies an image of Russia as a self-sufficient empire that does not need to abide by international political and legal norms. Russia is inherently good, the West is inherently evil. According to Dugin (and Kholmogorov), Russia, by virtue of its role as katechon, can and should do as it pleases. In November 2014, these were views that were proclaimed at a state-sponsored event held a stone’s throw from the Kremlin. Indeed, the resonance of the political myth of the Third Rome would appear to be stronger than ever.” (Jardar Østbø, The New Third Rome: The Russian Orthodox Church and Web 2.0, 268-270 (Kindle Edition): Stuttgart: ibidem-Press)
Whether or not Russia is actually the Third Rome in fact is not the main focus of these studies. What is amazing is that Ezekiel connects the Antichrist with both Russia and Rome, and in light of further studies in archaeology and the Bible text, Scripture is once again justified and authenticated by the evidence.
One day, there will be an Antichrist who is intimately connected with both Russia and Rome.
And that connection now makes sense.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.