UPDATE 3: I’ve corrected my reference to the Scythians, which is based on an incorrect reference in Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian….or, so it’s alleged, although I wouldn’t discount a red herring of some kind in all these revisions…
I previously posted on the equation of Magog with Lydia.
(Rabbi Shternbuch: We have entered Messianic times.”)
UPDATE 2:
I want to clarify that I actually think “the West” is a term inadequate to describe the New World Order, since the leadership of many other countries, Russia included, seem to be under the control of the elite bankers.
I decided to change the title to reflect my thinking:
Gog of Magog could well be the West AND its opponents – Russia and its allies.
This interpretation would make sense of the iteration of the prophecy in Revelation as Gog AND Magog.
If Kabbalistic bankers orchestrate both sides of the conflict, then Gog and Magog do indeed come from the four quarters of the world, as St. John writes.
UPDATE:
Bernard Lewis analyzes the level of confusion involved in
First, identifying modern Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazy Jewish people (of mixed racial descent) with the 19th century linguistic classification of “Semitic” (which includes Hebrew, Arabic, Babylonian, Akkadian and many other dead and living languages of differing racial groups)
and
Second, conflating that word (Sem-itic) with the semi-mythological racial group of Shem-ites who supposedly descend from one of Noah’s three sons, following the flood.
ORIGINAL POST
Who are Gog and Magog and why is that information vital not only for Christians, but for anyone concerned about the increasingly troubled state of world affairs?
According to the Revelation of St. John the Divine, the last canonical book of the Christian Bible, the all-powerful rulers who fight against Jesus Christ at his Second Coming are Gog and Magog:
Revelation 20:7 (King James Version):
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”
Here, the two names are treated as a pair.
But, earlier, they are differentiated.
Gog of Magog is mentioned in the Old Testament book of the prophet Ezekiel (Chapters 38-39).
Ezekiel 38: 1-3 (KJV):
1 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying
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.”‘
There are other Biblical references:
Amos 7:1 (only in the Septuagint is the locust king named):
“Thus the Lord showed me, and behold, a swarm of locusts coming early, and behold, one locust, Gog, the king.”
Numbers: 24:7:
“He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted.
(Gog, not Agag, in the Septuagint).
Christian Zionists like John Hagee interpret Gog of Magog as the ruler (Gog) of Russia, since he is described in the Bible as coming from the far north and being a world leader of great power.
They treat the word Rosh anachronistically as a reference to Rus, although that name was first used only in the ninth century AD.
(I wrote tenth earlier, incorrectly).
Like Gog, Rosh is more accurately translated as “prince” or “chief.”
The Dispensationalists also identify the state of Israel, created in 1948, with the Biblical nation of Israel.
But Dispensationalists profess doctrines that are not only heretical by the standards of orthodox Christianity, but morally suspect.
Yet, both identifications (of Gog of Magog as Russia and of Biblical Israel as modern Israel) form the justification of American Christian support of Israel, a support that is all but uncritical.
For instance, the Ukrainian crisis this past year was viewed through the prism of the Gog-Magog prophecy, both by Christians and by Jews.
President Vladimir Putin, in moving into the Ukraine, was not simply affirming the boundaries of Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, they argued, he was enacting the role of Gog (the chief prince) of Magog ( identified as Russia and its allies) seizing a pawn in a chess-match against no less than the Davidic Messiah-to-come
However, if we start from the premise that the current Western order, despite its support by a large number of Christian churches, is culturally anti-Christian, or, at best, post-Christian, then opposing it can hardly be the work of an evil despot, rather it is a moral duty of Christians.
Perhaps, then, we have another and better candidate for the title of Gog of Magog: the West itself.
If Gog is not so much a specific person as the leader of the people from the region of Magog, it only remains to ask where Magog is.
In prophetic times, Magog was a region to the north of Israel.
It was the home of the nomadic war-like Scythians whom many regard as the forebears of (or close relations to) the Ashkenazy Jews.
[Correction: This identification of Gog/Magog with the Scythians comes from an incorrect statement by the first century AD Jewish historian Josephus in “The Antiquities of the Jews.” Jospehus supposedly misreported Greek statements to equate the Magogites with the Ashkenaz, whereas it was the Scythians who were the Ashkenaz.
Ashkenaz is considered an ancient term for Germany or the German tribes.
Herodotus identified Lydia, the home of the ancient Etruscans, with Magog.
The Lydians later migrated to Rome, created the Etruscan civilization, and founded the city of Rome, from which the Roman empire sprang.
Gyges of Lydia (Gugu), as I’ve blogged before, is the original Gog of Magog.
Magog, Meschech, Tubal, Gomer, and Togarmah all fit within the region of Asia Minor.
North of Asia Minor, on the other hand, was the home of the medieval Khazars, a powerful Turko-Mongolic people who converted to Judaism for political reasons.
One tenacious theory claims that the descendants of the Khazars are the Ashkenazim, who comprise some 80-90 percent of modern Jews and form the leadership of the international order.
Many Jews regard the Khazar theory as an anti-Semitic canard, although it was first proposed by a Jewish writer, Arthur Koestler.
On the fall of Khazaria, Koestler argued, the converts migrated to Eastern Europe and Germany and quickly established themselves there, intermarrying with the European population.
Current research confirms part of this – most Jews today have European genetic ancestry, through the mother’s line.
However, the rest of the theory is still debatable.
Caucasian and Middle-Eastern ancestry has been shown in the paternal line, but what that means is still controversial.
Certainly Sephardic (non-European) Jews are closely related to Palestinians.
But it is the Ashkenazim, not the Sephardim, who most vocally claim to be the heirs of the Old Testament covenant between Jehovah and ancient Israel.
The Rothschilds claim to descend directly from the House of David, the genetic descendants of Jacob, who was named Israel by God.
But genetics so far show that the Ashkenazim are closer to Armenians, Georgians, and other European or Turkic people, than they are to the ancient Hebrews.
Genesis agrees with genetics.
The Hebrews, who sired Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are descendants of Eber, from the line of Shem, son of Noah, whereas the European people, including the Turks, Georgians, and Armenians, are said to descend from Japheth, who sired the whole Indo-European group.
Among the descendants of Japheth are Magog and a group called the Ashchenaz, which is taken to refer to the Germanic tribes.
Credit: After the Flood:

(In the Hindu Puranas, Japheth is Pra-Jyapathi).

Credit: Wikipedia
Furthermore, genetic research suggests that it is the native Palestinians (whether Muslim or Christian) and some Sephardic Jews who are closer in blood to the Jews of Jesus’ time, not the Ashkenazim.
Complicating the matter, the word Jew can be applied properly to descendants of only one of Jacob’s twelve sons – Judah.
If the Jews of today are mostly Ashkenazy and thus Japhethic, they cannot properly be called Semitic (of Shem), let alone Jewish (of Judah, or Judahite).
So let us side with Genesis and not Rothschild.
Genesis says Magog is not Jewish (that is, not of the Tribe of Judah) and not Israelite (not of the House of Jacob) nor Hebrew (descended from Eber, the son of Shem).
Magog is the descendant of Noah’s son Japheth.
If we accept Magog as the region of the Caucasus and Georgia and the people of Magog as the part-Khazar part-Turkish part-European Ashkenazy, then it is easy to identify Gog, the leader, of Magog.
The most powerful family among the Ashkenazy Jews is the Rothschild banking family. Along with its associates and proxies, it dominates the economies, polities, and cultures of the West, and thus of most of the world.
The Rothschilds are intermarried with European nobility, including the House of Windsor, making them the head of the modern equivalent of the Roman empire.
It was among the Ashkenazy Jews that the desire for the political rebirth of Israel sprang up.
It was the Ashkenazy Jews who moved into the unwalled villages of Palestine in 1948, with the backing of the British, and later the US, beginning an invasion that fulfills the prophecy of invading kings from the north surrounding the City of Jerusalem.
Viewed this way, the Gog-Magog invasion can be seen as completed fact, fulfilled with astonishing accuracy, even while millions wait, dangerously, for an apocalyptic invasion.