Ezekiel 38:1: Who Are Gog and Magog?

Who is Gog? And where is the land of Magog? Where is Meshech and Tubal? Do any of these places or person(s) have anything to do with the events that are to take place in the end times? If so, what are these events?

Gog is called the prince of Meshech and Tubal, provinces of Asia Minor. However, the geographical area that these would have embraced would be comparable to what we today would label as parts of Iran, all of Turkey and the southern provinces of the C.I.S. (formerly the U.S.S.R.).

But who is Gog? The locations of Gog's allies do not help us to identify who Gog is. One interesting suggestion is that Gog is a cryptogram for Babel or Babylon, since Babylon was omitted from the nations mentioned in the prophecies against the nations in Ezekiel 25:1--32:35. That fact is strange, in that it omits the one nation that was at that time holding Judah captive. Why omit the nation that is most on their minds at that time? So Babylon as Gog or Magog is one good guess.

When does this all take place? Nothing described in these chapters has ever taken place in history. All views that would place the events of Ezekiel 33--48 in an allegorical or spiritual type of interpretation fall significantly short of explaining the plethora of detail that is found in these chapters. The setting for these chapters is in the end times, where a conflict between God and evil is consummated and the wickedness of this present age is replaced by peace, righteousness and the divine presence, such as has previously been unknown to mortals.

There are seven messages about what Gog, the enemy of Israel, is destined to face: (1) The Lord will bring Gog and his allies against Israel (Ezek 38:1-9; compare Rev 16:13-14; 20:7-8); (2) Gog will invade Israel (Ezek 38:10-13); (3) Gog will invade Israel from the north (Ezek 38:14-16); (4) God will unleash tremendous judgment against Gog (Ezek 38:17-23); (5) it will take seven years to gather up the spoils and seven months to bury the dead from Gog's army (Ezek 39:1-16); (6) Gog will be eaten by the birds of the air and the beasts of the field in a great supper (Ezek 39:17-24); and (7) this will conclude the salvation of God and the restoration of Israel (Ezek 39:25-29).

Ezekiel 38--39 describe one of the most devastating conflicts in the prophecies of the end times. It sees an inevitable judgment of God coming at the climax of history with the forces of evil completely decimated. The older guesses that this was a picture of the U.S.S.R. have never been sustained by adequate lexicographical work, but at least the southern part of the republics that make up the new C.I.S. may still be involved. The real identities of most of the participants remain unknown.

History is the final interpreter of prophecy, for as Jesus said, "I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He" (Jn 13:19). And prophecy ultimately points to the fact that Christ was right, not we or our charts!

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I suppose this would have to be a strange variation of an "atbash" formation, where, instead of folding the alphabet in half on itself and using the corresponding letter on the other half as the one really intended, it folds the alphabet in half, but in the case of "Magog," it uses the letter to the left of it on the bottom half and the letter to the right of it on the top half: m l; g [gimel] b; g b. Then the word must be turned around to read Bbl, that is, Babel. It is possible, but strange