Gog and Magog
Gog and Magog (/ˈɡɒɡ ... ˈmeɪɡɒɡ/ GOG ... MAY-gog; Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג, romanized: Gōg ū-Māgōg) or Yajuj and Majuj (Arabic: يَأْجُوجُ وَمَأْجُوجُ, romanized: Yaʾjūju wa-Maʾjūju) are a pair of names that appear in the Bible and the Quran, variously ascribed to individuals, tribes, or lands. In Ezekiel 38, Gog is an individual and Magog is his land.[1] By the time of the New Testament's Revelation 20:8, Jewish tradition had long since changed Ezekiel's "Gog from Magog" into "Gog and Magog".[2]
For the Gog and Magog statues in London, see Gogmagog and Corineus. For the ancient oak trees of the same name, see Oaks of Albion. For the hills, see Gog Magog Hills. For other uses, see Gog (disambiguation) and Magog (disambiguation).
The Gog prophecy is meant to be fulfilled at the approach of what is called the "end of days", but not necessarily the end of the world. Jewish eschatology viewed Gog and Magog as enemies to be defeated by the Messiah, which would usher in the age of the Messiah. One view within Christianity is more starkly apocalyptic, making Gog and Magog, here indicating nations rather than individuals,[3] allies of Satan against God at the end of the millennium, as described in the Book of Revelation.
A legend was attached to Gog and Magog by the time of the Roman period, that the Gates of Alexander were erected by Alexander the Great to repel the tribe. Romanized Jewish historian Josephus knew them as the nation descended from Magog the Japhetite, as in Genesis, and explained them to be the Scythians. In the hands of Early Christian writers they became apocalyptic hordes. Throughout the Middle Ages, they were variously identified as the Vikings, Huns, Khazars, Mongols or other nomads, or even the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
The legend of Gog and Magog and the gates were also interpolated into the Alexander Romances. According to one interpretation, "Goth and Magothy" are the kings of the Unclean Nations whom Alexander drove through a mountain pass and prevented from crossing his new wall. Gog and Magog are said to engage in human cannibalism in the romances and derived literature. They have also been depicted on Medieval cosmological maps, or mappae mundi, sometimes alongside Alexander's wall.
The conflation of Gog and Magog with the legend of Alexander and the Iron Gates was disseminated throughout the Near East in the early centuries of the Christian and Islamic era.[4] They appear in the Quran in chapter Al-Kahf as Yajuj and Majuj, primitive and immoral tribes that were separated and barriered off by Dhu al-Qarnayn ("He of the Two Horns") who is mentioned in the Quran as a great righteous ruler and conqueror.[5] Some contemporary Muslim historians and geographers regarded the Vikings as the emergence of Gog and Magog.[6]
Christian texts[edit]
Revelation[edit]
Chapters 19:11–21:8 of the Book of Revelation, dating from the end of the 1st century AD,[41] tells how Satan is to be imprisoned for a thousand years, and how, on his release, he will rally "the nations in the four corners of the Earth, Gog and Magog", to a final battle with Christ and his saints:[3]
Identifications[edit]
Barbarian and nomadic identifications[edit]
Throughout classical and late antiquity, Christian and Jewish writers identified Gog and Magog with a wide diversity of groups:
Modern apocalypticism[edit]
In the early 19th century, some Hasidic rabbis identified the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon as "The War of Gog and Magog".[153] But as the century progressed, apocalyptic expectations receded as the populace in Europe began to adopt an increasingly secular worldview.[154] This has not been the case in the United States, where a 2002 poll indicated that 59% of Americans believed the events predicted in the Book of Revelation would come to pass.[155] During the Cold War the idea that Soviet Russia had the role of Gog gained popularity, since Ezekiel's words describing him as "prince of Meshek" – rosh meshek in Hebrew – sounded suspiciously like Russia and Moscow.[18] Ronald Reagan also took up the idea.[156]
Some post-Cold War millenarians still identify Gog with Russia, but they now tend to stress its allies among Islamic nations, especially Iran.[157] For the most fervent, the countdown to Armageddon began with the return of the Jews to Israel, followed quickly by further signs pointing to the nearness of the final battle – nuclear weapons, European integration, Israel's reunification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War in 1967, and America's wars in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.[158]
In the Islamic apocalyptic tradition, the end of the world would be preceded by the release of Gog and Magog, whose destruction by God in a single night would usher in the Day of Resurrection.[159] Reinterpretation did not generally continue after Classical times, but the needs of the modern world have produced a new body of apocalyptic literature in which Gog and Magog are identified as Communist Russia and China.[160] One problem these writers have had to confront is the barrier holding Gog and Magog back, which is not to be found in the modern world: the answer varies, some writers saying that Gog and Magog were the Mongols and that the wall is now gone, others that both the wall and Gog and Magog are invisible.[161]