Ezekiel 37, the passage we just looked at that described the restoration of all the tribes, adds this element:. My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.
They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
In terms of biblical theology, this expectation was fulfilled in the inauguration of the kingdom of God and at Pentecost. Not only was the reclamation of the disinherited nations launched at that event, but it was accomplished by means of pilgrim Jews from all the nations in which they had been left in exile, now converted to faith in Jesus, the incarnate Yahweh, and now inheritors of the Spirit and the promises of the new covenant. As Paul said in Galatians 3, anyone who followed Christ was a true offspring of Abraham—Jew or gentile.
Jews from every nation of exile had returned to the land to serve as catalysts for a greater regathering, the apostolic mission of the Great Commission. In Ephesians 4 Paul had cast Pentecost as the defeat of Bashan, the region to the north, ground zero for spiritual warfare in Israelite thinking. If we thought only in terms of Pentecost, it would look as if the dark lord of the dead Baal Zebul —identified with Satan by this time—was beaten. But that would be a premature conclusion.
In the wake of all that good news, trouble would come—from the north. An ancient reader would have noticed that this invasion would come at a time when the tribes had been united and dwelt in peace and safety within the promised land—in other words, once the period of exile had ended. The Gog invasion would be the response of supernatural evil against the messiah and his kingdom. This is in fact precisely how it is portrayed in Revelation — For this reason, Gog is regarded by many biblical scholars as a template for the New Testament antichrist figure.
The foe-from-the-north theme is also picked up in Daniel 11, a passage that many scholars believe in some way relates to the antichrist. Antiochus attacked from the north he was from the northern, Seleucid empire in Asia Minor. He committed the abominable act of profaning the temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar cf. These offenses started a rebellion in Jerusalem that led to a short period of Jewish independence. Therefore, those who saw the Gog enemy in Antiochus may also have been led to think of the new Jewish independent state as the final kingdom of God.
Nearly two centuries later, Jesus still regarded the prophecy of the abomination of desolation Dan. Regardless of the Antiochus issue, his association with the northern foe of Daniel 11 nevertheless shows us that the foe-from-the-north motif is important.
Later, Jewish rabbis and early Christian scholars paid close attention to it. For sure ancient Jews would expect that the reconstituted kingdom of Yahweh would be shattered by an enemy from the north—as it had before. I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the piece of the field, every creature, and all the people in the face of the earth will tremble at his presence.
I will pour out torrents of rain, hail stones, and burning sulfur on him and on his troops. On that day, I give will give Gog the burial place in the Valley of those who travel east toward the sea it will block the way of travelers, because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there.
So it will be called the Valley of Haman Gog. We see in these verses what seems to describe a nuclear holocaust. Fire and brimstone fall from the sky. The earth shakes. The faces of the invading soldiers melt like hot wax. It takes Israel seven years to decontaminate the land. The burial of radiation contaminated men and women injures even more.
Thousands of invading soldiers lie unburied. God sends the birds of the air to pluck the flesh right off their bodies Ezekiel and This sounds just like the grisly feast of God in Revelation 19 at the Battle of Armageddon.
Again, this passage is a double fulfillment. Then, we recognize that the above passages parallel the book of Revelation and the horrors of Armageddon.
Now we understand that these passages are no longer hyperbole. The previously mentioned passages are literal words which describe the horrible events of the last days While Russia is destroyed by the Antichrist just before the seven-year tribulation begins, Gog and Magog will rearm and take part in the war of Armageddon.
As a result of the war between the King of the North and the Antichrist, Israel is open to signing a seven-year-peace treaty with the Antichrist to protect them from other invasions. After three and half years the Antichrist breaks the peace treaty by invading Israel and all the horrors of the book of Revelation break forth over the earth. As Jesus returns he laughs at his enemies Psalm 2. At the Second Coming Jesus enters the fray and destroys the forces of the Antichrist, the King of the East and the king of the North as recorded in Zachariah On that day people will be stricken by the Lord with great panic.
Gog and Magog: hundreds of years apart Now Jacob and his twelve sons lived a long time after the flood—centuries later, in fact see Genesis Gog and Magog: nations or places? Notice the similarities with Revelation Both armies are vast and cover the earth Ezekiel , 15, What does all this mean for us today?
Conclusion In the Bible, God wants to warn us of the terrible results of sin. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter. When will the world end? Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Discover Bible Studies. Get Free Study. Gog and Magog symbolize something sinister having to do with the End Times. They also represent historical peoples that existed a little after the time of Noah and explode onto the scene in Ezekiel 38 and Ezekiel When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth — Gog and Magog — and to gather them for battle.
In number they are like the sand on the seashore. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them Revelation After all, all of Scripture is God-breathed. That means even we can apply and learn from some of the most seemingly minor details in our own lives. But we do have a historical Gog and Magog that differ from the counterpart we see in Revelation. We see Gog make a brief appearance in 1 Chronicles , as a descendant of a prophet named Joel.
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