The Invasion of Gog and Magog

Ezekiel 38 and 39 prophesies an invasion of "the mountains of Israel" coming from a coalition of forces led by "Gog of the land of Magog." This prophecy assures us that Gog is one of the bad guys, and that God will destroy their army.

Ezekiel 38:3 says, "Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal." Ezekiel 38:16 says, "and you [Gog] will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land."

It is almost universally believed that this is a Russian invasion of Palestine. It is said that "Rosh" is Russia, Meshech is Moscow, and Tubal is Tobolsk, the historic Russian capital of Siberia.

I have no quarrel with these locations. However, a fact often missed is that this same "Gog" comes not only from the land of Magog and Tubal, but also from Persia, Ethiopia, Put [Libya], Gomer, and Beth-Togarmah (38:5, 6).

In other words, Gog comes from many locations, and they are not necessarily Persians, Ethiopians, Libyans, etc., but people who have been living there.

To me, this describes Zionism itself, because Jews immigrated to Palestine from all of these locations and more "to cover the land." Most of the Israeli population is Ashkenazi from Russia and Eastern Europe. Yet others are Sephardic from the Middle East and North Africa. Still others are the Falashi Jews from Ethiopia.

As I showed in my previous series, there are two Gomers of Scripture. Since Ezekiel mentions Gomer as one of the invaders, we need to distinguish between these two Gomers. Ezekiel was obviously speaking of Gomer the son of Japheth (Gen. 10:2 and 3).

² The sons of Japheth were Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras. ³ And the sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.

Because Ezekiel pairs Gomer with Magog, Tubal, Meshech, and Togarmah, it is certain that this is the correct Gomer. So it is safe to say that the prophecy is not about Gomer, the wife of Hosea, who was a prophetic type of the dispersed ten tribes of Israel.

The most significant grouping listed in Ez. 38:6 is the Beth-Togarmah, or "House of Togarmah." There is solid historic data on the whereabouts of Togarmah, but this is not well known, because it utterly contradicts the preconceived notions of the prophecy teachers. One of the sons of Togarmah in history was Khazar (or Chazar), a nation in southern Russia which converted to Judaism somewhere between 620 and 740 A.D., according to the Jewish Encyclopedia.

At first, only the king and the nobles converted to Judaism, but within a few generations the vast majority of the common people followed their example. In 960 A.D. a Jewish doctor in Spain heard of a Jewish Kingdom north of the Black Sea. He wrote a letter to the king of the Khazars and sent it by Arab courier. He eventually received a reply from King Joseph of the Khazars, answering his questions:

"Joseph then proceeds to provide a genealogy of his people. Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the 'Sceptre of Judah,' he cannot, and does not, claim for them Semitic descent; he traces their ancestry not to Shem, but to Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes. Joseph asserts boldly, 'that Togarmah had ten sons, and the names of their offspring are as follows: Uigur, Dursu, Avars, Huns, Basilii, Tarniakh, Khazars, Zagora, Bulgars, Sabir. We are the sons of Khazar, the seventh' ...." [The Thirteenth Tribe, Arthur Koestler, p. 72]

History shows the Khazar kingdom to be living in the lands of Gog and Magog.

The ninth-century monk Druthmar of Aquitaine, in his commentary on Matthew 24:14 in Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam, stated that the Gazari, or Khazars, dwelt "in the lands of Gog and Magog." . . .   

According to Benjamin H. Freedman, himself a Jew and an apparent long-time associate and confidant of presidents and statesmen, in an address presented in 1961 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., the Khazars were so belligerent and hostile that they were eventually run out of Asia and scattered amongst the nations of Eastern Europe. Heinrich von Neustadt, around 1300, wrote of them as the "terrifying people of Gog and Magog."

http://www.apfn.org/thewinds/library/khazars.html

The American Center of Khazar Studies has a website with a great deal of information about the Jewish Khazars. Go to:

http://www.khazaria.com/

When I first came across this information in the mid-1970's, I was as shocked as many of you may be upon hearing this. How could such a big part of history go unnoticed? How is it that so many Jews are familiar with this, but the Christian prophecy teachers know little or nothing about it?

Does it make a difference? Only if we want to properly identify Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39. That prophecy does not describe a RUSSIAN invasion of Palestine. It describes a Russian-Jewish invasion, not so much with uniformed troops, but an invasion by immigration "as a cloud to cover the land."

This is why the invasion comes also from Persia (Iran), Ethiopia, Libya, and other places. It is a coalition of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews coming from everywhere.

Is it not interesting that the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe--who comprise a vast majority of today's Jews--name themselves after the grandson of Japheth in Gen. 10:3? Ashkenaz was the brother of Togarmah, and both were sons of Japheth's Gomer. Magog, Tubal, and Meshech were their uncles.

So if we are to interpret Ezekiel 38 and 39 correctly, it is self-evident that we have to identify the characters properly, and not go merely on the land from which they come. Once again, this is largely a case of mistaken identity. I have no doubt that God has hidden these things from the Church in order to establish His purposes. If the Church knew what was happening, they would not have supported the Zionist movement, and that prophecy may have never happened!

But Isaac was the blind servant. God therefore has blinded the eyes of His people in order to set them free, according to the law (Ex. 21:26). As long as a prophecy teacher functions in blindness, he has less liability for not teaching correctly. More than that, if God has blinded him, he has the right to appeal to the Divine Court, even as Samson did in Judges 16:28.

Hence, we see that Ezekiel 38, 39 does not contradict either Isaiah 29:1-6 or Jeremiah 19. All of the prophets are agreed that the Zionist conquest of "the mountains of Israel" will fail. Jeremiah says God will break the city and the people in such a way that it can never be rebuilt again. Isaiah describes a nuclear incident. Ezekiel focuses on the Zionist method of conquest--that is, conquest by immigration. But they all speak of the same end.