Gog and Magog

A Persian painting from the 16th century illustrating the building of the wall

Gog and Magog (Template:Lang-he; Template:Lang-ar) are names that appear in the Book of Genesis, the Book of Ezekiel, 1 Chronicles, the Book of Revelation, and the Qur'an. They are also used in the exegesis of the Midrash Rabbah and the Talmud.

They are variously presented as men, supernatural beings (giants or demons), national groups, or lands. Gog and Magog also occur widely in mythology and folklore. While the names are closely associated with one another in the Hebrew Bible, they did not specifically appear together as a pair ("Gog and Magog") until the Christian New Testament Book of Revelation was written (ca. 90).

Hebrew Bible references

Gog and/or Magog appear in three books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Book of Ezekiel, and 1 Chronicles.

Genesis

Magog appears as the eponymous ancestor of a people or nation in the Table of Nations at Genesis 10:2:

The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras

Ezekiel

In the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 38:2–3) Gog appears as a foreign prince and Magog as his land:

Son of Man, direct your face towards Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince, leader of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy concerning him. Say: Thus said the Lord Hashem/Elohim: Behold, I am against you, Gog, the prince, leader of Meshech and Tubal.

The Book of Ezekiel records the visions of Ezekiel, who lived in Babylon in the early to mid 6th century BCE following the destruction of Jerusalem. In this passage the prophet lists the many wrongs Israel and Judah had suffered and describes how the future would be made different. The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah would be reunited, the descendants of David would be restored and would rule with justice, and the God of Israel would return to a reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem. In the past foreign kings had attacked and destroyed both Israel and Judah, but in the future they will be stopped by God.

1 Chronicles

In 1 Chronicles Gog is listed as a descendant of Joel, grandson of Reuben, the eldest son of the patriarch Jacob, through Carmi in 1 Chronicles 5:3, 4.

New Testament references

Christian tradition

Gog and Magog appear in one verse of the Book of Revelation (Rev. 20:8), and are equated in the vision with "the nations in the four quarters of the earth". The prophecy in the received text concerns a battle waged by the devil's forces at the close of the Messianic kingdom.

Origins

The etymology of Gog/Magog remains uncertain, although it seems likely that one is derived from the other. The ma- at the beginning of Magog may indicate a land or it may mean "from", so that Magog means "of the land of Gog" or "from Gog". "Gog" itself may be the Hebrew version of the name Gyges, a king of Lydia who reigned roughly a century before the time of the prophet Ezekiel and made his kingdom a great power in the region - in Akkadian, the language of Babylon, Gyges was known as "Gugu", and if Ezekiel's Gog is Gugu/Gyges then "Magog" would mean "Land of Gyges".

Alternatively, Gog might derive from Magog. In this case "Magog" might refer to the magi of Cappadocia (modern Turkey) and Media (in modern geography, eastern Turkey and north-western Iran), or it might be a reference to Babylon itself (MGG, Magog in Hebrew, can be turned into BBL, Babil, or Babylon).

In post-biblical tradition

In Jewish traditions

The Jewish Talmud and Midrashim also deal with Magog's location, and use the names Gytia (גיתיא) and Germania (גרמניא), identified by some scholars as Kermania and Sattagydia, currently located in eastern Iran and Balochistan, which is also called Sakastan, meaning "home of the Scythians" (which were named by Josephus as Magogites).

In his book Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish historian and scholar Josephus identifies Magog with the Scythians, but this name seems to have been used generically in antiquity for a number of peoples north of the Black Sea.

In terms of extra-biblical Jewish tradition, Gog the "prince" has been explained by Rashi, Radak and others as being the king of the nation of Magog, descended from the son Magog of Japthet, the son of Noah. No particular nation is associated with them, nor is any particular territory beyond them being in the north of Israel. Some Biblical scholars believe that Gyges (Template:Lang-grc), king of Lydia (687 BC–652 BC), is meant. In Assyrian letters, Gyges appears as Gu-gu, in which case Magog might be his territory in Anatolia; for in Assyrian, māt Gu-gu would be the normal way of designating 'the land of Gugu'.

In Islamic tradition

Gog and Magog appear in Qur'an sura Al-Kahf (The Cave chapter), 18:83–98, as Yajuj and Majuj (Ya'jūj and Ma'jūj or يَأْجُوج وَ مَأْجُوج, in Arabic), as well as in the sura Al-Anbiyā (The Prophets):

But there is a ban on a town which We have destroyed: that they (the people of the town) shall not return. Until the Gog and Magog are let through (their barrier), and they spread out from every direction.(Qur'an 21:96–97)

According to Islamic tradition (in Saḥīḥ al-Bukhāri), Gog and Magog are "Sons of Adam", i.e. human beings, who would be released when a people return to a town which was destroyed and from which they were banned. Some scholars have argued this town is Jerusalem. They would possess great power and, when released, would cause corruption in society ("Yājūj and Mājūj do great mischief on earth", Al-Kahf verse 94) to such an extent that for each 1 muslim there will be 999 of Gog and Magog would be led to the hellfire (according to Saḥīḥ al-Bukhāri).

The prominent Muslim scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi contends that Gog and Magog are from the descendents of Noah’s son Japeth who inhabited the northern areas of Asia. Later, some of their tribes reached Europe and after that settled in America and Australia. In Qur'an 18:83-98, it is stated that Dhul-Qarnayn (the One with Two Horns, or of Two Ages) travelled in three directions, meeting finally a people who complained that Yājūj and Mājūj were "causing corruption on earth". When the people offered Dhul-Qarnayn a tribute in exchange for building a wall, he replied that Allah had given him enough, and would build it with their help. He constructed a wall between two mountains (believed by some to be Daryal Pass). He built it out of iron and then poured molten metal over it, so no one could climb over or dig under. This stopped Gog and Magog from threatening them. According to some, they will be trapped there until doomsday, and their escape will be a sign of the end.

The Qur'anic account of Dhul-Qarnayn is said by some, to follow the "Gates of Alexander" story from the Alexander romance, a thoroughly embellished compilation of Alexander the Great's wars and adventures (see Alexander the Great in the Qur'an). The details of the two stories, however, are quite different and the comparisons made appear to be attempts at undermining the Islamic belief that the Qur'an was revealed from God. Moreover, most Muslim scholars reject this attribution, and some associate Dhul-Qarnayn with some other early ruler, usually Cyrus the Great, but also Darius the Great. Gog and Magog are also mentioned in some of the hadiths, or sayings of Muhammad, specifically the Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, revered by Sunni Muslims.

Fourteenth century Muslim sojourner Ibn Battuta traveled to China on order of the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq, and encountered a large community of Muslim merchants in the city of Zaitun. He comments in his travel log that "Between it [the city] and the rampart of Yajuj and Majuj is sixty days' travel." The translator of the travel log notes that Ibn Battuta confused the Great Wall of China with that supposedly built by Dhul-Qarnayn.

In the Ahmadiyya Islamic community

The Ahmadiyya Community present the view that Gog and Magog represent one or more of the European nations. They associate European imperialism after the Age of Discovery with the reference to Gog and Magog's rule at the "four corners of the world" in the Christian Book of Revelation. The Ahmadiyya founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) linked Gog and Magog to the European nations and Russia. His son and second successor, Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad further expounds the connection between Europe and the accounts of Gog and Magog in the Bible, the Qur'an, and the hadith in his work Tafseer-e-Kabeer.. According to this interpretation of Mahmood Ahmad in his commentary on Surah Al-Kahf (Urdu), Gog and Magog were the descendants of Noah who populated eastern and western Europe long ago, the Scythians. According to Ahmadiyya teachings, the period of the Cold War between the two superpowers, USA and the Soviet Union (identified as Gog and Magog) or the influence of Communism and capitalism, the conflict and rivalry between the two and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union all occurred in accordance with the prophecies concerning Gog and Magog. Ahmadis also cite the folkloric British interpretation of Gog and Magog as giants (see below) as support for their view.

Affiliation with fire

Ahmadis point out that the Arabic words for Gog and Magog i.e. Yājūj and Mājūj derive from the root word ajja (to burn, blaze, hasten) which suggests that Gog and Magog will excel all nations in harnessing fire to their service and shall fight their battles with fire. In his commentary of Surah-Al-Masadd, Mirza Mahmood Ahmad, the Second Ahmadiyya leader has interpreted the two hands of Abu-lahab (the father of flame) as Gog and Magog, the nations opposed to Islam that will ultimately be destroyed by the 'fire' of their own making.

Later interpretations

In the Alexander Romance

The older accounts influenced the authors of the Alexander Romance, a late and romanticized account of Alexander the Great's conquests. According to the Romance, Alexander came to a northern land devastated by incursions from barbarian peoples, including Gog and Magog. Alexander defends the land by constructing the Gates of Alexander, an immense wall between two mountains that will stop the invaders until the end times. In the Romance, these gates are built between two mountains in the Caucasus called the "Breasts of the World"; this has been taken as a reference to the historical "Caspian Gates" in Derbent, Russia. Another frequently suggested candidate is the wall at the Darial Gorge in Georgia, also in the Caucasus.

As Goths

Ambrose was the first to integrate the Goths in a Christian view of the world. In a treatise, de fide, written in 378 at the request of Emperor Gratian, he took up the issue of the Goths because the Emperor was going to fight them on the Balkans in the Gothic War (376–382). In a comment on 39:10–11 Ez 39:10–11 he famously wrote: Gog iste Gothus est — "That Gog is the Goth".

In the mid 390s, Jerome did not agree with this assessment. In his comment on 10:2 Gen 10:2, he argued that events had proven Ambrose wrong, and he instead identified the Goths with the Getae of Thrace. Augustine did not agree with Ambrose either. In his The City of God, written as a reaction to the sack of Rome (410) by Alaric I, he explained that Gog and Magog in the Book of Revelation are not a particular people in a particular place, but that they exist all over the world.

In the Getica, written by Jordanes in 551 as an abbreviation of a lost work by Theoderic's chancellor Cassiodorus, Josephus is quoted for connecting Magog to the Scythians and so to the Goths. However, this plays only a minor role in the elaborate origin myth in the Getica.

Isidore of Seville confirmed that people in his day supposed that the Goths were descended from Japheth's son Magog "because of the similarity of the last syllable", and also mentions the view that they were anciently known as Getae. Many of the mountains peaks in the Caucasian mountains and land areas there retain the place name "Gog" in medieval European and Armenian maps. In the 7th-century Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius it is the messianic Last Roman Emperor who fights and destroys Gog and Magog, with divine aid. The 11th-century historian Adam of Bremen considered Ezekiel's prophecy to have been fulfilled in the Swedes, a group related to the Goths. Johannes Magnus (1488–1544) stated that Magog's sons were Sven and Gethar (also named Gog), who became the ancestors of the Swedes and the Goths. Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) reckoned herself as number 249 in a list of kings going back to Magog.

As Khazars

Christian and Muslim writers sometimes associated the Khazars with Gog and Magog. In his 9th century work Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam, the Benedictine monk Christian of Stavelot refers to the Khazars as Hunnic descendants of Gog and Magog, and says they are "Circumcised and observing all [the laws of] Judaism"; the Khazars were a Central Asian people with a long association with Judaism. The 14th century Sunni scholar Ibn Kathir also identified Gog and Magog with the Khazars who lived between the Black and Caspian Seas in his work Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah (The Beginning and the End). A Georgian tradition, echoed in a chronicle, also identifies the Khazars with Gog and Magog, stating they are "wild men with hideous faces and the manners of wild beasts, eaters of blood". Another author who has identified this connection was the Arab traveller Ahmad ibn Fadlan. In his travelogue regarding his diplomatic mission to the elteber (vassal-king under the Khazars), he noted the beliefs about Gog and Magog being the ancestors of the Khazars. However, according to the famous Khazar Correspondence, King Joseph of Khazar claims to be the descendant of Togarmah, whom is not directly related to Magog.http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/khazars1.html

As Israelites or Jews

The 14th-century Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a book of fanciful travels, makes a peripheral association between the Jews and Gog and Magog, saying the nation trapped behind the Gates of Alexander comprised the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Additionally, a German tradition claimed a group called the Red Jews would invade Europe at the end of the world. The "Red Jews" became associated with different peoples, but especially the Eastern European Jews and the Ottoman Turks.

As Mongolians

The official stance of the Church following the Mongol invasions of Europe was that they were Magogoli descendants of Magog, and a taster of Armageddon. Some Muslim scholars including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi and al-Tabari believe the Qur'anic Gog and Magog are intended to be the Mongols. The Mongols were a serious threat to Muslim power during the Middle Ages, attacking Muslim civilizations, and eventually destroying the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad and the Khwarezmian Empire of Central Asia.

In The Travels of Marco Polo

In The Travels dictated by Marco Polo, Gog and Magog are regions of Tenduk, a province belonging to Prester John, and governed by one George, fourth in descent from the original John. According to this account Gog (locally Ung) is inhabited by a tribe called the Gog, whilst Magog (or Mongul) is inhabited by Tatars.

As Napoleon in Russia

During the Napoleon Bonaparte's Invasion of Russia, some Chasidic rabbis identified this major war and upheaval as "The War of Gog and Magog", which would precede the coming of the Messiah.

Modern attempts at identification

As Russia

According to one modern theory of dispensationalist Biblical hermeneutics, Gog and Magog represent Russia. Apocalyptic author Louis Bauman claimed that the word "Caucasian" came from the Arabic term "gog-i-hisn" for the mountains there which means "fortress of Gog". However, this identification is unanimously rejected by even the most conservative of credentialed biblical scholars working in accredited institutions of higher learning. It should be noted that the Scythians, who were identified by Josephus and others as being Magog, lived in what is now Russia and Ukraine.

The legend of Gog and Magog, as well as the land of Rosh (based on Christian translation), also plays a significant part in the New Chronology of Russian pseudohistorian Anatoly Fomenko.

Babylon

"Magog" (Hebrew MGG) has also been identified as a possible cryptogram or cipher for Babel (BBL), that is, Babylon.

Gog and Magog in Britain

Giants

Gog and Magog figures located in the Royal Arcade, Melbourne (Australia)

Main article: Gogmagog (folklore)

Despite their generally negative depiction in the Bible, Lord Mayors of the City of London carry images of Gog and Magog (depicted as giants) in a traditional procession in the Lord Mayor's Show. According to the tradition, the giants Gog and Magog are guardians of the City of London, and images of them have been carried in the Lord Mayor's Show since the days of King Henry V. The Lord Mayor's procession takes place each year on the second Saturday of November.

The Lord Mayor's account of Gog and Magog says that the Roman Emperor Diocletian had thirty-three wicked daughters. He found thirty-three husbands for them to curb their wicked ways; they chafed at this, and under the leadership of the eldest sister, Alba, they murdered their partners. For this crime they were set adrift at sea; they washed ashore on a windswept island, which they named "Albion" - after Alba. Here they coupled with demons and gave birth to a race of giants, whose descendants included Gog and Magog.

An even older British connection to Gog and Magog appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's influential 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae, which states that Goemagot was a giant slain by the eponymous Cornish hero Corin or Corineus. The tale figures in the body of unlikely lore that has Britain settled by the Trojan soldier Brutus and other fleeing heroes from the Trojan War. Corineus supposedly slew the giant by throwing him into the sea near Plymouth; Richard Carew notes the presence of chalk figures carved on Plymouth Hoe in his time. Wace (Roman de Brut), Layamon (Layamon's Brut) (who calls the giant Goemagog), and other chroniclers retell the story, which was picked up by later poets and romanciers. John Milton's History of Britain gives this version:

The Island, not yet Britain, but Albion, was in a manner desert and inhospitable, kept only by a remnant of Giants, whose excessive Force and Tyrannie had consumed the rest. Them Brutus destroies, and to his people divides the land, which, with some reference to his own name, he thenceforth calls Britain. To Corineus, Cornwall, as now we call it, fell by lot; the rather by him lik't, for that the hugest Giants in Rocks and Caves were said to lurk still there; which kind of Monsters to deal with was his old exercise.

And heer, with leave bespok'n to recite a grand fable, though dignify'd by our best Poets: While Brutus, on a certain Festival day, solemnly kept on that shore where he first landed (Totnes), was with the People in great jollity and mirth, a crew of these savages, breaking in upon them, began on the sudden another sort of Game than at such a meeting was expected. But at length by many hands overcome, Goemagog, the hugest, in hight twelve cubits, is reserved alive; that with him Corineus, who desired nothing more, might try his strength, whom in a Wrestle the Giant catching aloft, with a terrible hugg broke three of his Ribs: Nevertheless Corineus, enraged, heaving him up by main force, and on his shoulders bearing him to the next high rock, threw him hedlong all shatter'd into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, called ever since Langoemagog, which is to say, the Giant's Leap.

Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion preserves the tale as well:

Amongst the ragged Cleeves those monstrous giants sought:

Who (of their dreadful kind) t'appal the Trojans brought

Great Gogmagog, an oake that by the roots could teare;

So mighty were (that time) the men who lived there:

But, for the use of armes he did not understand

(Except some rock or tree, that coming next to land,

He raised out of the earth to execute his rage),

He challenge makes for strength, and offereth there his gage,

Which Corin taketh up, to answer by and by,

Upon this sonne of earth his utmost power to try.

Gog Magog Hills

Main article: Gog Magog Downs

The Gog Magog Downs are about three miles south of Cambridge, said to be the metamorphosis of the giant after being rejected by the nymph Granta (i.e. the River Cam). The dowser Thomas Charles Lethbridge claimed to have discovered a group of three hidden chalk carvings in the Gogmagog Hills. This alleged discovery is described at length in his book Gogmagog: The Buried Gods, in which Lethbridge uses his discoveries to extrapolate a primal deity named 'Gog' and his consort, 'Ma-Gog', which he believed represented the Sun and Moon. Although his discovery of the chalk figures in the Gogmagog Hills has been dogged by controversy, there are similarities between the name and nature of the purported 'Gog' and the Irish deity Ogma, or the Gaulish Ogmios.

The Cambridge molly side, Gog Magog, take their name from these hills.

Gog and Magog in Ireland

"Gog and Magog giving Paddy a Lift Out of the Mire." From Punch magazine, 1846

Works of Irish mythology, including the Lebor Gabála Érenn (the Book of Invasions), expand on the Genesis account of Magog as the son of Japheth and make him the ancestor to the Irish. His three sons were Baath, Jobhath, and Fathochta. Magog is regarded as the father of the Irish race, and the progenitor of the Scythians, as well as of numerous other races across Europe and Central Asia

Partholón, leader of the first group to colonize Ireland after the Deluge, was a descendant of Magog. The Milesians, or people of the 5th invasion of Ireland, were also descendants of Magog.

See also

• 1 Maccabees
• Abomination of Desolation
• Antichrist
• Antiochus IV Epiphanes
• Armageddon
• Bible prophecy
• Christian eschatological views
• Dajjal
• Day-year principle
• Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• Gork and Mork

• Guildhall, London
• History of London
• Koka and Vikoka
• Olivet discourse
• Post Tribulation Rapture
• Prewrath
• Prophecy of Seventy Weeks
• Rapture
• Siege of Jerusalem (70)
• The Beast (Bible)
• Two Witnesses

References

• BHS refers to the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
• KJV refers to the Authorized King James Version

Further reading

• Sverre Bøe, Gog and Magog: Ezekiel 38–39 as Pre-text for Revelation 19,17–21 and 20,7–10 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,2001).

External links

• Agog over Bush's comments on Gog and Magog
• Yajuj wa Ma'juj (Gog and Magog) according to Islam
• Christian website explaining Gog and Magog from their point of view.