Gog and Magog (/ˈɡɒɡ ... ˈmeɪɡɒɡ/;Hebrew:גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג,romanized: Gōg ū-Māgōg) orYa'juj and Ma'juj (Arabic:يَأْجُوجُ وَمَأْجُوجُ,romanized: Yaʾjūju wa-Maʾjūju) are a pair of names that appear in theBible and theQur'an, variously ascribed to individuals, tribes, or lands. InEzekiel 38, Gog is an individual and Magog is his land.[1] By the time of theNew Testament'sRevelation 20 (Revelation 20:8), Jewish tradition had come to view Ezekiel's "Gogfrom Magog" as "Gogand Magog".[2]
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 theMessiah, which would usher in the age of the Messiah. One view withinChristianity is more starklyapocalyptic, making Gog and Magog allies ofSatan against God at the end of themillennium, as described in theBook of Revelation.[3]
A legend was attached to Gog and Magog by the time of theRoman period, that theGates of Alexander were erected byAlexander the Great to repel the tribe. Romanised Jewish historianJosephus knew them as the nation descended from Magog theJaphetite, as inGenesis, and explained them to be theScythians. In the hands of Early Christian writers they became apocalyptic hordes. Throughout theMiddle Ages, they were variously identified as theVikings,Huns,Khazars,Mongols or othernomads, or even theTen Lost Tribes ofIsrael.
The legend of Gog and Magog and the gates were also interpolated into theAlexander 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 inhuman cannibalism in the romances and derived literature. They have also been depicted on medieval cosmological maps, ormappae 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 theQuran in chapterAl-Kahf asYajuj andMajuj, primitive and immoral tribes that were separated and barriered off byDhu al-Qarnayn ("He of the Two Horns") who is mentioned in the Quran as a great righteous ruler and conqueror.[5] Some Muslim historians and geographers contemporaneous with theVikings regarded them as the emergence of Gog and Magog.[6]
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The names are mentioned together inEzekielChapter 38, where Gog is an individual and Magog is his land.[1] The meaning of the name Gog remains uncertain, and in any case, the author of the Ezekiel prophecy seems to attach no particular importance to it.[1] Efforts have been made to identify him with various individuals, notablyGyges, a king ofLydia in the early 7th century BC, but many scholars do not believe he is related to any historical person.[1]
InGenesis 10 Magog is described as a son ofJapheth, and a grandson ofNoah, although there is no mention there of a person named Gog. The name Magog itself is of obscure origin. It is often associated with Assyrianmat-Gugu, "Land of Gyges", i.e., Lydia.[7] Alternatively, Gog may be derived from Magog rather than the other way around, and "Magog" may be code forBabylon.[a][8][9][10]
The form "Gog and Magog" may have emerged as shorthand for "Gog and/of the land of Magog", based on their usage in theSeptuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.[11] An example of this combined form in Hebrew (Gog u-Magog) has been found, but its context is unclear, being preserved only in a fragment of theDead Sea Scrolls.[b][12] In Revelation, Gog and Magog together are the hostile nations of the world.[13][3] Gog theReubenite[14] occurs in1 Chronicles5:4, but he has no connection with the Gog of Ezekiel or Magog of Genesis.[15]
The Biblical "Gog and Magog" possibly gave derivation of the nameGogmagog, a legendary British giant.[c][16] A later corrupted folk rendition in print altered the tradition around Gogmagog andCorineus with two giants Gog and Magog, with whom theGuildhall statues came to be identified.[17]
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TheBook of Ezekiel records a series of visions received by the prophetEzekiel, a priest ofSolomon's Temple, who was among the captives during theBabylonian exile. The exile, he tells his fellow captives, isGod's punishment on Israel for turning away, but God will restore his people toJerusalem when they return to him.[18] After this message of reassurance, chapters38–39, the Gog oracle, tell how Gog of Magog and his hordes will threaten the restored Israel but will be destroyed, after which God will establish a new Temple and dwell with his people for a period of lasting peace (chapters 40–48).[19]
"Son of man, direct your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince, leader ofMeshech andTubal, and prophesy concerning him. Say: Thus said the Lord: Behold, I am against you, Gog, the prince, leader of Meshech and Tubal ...Persia,Cush and Put will be with you ... alsoGomer with all its troops, and BethTogarmah from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you."[20]
Internal evidence indicates that the Gog oracle was composed substantially later than the chapters around it.[d][21] Of Gog's allies, Meshech and Tubal were 7th-century BC kingdoms in centralAnatolia north of Israel, Persia towards the east, Cush (Ethiopia) and Put (Libya) to the south; Gomer is theCimmerians, a nomadic people north of the Black Sea, and Beth Togarmah was on the border of Tubal.[22] The confederation thus represents a multinational alliance surrounding Israel.[23] "Why the prophet's gaze should have focused on these particular nations is unclear", comments Biblical scholarDaniel I. Block, but their remoteness and reputation for violence and mystery possibly "made Gog and his confederates perfect symbols of the archetypal enemy, rising against God and his people."[24] One explanation is that the Gog alliance, a blend of the "Table of Nations" in Genesis 10 andTyre's trading partners in Ezekiel 27, with Persia added, was cast in the role of end-time enemies of Israel by means of Isaiah 66:19, which is another text of eschatological foretelling.[25]
Although the prophecy refers to Gog as an enemy in some future, it is not clear if the confrontation is meant to occur in a final "end of days" since the Hebrew termaḥarit ha-yamim (Hebrew:אחרית הימים) may merely mean "latter days", and is open to interpretation. Twentieth-century scholars have used the term to denote theeschaton in a malleable sense, not necessarily meaning final days, or tied to the Apocalypse.[e][26] Still, the Utopia of chapters 40–48 can be spoken of in the parlance of trueeschatological character, given that it is a product of "cosmic conflict" described in the immediately preceding Gog chapters.[27]
The Septuagint reads "Gog" instead of "Agag" in Numbers 24:7.
_64_-_O_Goze_i_Magoze.jpg)
Over the next few centuries Jewish tradition changed Ezekiel's Gogfrom Magog into Gogand Magog.[2] The process, and the shifting geography of Gog and Magog, can be traced through the literature of the period. The 3rd book of theSibylline Oracles, for example, which originated in Egyptian Judaism in the middle of the 2nd century BC,[29] changes Ezekiel's "Gog from Magog" to "Gog and Magog", links their fate with up to eleven other nations, and places them "in the midst ofAethiopian rivers"; this seems a strange location, but ancient geography did sometimes place Ethiopia next to Persia or even India.[30] The passage has a highly uncertain text, with manuscripts varying in their groupings of the letters of the Greek text into words, leading to different readings; one group of manuscripts ("group Y") links them with the "Marsians andDacians", in eastern Europe, amongst others.[31]
TheBook of Jubilees, from about the same time, makes three references to either Gog or Magog: in the first, Magog is a descendant of Noah, as in Genesis 10; in the second, Gog is a region next to Japheth's borders; and in the third, a portion of Japheth's land is assigned to Magog.[32] The 1st-centuryLiber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, which retells Biblical history from Adam to Saul, is notable for listing and naming seven of Magog's sons, and mentions his "thousands" of descendants.[33] TheSamaritan Torah and theSeptuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made during the last few centuries of the pre-Christian era) occasionally introduce the name of Gog where the Hebrew original has something else, or use Magog where the Hebrew has Gog, indicating that the names were interchangeable.[34]
The anti-RomanBar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century AD looked to a human leader as the promisedmessiah, but after its failure Jews began to conceive of the messianic age in supernatural terms: first would come a forerunner, theMessiah ben Joseph, who would defeat Israel's enemies, identified as Gog and Magog, to prepare the way for theMessiah ben David;[f] then the dead would rise, divine judgement would be handed out, and the righteous would be rewarded.[36][37]
Theaggadah, homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in theclassical rabbinic literature ofJudaism, treat Gog and Magog as two names for the same nation who will come against Israel in the final war.[38] The rabbis associated no specific nation or territory with them beyond a location to the north of Israel,[39] but the great Jewish scholarRashi identified the Christians as their allies and said God would thwart their plan to kill all Israel.[40]
The "Fruit of the Righteous" or "Pri Tzaddik" on the weekly portion Nasso, connects Gog u-Magog withAmalek. In this work fromRabbi Zadok HaKohen of Lublin it can be read in chapter 15:2:
"And after all of this, there still will be war of Gog u-Magog upon theMessiah son of Yoseph, for Gog u-Magog is the seed of Amalek, and Amalek corresponds always to the opposite of the sanctity of Israel, deeply..."[41]
Similarly, in the Tanakh, book of Judges 5:14 (JPS 1985) it can be read:
"From Ephraim came they whose roots are in Amalek."[42]
Chapters 19:11–21:8 of theBook of Revelation, dating from the end of the 1st century AD,[43] tell howSatan 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]
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.[44]
TheAlexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes describes gates constructed byAlexander the Great between two mountains called the "Breasts of the North" (Greek:Μαζοί Βορρά). The mountains are initially 18 feet apart and the pass is rather wide, but Alexander's prayers toGod causes the mountains to draw nearer, thus narrowing the pass. There he builds the Caspian Gates out of bronze, coating them with fast-sticking oil. The gates enclosed twenty-two nations and their monarchs, including Gog and Magog (therein called "Goth and Magoth"). The geographic location of these mountains is rather vague, described as a 50-day march away northwards after Alexander put to flight his Belsyrian enemies (theBebrykes,[45] ofBithynia in modern-day NorthTurkey).[46]
Christian texts following in the tradition of the Alexander Romance, such as theSyriac Alexander Legend (late 7th century) and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius (7th century) would continue to identify Gog and Magog as among those barbarian groups encapsulated behind Alexander's walls, but they would also combine this with the apocalyptic motif of Revelation and assert that the end of the world would also involve the barbarian groups penetrating through the wall and bringing about the apocalypse.[47]
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Two chapters of theQur'an,Al-Kahf (Chapter 18) andAl-Anbiya (Chapter 21), discuss Gog and Magog. In the Qur'an, Ya'juj and Ma'juj (Gog and Magog) are suppressed byDhu al-Qarnayn (Arabic:ذو القرنين,lit. 'the two-horned one').[5] Dhul-Qarnayn, having journeyed to the ends of the world, meets "a people who scarcely understood a word" who seek his help in building a barrier that will separate them from the people of Ya'juj and Ma'juj who "do great mischief on earth." He agrees to build it for them, but warns that when the time comes (Last Age), God will remove the barrier.[50]
The early Muslim traditions were summarised byZakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283) in two popular works called the Cosmography and the Geography. Gog and Magog, he says, live near to the sea that encircles the Earth and can be counted only by God; this sea is claimed to be theCaspian Sea,Black Sea or theSea of Azov. They are human, but only half the height of a normal man, with claws instead of nails, and a hairy tail and huge hairy ears which they use as mattress and cover for sleeping.[51] They dig into their wall each day until they almost break through. They break for the night saying, "Tomorrow we will finish", but each night God restores it. Then one day, as they stop digging for the night, one will say, "Tomorrow we will finish, God Willing", and in the morning, it is not restored as with every night. When they do break through, they will be so numerous that, "Their vanguard is inSyria and their rear inKhorasan."[52]
The wall dividing them from civilised peoples was normally placed towards today'sArmenia andAzerbaijan, but in the year 842 theCaliphal-Wathiq had a dream in which he saw that it had been breached, and sent an official named Sallam to investigate (this may be related toErgenekon).[53] Sallam returned a little over two years later and reported that he had seen the wall and also the tower where Dhul Qarnayn had left his building equipment, and all was still intact.[54] It is not entirely clear what Sallam saw, but he may have reachedDerbent in the Caucasus or theJade Gate and the westernmost customs point on the border of China.[55] Somewhat later the 14th-century travellerIbn Battuta reported that the wall was sixty days' travel from the city ofZeitun, which is on the coast of China; the translator notes that Ibn Battuta has confused theGreat Wall of China with that built byDhul-Qarnayn.[56]
Various nations and peoples in history were identified as Ya'juj and Ma'juj. At one point, it was the Turks, who threatenedBaghdad and northern Iran;[57] later, when the Mongols destroyed Baghdad in 1258, it was they who were Gog and Magog.[58] Others regarded theVikings and their descendants as Gog and Magog, since the unknown group fromScandinavia had made their sudden and considerable entry into thehistory of Europe.[6] Viking travelers and colonists were seen at many points in history as violent raiders. Many historical documents suggest that their conquests of other territories was retaliation in response to the encroachment upon tribal lands byChristian missionaries, and perhaps by theSaxon Wars prosecuted byCharlemagne and his kin to the south.[59][60][61][62][63] Researches of professors and philosophers such asAllama Muhammad Iqbal,Syed Abul Ala Mawdudi, who played important roles in British and South Asian politics, and American academicAbu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi and Caribbean eschatologistImran N. Hosein, compare the languages, behaviors and sexual activities of the tribes of Gog and Magog with those of Vikings.[64][65][66][67][68]
Some scholars further attempt to relate Yajuj and Majuj to the Lake of Tiberias, currently known as theSea of Galilee, theEarth's lowest freshwater lake, and the Dead Sea.[69] Historian and exegeteIbn Kathir mentioned similar theories in his bookal-Bidaya wa'l-Nihaya and mentions "Gog and Magog are two groups of Turks, descended from Yafith (Japheth), the father of the Turks, one of the sons of Noah."[70][71]
InMalay-Indonesian tradition, stories about Gog and Magog were introduced by way of translation fromAbbasid-eraArabic texts by religious authorities. They increasingly became prominent during the 16th century, a period of heightened political rivalry and conflict. For example, a text known as theHikayat Ya’juj wa-Ma’juj was read by some Malay warriors fighting against thePortuguese. Similarly, a poem originating in early 19th centurySurakarta, a city located on the Indonesian island ofJava, goes as far as to subvert Quranic teaching in order to use the story of Gog and Magog to vilify colonists from theDutch colonial empire. Another text was theHikayat Raja Iskandar ("Story of King Alexander"). This version argued, contrary to other traditions where both Gog and Magog variously descend from Adam, Noah, or Jesus, that Gog descended from the semen Adam produced while he dreamt of intercourse with Eve, and that Magog descended from the menstrual blood of Eve. Alexander ("Iskandar") is taught this story by the prophetKhidr. Nūr ad-Dīn ar-Ranīrī (d. 1658), a Gujariti scholar, depicted Gog and Magog as infidel tribes that eat dogs, descendants of Noah, and originally from Turkey.[72]
According to a tradition in Shia sources, Yajooj and Majooj are not from the Children of Adam (the human race). Al-Kafi, one of their primary collections of ahadith although by a non-Shia chain, states that it has been narrated fromIbn Abbas that when he askedAli about the "creatures", he responded by saying God has created "1,200 species on the land, 1,200 species in the sea, 70 species from the Children of Adam and the people are the Children of Adam except for the Yajooj and Majooj".[73]Al-Majlisi, an influential Shia scholar, quotes another tradition linking them to Chinese, Slavs, and Turkic people, and saying they are from the children of Adam, then saying that it is stronger than the former tradition and takes priority.[74]
Sunni sources, including those inSahih al-Bukhari andSahih Muslim, indicate that they are from the Children of Adam, and this is the belief of the overwhelming majority of Islamic scholars.[75] The "Abbasid orthodoxy" believed theIlkhanate Mongol invaders who laidsiege to and then sacked Baghdad, were Gog and Magog.[76] According toSahih Muslim, prophet Muhammad said:
Then a people whomGod had protected from him (dajjal) would come toIsa, son ofMaryam, and he would wipe their faces and would inform them of their ranks inParadise and it would be under such conditions that God would reveal to Isa (alaihis salam) these words: I have brought forth from amongst My servants such people against whom none would be able to fight; you take these people safely to the Mountain, and then God would send Gog and Magog and they would swarm down from every slope. The first of them would pass thelake of Tiberias and drink out of it. And when the last of them would pass, he would say: There was once water there.
The 1st-century Jewish historianJosephus equated Magog with theScythians inAntiquities of the Jews, but he never mentioned Gog.[80] Inanother work, Josephus recounts that theAlans (whom he calls a Scythian tribe) were given passage by theHyrcanian king, a warder of aniron gate built by Alexander.[g][80] By the time of Josephus, Alexander was already a Jewish folk hero.[80] However, the earliest fusion of Alexander's gate and the apocalyptic nations of Gog and Magog is a product of late antiquity, in what is known as theSyriac Legend of Alexander.[81]
In theSyriac Alexander Legend dating to 629–630, Gog (Syriac:ܓܘܓ, gwg) and Magog (Syriac:ܡܓܘܓܵ, mgwg) appear as kings ofHunnish nations.[h][82] Written by a Christian based in Mesopotamia, theLegend is considered the first work to connect the Gates with the idea that Gog and Magog are destined to play a role in the apocalypse.[83] The legend claims that Alexander carved prophecies on the face of the Gate, marking a date for when these Huns, consisting of 24 nations, will breach the Gate and subjugate the greater part of the world.[i][84][85]
ThePseudo-Methodius, written originally in Syriac, is considered the source of the Gog and Magog tale incorporated into Western versions of the Alexander Romance.[86][87] The earlier-datedSyriac Alexander Legend contains a somewhat different treatment of the Gog and Magog material, which passed into the lost Arabic version,[88] or the Ethiopic and later Oriental versions of the Alexander romance.[89][j]
ThePseudo-Methodius (7th century[90]) is the first source in the Christian tradition for a new element: two mountains moving together to narrow the corridor, which was then sealed with a gate against Gog and Magog. This idea is also in the Quran(609–632 CE[91][92]), and found its way in the Western Alexander Romance.[93]
This Gog and Magog legend is not found in earlier versions of theAlexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, whose oldest manuscript dates to the 3rd century,[k] but aninterpolation into recensions around the 8th century.[l][95] In the latest and longest Greek version[m] are described the Unclean Nations, which include the Goth and Magoth as their kings, and whose people engage in the habit of eating worms, dogs, humancadavers and fetuses.[46] They were allied to Belsyrians (Bebrykes,[45] ofBithynia in modern-day NorthTurkey), and sealed beyond the "Breasts of the North", a pair of mountains fifty days' march away towards the north.[n][46]
Gog and Magog appear in somewhat later Old French versions of the romance.[o][96] In the verseRoman d'Alexandre, Branch III, ofLambert le Tort [fr] (c. 1170), Gog and Magog ("Gos et Margos", "Got et Margot") were vassals toPorus, king of India, providing an auxiliary force of 400,000 men.[p] Routed by Alexander, they escaped through adefile in the mountains ofTus (or Turs),[q] and were sealed by the wall erected there, to last until the advent of the Antichrist.[r][97][98] Branch IV of the poetic cycle tells that the task of guarding Gog and Magog, as well as the rule of Syria and Persia was assigned toAntigonus, one of Alexander's successors.[99]
Gog and Magog also appear inThomas de Kent'sRoman de toute chevalerie (c. 1180), where they are portrayed as cave-dwellers who consume human flesh. A condensed account occurs in a derivative work, the Middle EnglishKing Alisaunder (vv. 5938–6287).[100][101][102] In the 13th-century FrenchRoman d'Alexandre en prose, Alexander has an encounter with cannibals who have taken over the role of Gog and Magog.[103] This is a case of imperfect transmission, since theprose Alexander's source, the Latin work by ArchpriestLeo of Naples known asHistoria de Preliis, does mention "Gogh et Macgogh", at least in some manuscripts.[104]
The Gog and Magog are not only human flesh-eaters, but illustrated as men "a notably beaked nose" in examples such as the "Sawley map", an important example ofmappa mundi.[105] Gog and Magog caricaturised as figures with hooked noses on a miniature depicting their attack of the Holy City, found in a manuscript of theApocalypse in Anglo-Norman.[s][28]
Throughoutclassical andlate antiquity, Christian and Jewish writers identified Gog and Magog with a wide diversity of groups:
As one nomadic people followed another on the Eurasian steppes, so the identification of Gog and Magog shifted. In the 9th and 10th centuries these kingdoms were identified by some with the lands of theKhazars, a Turkic people whose leaders had converted to Judaism and whose empire dominated Central Asia–the 9th-century monkChristian of Stavelot referred to Gazari, said of the Khazars that they were "living in the lands of Gog and Magog" and noted that they were "circumcised and observing all [the laws of] Judaism".[118][119] Arab traveler ibn Fadlan also reported of this belief, writing around 921 he recorded that "Khazars are part of the Gog and Magog".[120]
After the Khazars came theMongols, seen as a mysterious and invincible horde from the east who destroyed Muslim empires and kingdoms in the early 13th century; kings and popes took them for the legendaryPrester John, marching to save Christians from the MuslimSaracens, but when they entered Poland and Hungary and annihilated Christian armies a terrified Europe concluded that they were "Magogoli", the offspring of Gog and Magog, released from the prison Alexander had constructed for them and heraldingArmageddon.[121]
Europeans in Medieval China reported findings from their travels to theMongol Empire. Some accounts and maps began to place the "Caspian Mountains", and Gog and Magog, just outside theGreat Wall of China. TheTartar Relation, an obscure account ofFriar Carpini's 1240s journey to Mongolia, is unique in alleging that these Caspian Mountains in Mongolia, "where the Jews called Gog and Magog by their fellow countrymen are said to have been shut in by Alexander", were moreover purported by the Tartars to be magnetic, causing all iron equipment and weapons to fly off toward the mountains on approach.[122] In 1251, the French friarAndré de Longjumeau informed his king that the Mongols originated from a desert further east, and an apocalyptic Gog and Magog ("Got and Margoth") people dwelled further beyond, confined by the mountains.[123] In the map ofSharif Idrisi, the land of Gog and Magog is drawn in the northeast corner (beyond Northeast Asia) and enclosed.[124] Some medieval European world maps also show the location of the lands of Gog and Magog in the far northeast of Asia (and the northeast corner of the world).[125]
In fact, Gog and Magog were held by the Mongol to be their ancestors, at least by some segment of the population. As traveler and FriarRiccoldo da Monte di Croce put it in c. 1291, "They say themselves that they are descended from Gog and Magog: and on this account they are calledMogoli, as if from a corruption ofMagogoli".[126][127][128]Marco Polo, traveling when the initial terror had subsided, places Gog and Magog among theTartars inTenduc, but then claims that the names Gog and Magog are translations of the place-names Ung and Mungul, inhabited by the Ung and Mongols respectively.[129][130]
An explanation offered by OrientalistHenry Yule was that Marco Polo was only referring to the "Rampart of Gog and Magog", a name for the Great Wall of China.[131] Friar André's placement of Gog and Magog far east of Mongolia has been similarly explained.[123]
Some time around the 12th century, theTen Lost Tribes of Israel came to be identified with Gog and Magog;[133] possibly the first to do so wasPetrus Comestor inHistorica Scholastica (c. 1169–1173),[134][135] and he was indeed a far greater influence than others before him, although the idea had been anticipated by the aforementioned Christian of Stavelot, who noted that the Khazhars, to be identified with Gog and Magog, was one ofseven tribes of the Hungarians and had converted to Judaism.[118][119]
While the confounding Gog and Magog as confined Jews was becoming commonplace, some, like Riccoldo orVincent de Beauvais remained skeptics, and distinguished the Lost Tribes from Gog and Magog.[126][136][137] As noted, Riccoldo had reported a Mongol folk-tradition that they were descended from Gog and Magog. He also addressed many minds (Westerners or otherwise[138]) being credulous of the notion that Mongols might be Captive Jews, but after weighing the pros and cons, he concluded this was an open question.[u][128][139]
The Flemish Franciscan friarWilliam of Rubruck, who was first-hand witness to Alexander'ssupposed wall inDerbent on the shores of the Caspian Sea in 1254,[v] identified the people the walls were meant to fend off only vaguely as "wild tribes" or "desert nomads",[w][142] but one researcher made the inference Rubruck must have meant Jews,[x] and that he was speaking in the context of "Gog and Magog".[y][138] Confined Jews were later to be referred to as "Red Jews" (die roten Juden) in German-speaking areas; a term first used in aHoly Grail epic dating to the 1270s, in which Gog and Magog were two mountains enclosing these people.[z][143]
The author of theTravels of Sir John Mandeville, a 14th-century best-seller, said he had found these Jews in Central Asia where as Gog and Magog they had been imprisoned by Alexander, plotting to escape and join with the Jews of Europe to destroy Christians.[144]
In theBorgia map, a copper-engraved world map probably produced inSouthern Germanyc. 1430, the most eastern part contains two fortified regions depicting Gog and Magog, with the following Latin inscriptions:[132]
The Persian king Artaxerxes (eitherArtaxerxes I orArtaxerxes II, appearing in theBook of Ezra 7) was commonly confused in medieval Europe with the Neo-Assyrian rulerShalmaneser V, who according to2 Kings 17 drove the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel into exile.[132]
The twelfth-century chroniclePrimary Chronicle posited that the people ofKievan Rus' were descendants of the biblical Japheth, son of Noah, and of the tribe of Magog.[145] According to political scientist Christopher Marsh, "the implications" of being descendants of the tribe of Magog, depicted as being thrown out of heaven in the biblical Revelation of John, "apparently didn't matter to those drawing" the connection who believed that "[a]ncestors were found in the Bible, and that was enough", allegedly making the Rus' a chosen people of the Christian God.[145]
In the early 19th century, someHasidicrabbis identified theFrench invasion of Russia underNapoleon as "The War of Gog and Magog".[146] But as the century progressed, apocalyptic expectations receded as the populace in Europe began to adopt an increasingly secular worldview.[147] 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.[148] During theCold War the idea thatSoviet 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.[149]
Some post-Cold Warmillennialists still identify Gog with Russia, but they now tend to stress its allies among Islamic nations, especiallyIran.[150] For the most fervent, the countdown toArmageddon began with thereturn of the Jews to Israel, followed quickly by further signs pointing to the nearness of the final battle – nuclear weapons,European integration, theIsraeli annexation of East Jerusalem in theSix-Day War in 1967, and America's wars inAfghanistan and thePersian Gulf.[151]
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.[152] 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 Russia and China.[153] 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.[154]
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The full text ofChapter 59 at Wikisource)
