Why Russia Will Not Attack America - Church of God - NEO

nowhere to be found as names ofnations on world maps today. Thenames of the majority of theworld's modern nations are offairly recent origin. Nations andpeoples have undergone sometimesdozens of name changes over thecenturies and millennia of history.In the Bible, nations are namedafter their ancestors. Nations arefamilies grown big. The whole humanfamily of today, according tothe Bible, springs from Shem,Ham and Japheth, the sons ofNoah (Gen. 10:32). The "Table ofNations" of Genesis 10 is an accountof the origins of today's nationsand races.Through migrations, these diversepeoples overspread the entireearth. You can read the story inGenesis II. In many cases we canaccurately trace their travels fromthe starting point of Babel (in whattoday is I raq) through the pages ofhistory to their present locations.Especially helpful in such researchare the accounts of the classicalhistorians and geographers(such as Herodotus); Persian,Tatar and Arabic histories (such asMeadows of Gold by al-Masudi);the works of early Jewish historians(such as Josephus); Chineseand other Asian traditions; and medievalEuropean chronicles.Modern scholars generally givelittle credence to the Table of Nationsor to many of these earlyhistories and traditions. Consequentlythey are ignorant of thetrue identities of many of theworld's peoples today.Let us look again at the namesmentioned by Ezekiel. Where arethese peoples found today?Gog of the Land of MagogRuling over all these allied peoplesis Gog. Gog (meaning "mountain"or "high") is described as a greatprince, the political/military headof the vast region in question.Ezekiel pictures Gog as a guardand commander over the assembledpeoples (38:7).Along with the beast, the miracle-workingfalse prophet (Rev.16: 13; 19:20), and the leaders of anArab-Muslim confederacy, Gog isone of the major end-time personalitiesspecifically mentioned in theBible.10Gog is also a people, apparentlya tribal subdivision of Magog. Theoriginal Gog was probably a son orgrandson of Magog.Ezekiel describes the end-timeGog as being of the land of Magog.How, then, do we identify Magogtoday? The Table of Nations listsMagog as the second son ofJapheth, son of Noah.Japheth's descendants are primarilyEurasian peoples. They includethe East Slavs Great Russians,Little Russians, WhiteRussians and the Mongoloid peoplesof Asia outside of the NearEast and the subcontinent of India.Japheth's son Magog graduallybecome divided into two mainbranches. The western, CaucasianlookingSlavic branch is identifiedby the first-century Jewish historianJosephus and others as amongthe nomadic Scythian tribes northof the Black Sea in what today isthe Soviet Union.But there was also an eastern orMongoloid branch of theScythians that ancientlyinhabited the plainsstretching all the way tonorth China. The Venetiantraveler Marco Polo,who visited the Mongolrealms in the 13th century,identified Magog asbeing part of the Mungulsor Mongols. Otherhistories identify Magogwith the Mandarin-speakingnorthern Chinese.(The Cantonese-speakingsouthern Chinese, incidentally,are an Asianbranch of Javan, anotherof Japheth's sons.)Which branch of Ma- ' ...... - '"' ~gog is intended in the~.~lated "chief' in Ezekiel 38:2-3 inthe Authorized Version. In Hebrew,the word for chief is Rosh.But in Ezekiel's prophecy the originalHebrew may also be a propername.Rosh is the ancient Hebrewname for the Russ ("blonds") whosettled in the plains of Eastern Europein the ninth century, A.D.They gave their name to the Rus--.. 'ALAIN DEJEAN-$YGMA-.--/. ' ,- "'-.. '­, • . J •prophecy of Ezekiel? The Magog sian nation. The people of Rosh areof Ezekiel 38 and 39 is pictured as among the White Russians ofa people of a northern locality Byelorussia today.i.e., the vast lands of the Soviet Living next to the people ofUnion. Ezekiel describes Gog as Rosh are Meshech and Tubal. Bothcoming "from the north parts" Meshech and Tubal are sons of(39:2). The Soviet Union is far to Japheth (Gen. 10:2) and thusthe north of Palestine.brothers of Magog. To HerodotusMoreover, Gog is described as and other classical geographers andthe prince of Rosh, Meshech and historians they were known as theTubal, peoples clearly Russian by Moskhi or Moschi and thedescent.Tibareni, occupying the region ofRussians Great and Whitethe Caucasus between the Blackand Caspian Seas. In Assyrian inscriptionsThe Hebrew word Rosh is trans-they are the Muska and/•