If you’re reading Ezekiel along with me, Chapter 38 and 39 are probably testing your patience. Yet another prophecy about the destruction of a nation. After reading Isaiah, Jeremiah, and most of Ezekiel, I understand why these prophecies exist. These nations represent a lifestyle that leads to death. Their leaders are powerful men who rule by violence, hoard money, and don’t care about people in need. When God re-creates the world, he will turn this upside down. Powerful violent men will be punished, and peaceful widows and orphans will be lifted up. People will live in peaceful abundance.
So why do I have to read yet another prophecy about God destroying a foreign nation?
This time, the prophecy is about Gog, who is the king of a land called Magog. Who is Gog? As far as I know, there is no historical record of a king named Gog, or even a land called Magog. We know Babylon existed. So did Egypt, Tyre, Assyria, and all the other nations Ezekiel prophesied about. They were real historical nations, but Magog isn’t.
However, in Genesis, you might remember a lot of boring passages containing long lists of names. Genealogies about the descendants of Adam, and then after the flood, the descendants of Noah. Here, we find where Ezekiel learned Magog is one of Noah’s grandsons. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In the nations around Ezekiel, the sons of Shem are accounted for. Israel is descended from Shem, and so are some other neighbouring nations. The sons of Ham became the Canaanites, Babylon, Egypt, and Assyria. The main enemies of Israel. But what about the sons of Japheth? For Ezekiel, the known world didn’t contain many nations descended from Japheth.
In Genesis, we learn Japheth had a son named Magog. Meshech and Tubal were also sons of Japheth. Ezekiel says Gog is from “the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” (38:2). So even though Magog didn’t exist, Ezekiel saw some grandsons of Noah that weren’t accounted for in the nations he knew about. He logically assumed that there must be a nation out there descended from Magog, Meshech, and Tubal.
This is why Ezekiel had to include this prophecy. The new creation has to be complete. If God is going to make the world good, he has to make the entire world good. This must include all the descendants of Noah.
Later in the prophecy, we see that God’s work won’t be complete until all the bones of Gog’s army are buried. It will take seven months, and the number seven represents completion. After seven months, men will comb through the valley looking for every last bone, and bury them. That’s thorough. For Ezekiel, there will be a time when God’s work is complete. In that time, all the nations of the world will be flipped upside down, with weak and vulnerable people lifted up. They will all live in peaceful abundance.
This reminds me of Genesis 1, and the seven days of creation. The story says God completed his work after six days, creating a well-ordered world with humans in their proper role. It was good. “Very good”, in fact. But we quickly see that this world isn’t all good. Adam and Eve failed, Cain failed more, and Cain’s descendant Lamech failed even more. So can we really believe that the world God created in Genesis 1 was “very good”? Was his work really complete?
Maybe Ezekiel believes that Genesis 1 isn’t complete yet. God still hasn’t finished his work of making the world “very good”. His work will be complete when faraway nations are brought to justice.
Now, the trouble in these prophecies is trying to understand how they relate to our historical reality. Some people have theorized that Gog is Alexander the Great, or maybe the land of Magog is Russia or Iraq. I’m not interested in any of these theories. If the New Testament offers us any clues, it tells us that the way prophecies are fulfilled will be totally unexpected. Jesus believed he fulfilled many Old Testament prophecies, but when he did, even his own followers failed to see it because they were expecting something else. I will not build up any expectations for a fulfillment of this prophecy about Gog.
The only thing I can confidently say is that Ezekiel believed the world will one day be good. The whole world, not just part of it. Ezekiel is not ignorant. He knows how short-sighted people can be. He is very pessimistic about our ability to do things right. But he is very optimistic about God’s ability to do things right. The world will one day be good, and it will have nothing to do with powerful men taking charge and implementing their ideas about governance. God himself will be the one to make the world good. And the humans who inherit this good world will be the ones who didn’t use power and violence to force things to go their way.
After reading your post, I still don’t understand the fascination with Gog and Magog. In Glastonbury, there are two ancient oak trees named Gog and Magog. Tourists go there. Ancient oak trees are awesome in and of themselves, but why name them Gog and Magog?