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Is Russia on the Brink of Nuclear War?
By Author Eli Kittim
Who or What is Gog?
Joseph Stalin——the Soviet Union’s longest serving ruler from 1927 until 1953 (for nearly 3 decades)——was born in Gori, Georgia. Curiously enough, in both English and Russian, the initials of Gori, Georgia would be Gog or ΓοΓ (i.e. Гори, Грузия). If the Bible wanted to symbolize the terror of Communism in the 20th century, as well as the final empire on earth, what better way to do so than by pointing to its cruelest and most infamous leader, who was born in the land of Gog and Magog.
In the Bible, Γώγ or Gog symbolically represents the final leader of the last superpower on earth. The last-days prophecy of Ezekiel 38.1-2 (LXX) reads:
ΚΑΙ ἐγένετο λόγος Κυρίου πρός με λέγων·
υἱὲ ἀνθρώπου, στήρισον τὸ πρόσωπόν σου
ἐπὶ Γὼγ καὶ τὴν γῆν τοῦ Μαγώγ, ἄρχοντα
Ῥώς, Μοσὸχ καὶ Θοβέλ, καὶ προφήτευσον
ἐπ’ αὐτὸν.
Translation (NKJV):
Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land
of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and
Tubal, and prophesy against him.
The term Γώγ might actually be an abridged version of the word Γεωργία (Georgia), the country that has a northern border with Russia and was once part of the Soviet Union. Based on both linguistic and historical studies, the rest of the names indicate a Russian connection: prince of Ρώς (Gk. Ρωσία/Russia), Μοσόχ (Gk. Μόσχα/Moscow) and Θοβέλ (Tobolsk). In his book The Footsteps of the Messiah (p. 70), the biblical scholar Arnold Fruchtenbaum provides a supplementary elaboration of Ezekiel 38:
The identification of Magog, Rosh,
Meshech, and Tubal is to be determined
from the fact that these tribes of the
ancient world occupied the areas of modern
day Russia. Magog, Meshech and Tubal
were between the Black and Caspian Seas
which today is southern Russia. The tribes
of Meshech and Tubal later gave names to
cities that today bear the names of
Moscow, the capital, and Tobolsk, a major
city in the Urals in Siberia. Rosh was in what
is now northern Russia. The name Rosh is
the basis for the modern name Russia.
Similarly, according to Wikipedia:
Josephus refers to Magog son of Japheth
as progenitor of Scythians, or peoples north
of the Black Sea [Josephus, Antiquities of
the Jews, Book I, Chapter 6]. According to
him, the Greeks called Scythia Magogia.
The Scythians were a group of nomadic warriors who lived in what is now southern Russia. More importantly, the Bible seems to point to Russia as the birthplace of the last-days Antichrist (see e.g. Ezekiel 38). In order to understand the historical reasons for tying the Ezekiel 38 narrative to Russia, see “The Magog Identity” article by Chuck Missler: https://www.khouse.org/articles/2002/427/print/
The Septuagint Conflates the Biblical References to Gog and Agag
In Numbers 24.7 of the Septuagint, Agag is called Gog (Γώγ), and the LSV translation of the Bible uses the two titles interchangeably in Numbers 24.7 (cf. Amos 7.1 LXX; Rev. 9.3, 7-12):
He makes water flow from his buckets,
‘And his seed [is] in many waters; And his
King [is] higher than Gog [or Agag],’
And his kingdom is exalted.
Here’s the Septuagint version of Numbers 24.7:
ἐξελεύσεται ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος
αὐτοῦ καὶ κυριεύσει ἐθνῶν πολλῶν, καὶ
ὑψωθήσεται ἢ Γὼγ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ, καὶ
αὐξηθήσεται βασιλεία αὐτοῦ.
In Hebrew, the pronunciation of Agag is Ag-awg, similar to that of Gog (gawg). Some scholars think that Agag represented a dynastic name for the kings of Amalek, much like the title Pharaoh that was used for the Egyptian kings. Interestingly enough, according to scholars, the root of the word Georgia (Γεωργία), which, as mentioned earlier, may represent the biblical Gog (Γώγ), is the Persian word gurğ (“wolf”), a possible cognate of Agag. One of Agag’s descendants is Haman the Agagite (Esther 3.1), whose cruel plot against the Jews can only be matched by those of Hitler and Stalin. Thus, the name Agag (or, alternatively, “Gog”) has become synonymous with antisemitism and with evil! It seems, then, that the titles Gog and Agag are interchangeable.
Old & New Testament Prophecies About the Same Cataclysmic Event
Even though in Ezekiel 38 the term Gog is an appellation of rank and status, notice that in Revelation 20.8 Gog and Magog (Γώγ και Μαγώγ) are references to nations (ἔθνη), not titles:
καὶ ἐξελεύσεται πλανῆσαι τὰ ἔθνη τὰ ἐν
ταῖς τέσσαρσι γωνίαις τῆς γῆς, τὸν Γὼγ καὶ
Μαγώγ, συναγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν
πόλεμον, ὧν ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτῶν ὡς ἡ ἄμμος
τῆς θαλάσσης.
Translation (NRSV):
and will come out to deceive the nations at
the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, in order to gather them for battle;
they are as numerous as the sands of the
sea.
And the next verse (Rev. 20.9) is seemingly talking about the exact same event that Luke 21, Zechariah 14, and Ezekiel 38 are describing, namely, “Jerusalem [being] surrounded by armies” (Lk 21.20), or a gathering of “all the nations against Jerusalem to battle” (Zech. 14.2; cf. Ezek. 38.16):
καὶ ἀνέβησαν ἐπὶ τὸ πλάτος τῆς γῆς, καὶ
ἐκύκλευσαν τὴν παρεμβολὴν τῶν ἁγίων καὶ
τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἠγαπημένην. καὶ κατέβη πῦρ
ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ⸃ καὶ κατέφαγεν αὐτούς ·
Translation:
They marched up over the breadth of the
earth and surrounded the camp of the
saints and the beloved city [Jerusalem].
And fire came down from heaven and
consumed them.
This so-called “fire” may refer to a nuclear blast that causes the desolation of Jerusalem (cf. Ezek. 38.19-20; 39.6, 8; Dan. 11.31; 12.11; Zech. 14.11; Mt. 24.15-22).
Notice that the exact same word that is used in Revelation 20.9 to refer to the armies of Gog and Magog that “surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city [Jerusalem],” namely, the word ἐκύκλευσαν (derived from the word κυκλόω, meaning to encircle, besiege, or surround), is also used in Luke 21.20 (κυκλουμένην) to describe “Jerusalem surrounded by armies.”
This is presumably the same event prophesied by Jeremiah the prophet (10.22):
Hear, a noise! Listen, it is coming— a great
commotion from the land of the north to
make the cities of Judah a desolation.
For a detailed study on the nuclear implications of the phrase, “the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place” (Mt. 24.15), see my article “What is the Abomination of Desolation?”: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/651654379241406464/what-is-the-abomination-of-desolation
If experts claim that it wouldn’t be difficult for terrorists to build and detonate an improvised nuclear device, how much easier would it be for an invading army to do likewise?
According to Wiki:
Since 1947, the Doomsday Clock of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has
visualized how close the world is to a
nuclear war. As of 2021, the current time to
'midnight,' (midnight representing nuclear
war,) is 100 seconds.
See the following article: “Are we on the brink of nuclear war? Un researcher says yes”: https://www.google.com/amp/s/sofrep.com/amp/news/are-we-on-the-brink-of-nuclear-war-un-researcher-says-yes/
