Magog

(Gen 10:2; Rev 20:8) — a word of unknown origin. In Genesis 10:2 it is said that Magog was one of the sons of Japheth; the same is repeated in 1 Chr 1:5. In two other places this name is set in connection with Gog, so that the word Gog appears as though it were the name of a king over Magog, a people or country (Ezek 38:2-3; 39:1-12). From this it is evident that the word Magog denotes a country, just as Gog, Meshech, and Tubal standing beside it do, and that Gog, at the head of the people of Magog, is destined at some time to come from the north and invade the land of Israel, and that through this invasion the divine judgment upon Gog is to be accomplished, whose entire host will be destroyed and buried together with him in a place named, in memory of this event, the Valley of Hamon-gog.

In Revelation (20:8) the words Gog and Magog appear as equivalent terms for the nations found in the four corners of the earth, among whom their princes and rulers are probably also meant. In that passage a terrible war is prophetically described between the enemies and the saints of God, ending in the final destruction of the former. According to Gesenius, by the words Gog and Magog is meant the same northern people whom the ancient Greeks called Scythians (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 1, 6).

Gesenius says that the Arabs call them Yajuj and Majuj and relate many fables about Gog and Magog. Most philologists maintain that in the word Magog the syllable “ma” denotes “land,” so that the whole word means “the land of Gog.” Most likely, however, by these words are meant all the northern Scythian tribes, from whom the later Slavs, Tatars, and the like are descended. It does not follow from this, however, that there ever actually existed a king called Gog, or a people called Magog; one thing alone is certain, that in the course of the centuries these names became symbolic for all the northern peoples.