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Welcome to the Cross References podcast on the Book of Ezekiel. In this study, you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a newbie Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
Host: Luke Taylor
The Nations of Gog’s Alliance
Ezekiel 38:5-6
Ezekiel series, Part 72
Introduction
The Bible has a lot of strange locations thrown at us in Ezekiel 38 and 39.
Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, Meshech, Tubal, Beth-Togarmah, Mos Eisley, Alderaan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’d need a time machine to know where all these places are.
In fact, you’d need a space ship, too, because some of them only exist in a galaxy far, far away.
Since we don’t have time travel technology all figured out yet, we’ll have to rely on history to tell us where all these places are.
But why is knowing all these names important, anyway? Because these are the nations or peoples who are prophesied to come against Israel in an epic battle in the last days. The famous prophecy of Gog and Magog.
And this prophecy’s fulfillment may be close. And it may not. That’s why we have to understand what nations we should be watching closely. Once we’ve established who is who in this biblical drama, we’ll know how to see them coming into alignment with this prophecy- and perhaps be able to track how close we are to Gog and Magog’s battle play out.
I’ll teach you the signs we’re looking for today on the Cross References podcast.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to the book of Ezekiel: a Cross References Bible study where we learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
My name is Luke Taylor, and I’m a newspaper guy. When I was in college, I actually worked for four years on the college paper, got a degree in Journalism and Public Relations, and I even wrote for some area newspapers and magazines as a young adult before my life took a right turn into church ministry.
And when I was in journalism classes, they taught us that when you write an a news article, you need to write the who, what, when, why and where. You need to answer all those questions as you are gathering information to write your story. And that is also the approach I have undertaken with Ezekiel 38 and 39.
These are the famous chapters of the battle of Gog and Magog, and I call them famous because if anyone knows anything about the book of Ezekiel, it’s usually this right here. But there are a lot of opinions about how this Gog and Magog fight plays out, and I want to take all this one piece at a time to really go in-depth on understanding the scenario that Ezekiel is prophesying.
So last week, I talked about the WHO. Who is Gog? I tried to answer that question last week, and if you didn’t listen, I’m not going to spoil it here. You have to go back and listen if you missed it. So last week was WHO. And this week, we’re going to talk about WHERE. What are all these nations who are involved in this alliance who team up to attack Israel.
So I’ll restart the chapter from the beginning, because we’re not that far into it.
Ezekiel 38:1-3
The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.
So as I said on the last episode, there are some very good and some very bad reasons to see Russia as Magog. Some good reasons are based on the words of Josephus. However, there are others who believe Gog is the leader of Turkey, and one of the reasons is that Meshech and Tubal are found in Turkey, and so no matter whether Russia is a part of this end-time-alliance against Israel or not, we can definitely say that Turkey is going to be a major player in it.
So who else is in it?
Ezekiel 38:4-6
4 And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. 5 Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you.
So here we are again, back to all these names. Chuck Missler likes to say, the reason these names are so unfamiliar to all of us are that we keep changing them. Constantinople was changed to Istanbul. Cape Canaveral is Cape Kennedy. Mount McKinley in Alaska is now Mount Denali. Hannah Montana is Miley Cyrus. Washington Redskins. Aunt Jemima. Bruce Jenner. Just leave it alone people.
So let’s take these one at a time.
Persia
Persia is the easiest to translate to modern times. This would be the nation of Iran. Iran is significant for being part of this prophecy for several reasons. Recall that this prophecy was given 2,608 years ago, and not only has this people group lingered for thousands of years, it is one of the most geopolitically significant nations in the world. One, Iran is a major energy producer with a huge stock of oil and gas. Two, Iran has nuclear ambitions; you probably remember former President Obama’s famous Iran Nuclear deal of 2015 that president Trump promptly shredded away when he took office in 2017. If Obama’s Iran Nuclear deal had been allowed to stand, Iran would be allowed to start developing nuclear weapons in 2025- that would just be one year away. Iran desperately wants to build a nuclear weapons arsenal. Three, we don’t want them to do that because Iran is the largest state supporter of terrorism in the world.
Four, it has significant social unrest and activism, with a pretty decently-minded civilian population ruled by an evil, totalitarian government. (I was sad to see in the recent season of the Rings of Power show from Amazon that the character Bronwyn didn’t return. That’s because her actress is Iranian, and she returned to her home country to protest the government.) Five, Iran is very rich, and probably the most influential Muslim nation toward the other Muslim nations in the Middle East. Six- and most important to this Ezekiel 38 prophecy- Iran hates Israel with a fiery passion.
Iran and Israel have been in the news a lot the past few weeks because Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and pummeled Israel in what I see as an act of war. If a nation had launched a few hundred missiles into America with the intent to kill our citizens, there’s no doubt we’d be at war. But when it happens to Israel, they have to be careful about how they respond because they don’t have a lot of support from other nations if they enter into a conflict, even if it’s in self-defense.
Iran is pretty clear about its intentions to wipe Israel off the map. As evidenced by its presidents who keep saying they want to (quote) “wipe Israel off the map.”
So are conditions ripe for Iran- if the leader of Russia or Turkey came to them and said, “Would you like to help us totally wipe Israel off the map?” Yes! Iran would say, “Totally, we’ve been trying to do that for years and we can’t get it done. Of course we’ll help you destroy Israel.” Iran would be more than happy to fulfill today this prophecy given by Ezekiel 2,608 years ago.
Cush
The next nation mentioned was Cush.
Verse 5 again
5 Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet;
Cush is first mentioned in the table of nations in
Genesis 10:6
The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.
As I said before, Ham went toward Africa. His sons settled in Africa. Cush was a region that today would be known as Sudan or Ethiopia. It’s a little debatable which nation this could be talking about; or perhaps both. Cush the the area just south of Egypt.
In the Septuagint, which I mentioned last time because it helped us so much in identifying Gog and Magog, it translates Cush literally as “Aeithiopia,” or just Ethiopia with an “A” on the front. So that means that’s what the translators of Jesus’ day understood Cush to be.
However- the Cushiness were living at that time in what is called Sudan in modern times. The Cushiness or Ethiopians migrated from that area to where the country of Ethiopia is today.
So it’s a little ambiguous whether Cush could be understood as Sudan or Ethiopia today. It’s kind of like in last week’s episode where Magog was the territory of the Scythians, who migrated into what is known as Russia today, which is why we popularly associate Magog with Russia.
So Ethiopia and Sudan are nations we may want to keep our eye on as we look for alignment with Iran, Turkey or Russia in seeing the end times play out.
Now, Cross References is not a Geopolitical Expert. I don’t know what the foreign policy of Ethiopia is in relation to Russia. So I asked ChatGPT. It said that Ethiopia and Russia are on friendly terms, especially militarily more than economically. Interestingly, I also asked about Sudan and it told me that Russia and Sudan have a much stronger alliance economically, militarily and diplomatically. Russia has had plans the past few years to establish a military base in the nation.
So those threads are there, and it’s amazing that they could materialize into something more concrete at any time and fulfill this prophecy given by Ezekiel 2,608 years ago.
Put
The next nation mentioned by Ezekiel 38 is Put. This would be the region directly to the west of Egypt, which today is unquestionably Libya.
This country- Put- was mentioned previously in Ezekiel 27 and 30 as an ally of Tyre and Egypt. In those chapters, it said that when Tyre and Egypt were judged by God, Put would suffer as well. Put’s story in Ezekiel seems to be that it never picks a good country to get in bed with.
Put is basically the Taylor Swift of world history. It just gets into one bad relationship after another.
In modern times, Libya is a huge country in real estate, but a weak country politically. It was plunged into a Civil War about 10 or 15 years ago and it hasn’t had a functional government since then.
Currently, Russia has been pulling for Khalifa Aftar to take control of the nation. Russia also supplies weapons to Libya since 2008.
So once again, the pieces are in place to fulfill this prophecy given by Ezekiel 2,608 years ago.
Gomer and Beth-Togarmah
The last two nations mentioned in Gog’s alliance are Gomer and Beth-Togarmah.
Ezekiel 38:6 said
Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you.
I’m taking these together because they are both part of the same nation today. First of all, these nations descended from Japheth, so we’re back to Japheth’s kids.
Genesis 10:2 and 3
The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
Gomer and Togarmah are located in the region of Turkey today, so four of the people groups mentioned in this prophecy are located in the modern area of Turkey: Meshech, Tubal, Gomer and Beth-Togarmah.
Lots of people want to make Gomer into Germany, and it’s understandable because it goes without saying that Germany has historically had some issues with the Jewish people. I don’t see as strong of evidence for that; it’s possible that Germany would want to get in on this fight, but I’ll explain why I think Gomer is in Turkey in a minute. But Gomer is associated with an ancient people known as the Cimmerians, and the Cimmerians migrated in the direction of Germany. Now, if you look on a map, Germany is a pretty long way from Turkey. There are a lot of countries associated with the Cimmerians along that stretch from Turkey to Germany.
So, it could be talking about Germany, and I understand why it’s tempting to say that because the word Gomer looks like Germany.
I tend to think it’s just Turkey, and I base that on some research from Bible prophecy expert Jimmy DeYoung. He had a ministry in Israel for many years, he actually died from COVID-19 around the time that I started this podcast, but I met him in 2014 and I sure learned a lot from him over the years.
He had an ancient map of Turkey and it was divided into four regions: Meshech, Tubal, Gomer and Beth-Togarmah. So as I said in the intro, I don’t have a time machine, so I’m really trying to rely on ancient maps, and so that basically tells the story, as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s a good hermeneutical principal for Bible interpretation: always start by understanding what it meant to the original audience. If you want to know what the Bible means today, you need to look at what it meant to the original hearers when it was written 2,608 years ago.
[musical interlude]
Closing Thoughts
In closing today, I want to talk about some interesting factoids in relation to these Gog and Magog nations.
Many say Russia doesn’t fit with the rest of these nations, because it’s not a Muslim nation, and all the others are.
But here’s something I find quite interesting: Russia’s military has a large Muslim portion. Some say 10 to 15%, others say 20 or 25%. And it’s expected to grow. Russia has a significant Muslim population, it borders a lot of Muslim countries, and Muslim citizens are represented in the Russian military beyond their proportion of the population. That gives them a strong influence in Russia’s military actions.
My Daniel Block commentary, the NICOT, throws out the idea that it would have seemed extremely unlikely 2,608 years ago that these African nations of Ethiopia and Libya would team up with Iran. It also says that Persia was such a non-entity at the time that Ezekiel was writing that it would have been considered a fringe nation, that most Israelites wouldn’t have even known about it. It even throws out the idea that it was so unlikely to include the nations in verse 5, perhaps the inclusion of these nations are basically an ancient typo. Or the way scholars put it, a later addition.
But of course, those claims don’t matter when we’re talking about future prophecy. First of all, these details came from God. Second, it wasn’t a prophecy about Ezekiel’s day, so the likelihood of those nations teaming up really doesn’t matter. In fact, it just makes it more amazing that Ezekiel claimed they would. This was a prophecy about the future.
So I find it really interesting that Russia- if we’re accurately interpreting Magog as referring to Russia and Gog as the entity influencing Russia’s leader- then Russia is the common thread that unites all of these nations to ally with each other.
It may sound a little random to see these African nations teaming up with Russia. That’s the part that always throws me for a loop, because I have no idea about Russia’s relationship with random countries in Africa.
But I saw a fascinating article last year- about one year ago at this time- discussing the influence of Russia into Africa, and it mentions that Russia has dumped billions of dollars into a few African nations and also forgiven some of their debts. Why? Well, Russia has lost some popularity on the world scene here lately because of the war it started in Ukraine, and so it’s looking for friends wherever it can find them.
Here’s a sentence from a report on AfricaCenter.org: Russia has gained outsized influence in Africa in recent years by playing the cards it has well. Where it has realized most influence—Libya, Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Mali—Russia has agilely employed a combination of mercenary and disinformation interventions in support of isolated leaders or proxies.
PBS and the Center for Foreign Relations also report Russia’s strong military presence in Libya and Sudan in articles from just a year ago. They don’t mention Ethiopia a whole lot.
Now, let me caution you against reading the Bible through modern headlines. I’m not going to say that Cush is Sudan instead of Ethiopia just because the news tells me Russia is more heavily allied with Sudan. I shouldn’t look at modern headlines to say, “Oh, this has gotta be Cush.” We need to rely on ancient maps, ancient works like the Septuagint, to understand what these words meant when they were written. Not get carried away with the news and try to make Cush mean whatever we want it to mean today.
But I also won’t be dogmatic. There’s a lot of ambiguity in things like whether Magog is Russia or Ukraine, or whether Cush is Sudan or Ethiopia. So don’t assume we always have it all figured out. But when we do look at the headlines, it sure seems likely that Russia would ally or exert influence over Libya and some of these African nations to team up.
But I think we have done pretty good homework to understand the WHERE in Ezekiel 38. So as we wrap up today: what would cause Russia to team up with all these Muslim nations to go after Israel? Because let’s read verse 4 again…
(Ezekiel 38:4)
And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords.
Kind of as we’ve established, the Muslim nations don’t need much motivation to go after Israel. They don’t even need a Klondike Bar; all you’d need to do is ask.
But what’s Russia’s motivation to go after Israel in this epic end-times battle? And could it relate to the current modern conflict taking place right now in Ukraine?
We’ll talk about that next time, so I hope you’ll be back. Make sure you’re subscribed if you aren’t already so you can get that episode.
Last week was the WHO. This week was the WHERE. Next time, we’re going to discuss WHY. Why are all these countries attempting to invade Israel? And the week after that, we’ll be discussing WHEN. We’ll talk about different theories of the timing of Gog and Magog.
These words were handed down from heaven a long time ago in a land far, far away. But you could see them play out in reality not so long from now in headlines and on TV screens right in front of your eyes.
Thanks for listening to this Cross References Bible Study on the Book of Ezekiel. This has been Luke Taylor, and I hope the Bible makes more sense to you after this episode.