EZEKIEL THIRTY-EIGHT VERSE TWO

1) MAGOG--this term was used to describe the region where the descendants of Magog lived.  According to Genesis 10:2,  Magog was one of the sons of Japheth. Japheth was one of the sons of Noah (see Gen. 9:18, 27). Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that the descendants of Magog were “by the Greeks called Scythians” (Ant. i.6.1). According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1957) and The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, the Scythian people lived to the north of the Black Sea and north of the Caucasus Mountains. This area today is part of Russia. Gesenius, the Hebrew scholar, says that the descendants of Magog were “a great and powerful people, inhabiting the extreme recesses of the north.”    Mark Hitchcock writes:  "Magog today probably represents the former underbelly of the Soviet Union:  Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.  Afghanistan could also be part of this territory. All of these nations are dominated by Islam with a combined total population in excess of sixty million" [The Battle of Gog and Magog, by Mark Hitchcock (paper presented at the Pre-Trib. conference), p. 3].

2) ROSH--some Bible scholars, such as Gesenius, believe that the modern name “Russia” is derived from this ancient place name “Rosh,” because of the similarity of sounds, and also because certain Greek writers of the 10th century (A.D.) described people living in the area later called Russia by the word “Rōs.”  Other Bible students take the position of Old Testament scholar Merrill F. Unger who says that the word "Russia" was not derived from Rosh, “although the general area was that now occupied by Russia and Turkey.”  Clyde Billington asserts that the Rosh people lived north of the Black Sea, the people known today as the Russians [Clyde E. Billington Jr., "The Rosh People in History and Prophecy (Part Three)," Michigan Theological Journal 4 (1993), 59,61].

3) MESHECH was another son of Japheth (Gen. 10:2). The descendants of this man lived for centuries in Asia Minor (probably in Cappadocia), and later were pushed northward by their enemies into the mountainous area southeast of the Black Sea.  Today this area borders on Russia.

4) TUBAL was another son of Japheth (Gen. 10:2). The descendants of this man also lived in Asia Minor, not far from the Black Sea. The descendants of Tubal and Meshech probably lived close to each other, because in the Scriptures the two names are almost always found together.  Mark Hitchcock said the following about the identification of the locality of Tubal and Meshech:  "The preferred identification is that Meshech and Tubal are the ancient Moschoi and Tibarenoi in Greek writings or Tabal and Musku in Assyrian inscriptions. the ancient locations are in modern Turkey" [The Battle of Gog and Magog, by Mark Hitchcock (paper presented at the Pre-Trib. conference), p. 8].

GOG seems to be a man, the leader of this great invasion.  It seems evident that he is an individual because he is addressed directly by God (Ezek. 38:14; 39:1) and he is also called a prince (Ezek. 38:2; 39:1).