The Gog And Magog War: The Coming Middle East War
Lesson Overview
The Gog and Magog War: The Coming Middle East War with Dr. Mark Hitchcock
This standalone message, which Hitchcock titles “Tracking the Bear,” examines Ezekiel 38 and 39 and the coming invasion of Israel by a Russian-led coalition. He works through five questions: who, when, why, what, and how. Use this overview to review the key points after watching the full video.
Setting the Scene
Hitchcock opens by naming several signs of the times: the rebirth of Israel in 1948, which he calls the super sign because so many other prophecies depend on the Jewish people being back in the land; the rise of globalism making a single world ruler conceivable; the persistent search for Middle East peace, since the tribulation begins with a treaty; and the Middle East as the staging ground for the end. To these he adds the sign he will focus on, a Russian-led coalition poised to invade Israel.
Before entering the text he orients students to the book. Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah and Daniel, taken to Babylon in the second deportation. Chapters 1 to 24 announce judgment on Judah, chapters 25 to 32 judgment on Israel’s near enemies, and chapter 33 marks the turning point, when word arrives that Jerusalem has fallen in 586 BC. From there the message shifts from retribution to restoration. Chapter 37 describes the regathering of the Jewish people, which sets up chapters 38 and 39, since the invasion requires Israel to be back in her land.
Who: God’s Most Wanted List
Ezekiel 38:1-7 contains ten proper names. Hitchcock explains his method: none of these places exist under those names today, so we identify where they were around 570 BC and find the modern geographic counterpart.
Gog is a person rather than a place, since he is “of the land of Magog,” and God addresses him directly. Hitchcock differs from those who identify Gog with the Antichrist. In his view Gog leads the northern coalition while the Antichrist leads a western confederacy, making Gog the king of the north and the Antichrist the king of the west.
His identifications are: Magog as the land of the ancient Scythians in Central Asia, the region of the former Soviet republics he calls the Stans, home to roughly sixty million Muslims today. Rosh he takes as a proper noun rather than the adjective “chief,” noting the Septuagint treats it that way and that a people called the Ros or Rosapu lived in that region. He cites the Hebrew scholar Gesenius, who wrote in 1846 that Rosh was undoubtedly the Russians, well before modern headlines could have influenced him. He reinforces this with the repeated phrase “remote parts of the north” in 38:6, 38:15, and 39:2, noting that all biblical directions are measured from Jerusalem, which Ezekiel 38:12 calls the center, or navel, of the world.
On Meshech and Tubal, Hitchcock respectfully parts company with the Scofield Bible, which identified them with Moscow and Tobolsk. He cautions against transliterating ancient words into similar-sounding modern ones, and identifies them instead with the ancient Mushki and Tabalu in modern Turkey. Gomer he identifies not with Germany, a common Cold War reading, but with the Cimmerians of central Turkey, noting that Josephus called the Galatians the Gomerites. Beth-togarmah he places in eastern Turkey. So four of the names point to Turkey.
He then identifies Put as Libya, Cush as Sudan, and Persia as Iran, renamed in 1935 and becoming the Islamic Republic in the late 1970s. He observes that Persia appears some thirty-five times in Scripture and this is the only reference pointing to its future.
Hitchcock notes that Israel’s near neighbors are absent from the list, which leads some to posit an earlier war. His own solution is the phrase “many peoples with you” in verse 6, which he thinks includes them without listing them.
He pauses to make an apologetic point: roughly a thousand prophecies appear in Scripture, about five hundred already fulfilled with complete accuracy. Since the fulfilled ones were fulfilled literally, we should expect the remaining ones to be fulfilled literally as well.
When: Four Views
Hitchcock calls the timing the most disputed issue and surveys four positions.
The first is preterism, that the invasion already happened. He notes preterists struggle to identify when, and that the details do not fit any past event. He addresses their strongest argument, the ancient weapons, in two ways: Ezekiel may be using terms his hearers could understand, just as he used ancient place names, or humanity may literally revert to such weapons, which was John Walvoord’s view. He quotes Einstein’s remark that he did not know how World War Three would be fought, but World War Four would be fought with sticks and stones.
The second is that the invasion occurs before the tribulation, possibly even before the rapture, a popular view held by several teachers he names respectfully. His objection is that the text places it in the latter years, which he takes to mean the last days for Israel, beginning with the tribulation.
The third places it at the end of the tribulation, identifying it with Armageddon. He rejects this because Israel must be dwelling securely, which will not be true then, and because Armageddon involves all nations under the Antichrist rather than a specific coalition under Gog.
His own view is that the invasion occurs in the first half of the tribulation. He reasons that Scripture describes only two future times when Israel dwells securely: the millennial kingdom, which is ruled out because it is a time of peace, and the first half of the tribulation, when Israel enjoys a false peace under her covenant with the Antichrist and lets her guard down for the first time in her modern history.
He is candid that his view has a difficulty. Ezekiel 39:9 describes seven years of burning weapons, which on his timing would extend into the millennium. Quoting a seminary professor, he says sometimes you simply choose the view whose problems you like better than the alternatives.
He also draws an important distinction: the rapture does not begin the tribulation. The peace treaty of Daniel 9:27 does. The rapture ends the church age, a kind of reversal of Pentecost, and some interval may pass before the treaty is signed. He suggests the destruction of these armies creates a power vacuum that helps catapult the Antichrist to global power.
Why: The Motives
Ezekiel 38:12 says they come to capture spoil, and Hitchcock points to the enormous natural gas discoveries in and around Israel. Beyond plunder, they come to crush Israel, described as coming like a storm and a cloud covering the land, which he reads as a final act of anti-Semitism. He adds a third motive: because Israel is under treaty with the Antichrist, an attack on Israel is also a challenge to him.
What: When Gog Meets God
The outcome is entirely God’s doing. Ezekiel 38:18-23 describes God’s fury rising, a great earthquake in the land, every man’s sword turned against his brother, which Hitchcock calls the worst case of death by friendly fire in military history, followed by pestilence, blood, and fire and brimstone from heaven. God declares that He will magnify Himself, sanctify Himself, and make Himself known so the nations will know He is the Lord.
Hitchcock notes that 1967 gave Israel the Six-Day War, while this will be something like a one-hour war. He also observes that the enemies fall on “the mountains of Israel,” a region that only came under Israeli control in 1967, so the prophecy could not have been fulfilled before then.
How: The Stage Being Set
Hitchcock surveys current events, stressing that these prophecies are not being fulfilled but prepared for. He describes Russia emerging from hibernation, citing Putin’s 2005 statement that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century, along with actions in Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, and Syria, which has placed Russian and Iranian forces near Israel’s northern border.
Asked whether Putin might be Gog, he cites Joel Rosenberg’s careful answer that it is too soon to draw that conclusion, but that Putin is “Gog-esque.” He then touches on Sudan, Libya, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Turkey under Erdogan, quoting his remark comparing democracy to a streetcar one rides until reaching the desired stop.
On the “hooks in the jaws” of Ezekiel 38:4, he suggests the hooks are simply the alliances Russia is forming with these Islamic nations, which will draw her in when they move against Israel.
How We Respond
Hitchcock closes on pastoral ground. Prophecy was given not to scare us but to prepare us, not to make us anxious but aware, and above all to remind us that God is in control.
He illustrates with a story about watching his team’s bowl game live and agonizing over an early deficit, then watching the replay later that night completely relaxed, because he already knew the outcome. That, he says, is what prophecy does for the believer.
He notes that God told Abraham what He was about to do at Sodom, asking whether He should hide it from His friend, and that God has likewise taken believers into His confidence. His favorite word in prophecy is the Greek pantokrator, translated Almighty and used nine times in Revelation, which he says means to have your hands on everything. If God’s hands are on nations and kings and the great events of geopolitics, they are also on the details of each believer’s life.
Key Terms
Gog: the leader of the northern coalition, whom Hitchcock distinguishes from the Antichrist.
Rosh: taken as a proper name identifying a place rather than the adjective “chief.”
Preterism: the view that a prophecy has already been fulfilled in the past.
Table of Nations: the genealogy in Genesis 10 where several of these names first appear.
Harpazo: the Greek word behind “caught up,” from which we get the term rapture.
Pantokrator: the Greek word for Almighty, meaning to have everything in one’s hands.
Verses to Know
Ezekiel 38:1-9, the coalition named and summoned. Ezekiel 38:6 and 38:15 and 39:2, the invaders from the remote parts of the north. Ezekiel 38:12, Israel at the center of the world, and the motive of spoil. Ezekiel 38:18-23, God’s supernatural intervention. Ezekiel 39:9, seven years of burning the weapons. Daniel 9:27, the covenant that begins the tribulation.
Takeaway
God named this exact coalition roughly 2,600 years in advance and will destroy it Himself, which means prophecy is given not to frighten believers but to assure them that the God who holds the nations in His hands also holds their own lives.