Gog
(1.) A Reubenite (1 Chr 5:4), the father of Shimei.
(2.) The name of the leader of the hostile party described in Ezek 38:1–23, Ezek 39:1–29, as coming from the “north country” and assailing the people of Israel to their own destruction. This prophecy has been regarded as fulfilled in the conflicts of the Maccabees with Antiochus, the invasion and overthrow of the Chaldeans, and the temporary successes and destined overthrow of the Turks. But “all these interpretations are unsatisfactory and inadequate. The vision respecting Gog and Magog in the Apocalypse (Rev 20:8) is in substance a reannouncement of this prophecy of Ezekiel. But while Ezekiel contemplates the great conflict in a more general light as what was certainly to be connected with the times of the Messiah, and should come then to its last decisive issues, John, on the other hand, writing from the commencement of the Messiah’s times, describes there the last struggles and victories of the cause of Christ. In both cases alike the vision describes the final workings of the world’s evil and its results in connection with the kingdom of God, only the starting-point is placed further in advance in the one case than in the other.”
It has been supposed to be the name of a district in the wild north-east steppes of Central Asia, north of the Hindu-Kush, now a part of Turkestan, a region about 2,000 miles north-east of Nineveh.
Named in the Bible
9 verses
- 1 Chronicles 5:4 The sons of Joel; Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son,
- Ezekiel 38:2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
- Ezekiel 38:3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
- Ezekiel 38:14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
- Ezekiel 38:16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
- Ezekiel 38:18 And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.
- Ezekiel 39:1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
- Ezekiel 39:11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.
- Revelation 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
