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Gog and Magog By Oleg   Part 2 of 3

Gog and Magog - Multiple Fulfillment

It seems, therefore, that the safe way of interpreting the fulfillment of Gog’s prophecy is to stay within the parameters of explanation given by later biblical authors. Such an approach helps to avoid a speculative exposition of this prophecy and focuses on the canonical intertextual understanding of it. It's clear that his prophecy was not fulfilled in biblical times (from the Babylonian captivity exodus to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70), nor in a more recent time. The closest but partial historical fulfillment of this prophecy in Old Testament times and the intertestamental period occurred during the Maccabean wars (2nd century B.C.), when a few hundred Jews under the leadership of Judah Maccabee revolted against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 B.C.) and unexpectedly defeated his enormous and well-trained Hellenistic army. The Maccabees waged war against this oppressive Hellenistic ruler, who not only wanted to subjugate them but also change their culture and even religion. The commemoration of their surprising victory gave birth to the Hanukkah festival. However, if it was a fulfillment of Ezekiel prophecies of Gog and Magog, it was certainly just a partial fulfillment – Antiochus IV Epiphanes did not die in Israel; his army was not defeated in the manner asserted in Ezekiel; Israel did not live at that time in security, etc.

If there is no clear-cut and full historical fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, one must carefully study “if” and “how” the New Testament writers interpret them, whether explicitly or implicitly. Jesus

Christ’s teaching must be taken as the key interpretative factor and the New Testament inspired writers as the best expositors of these Old Testament predictions. Our basic hermeneutical principle in studying them is that the New Testament removes the geographical and ethnic restrictions of Old Testament prophecies while maintaining the Middle East imagery.

Thus, we'll be looking at the New Testament era, or dispensation, and here we see multiple pre-fulfillments of Ezek 38–39 in the history of the Church. When the situation is analogical in principle, one can discern preliminary fulfillment of the prophecy about Gog and Magog.

The prophecy of Ezek 38–39 has two eschatological-apocalyptic fulfillments — one connected with the second coming of Christ, and another associated with the end of the millennium. We need to ask how andwhere the prophecy of Ezekiel on Gog is interpreted in the apocalyptic book of Revelation.

The events described in Ezek 38:19–22a54 find their echo in Rev 16:18–21, where terms like “great

earthquake,” “hailstones,” “fiery wrath,” “plague,” “mountains,”are used. Significantly, the new symbolic term “Babylon” (Rev 16:19) is employed in this passage instead of “Gog and Magog.”The great hailstones mentioned in Ezek 38:22a are referred to in the seventh plague, when hail weighing about a talent will magnify the destruction already wrought (Rev 16:21). The fire may be the“lightning” of Rev 16:18.

There are differences, too. In Ezekiel God’s intervention swiftly and completely devastates Gog and his allies; however, in Rev 16 the seven plagues gradually strike the wicked. The horizon is broadened so that the final destruction of the wicked will be universal as the last plague takes place at the second coming of Jesus Christ, during which all the wicked will die (2 Thess 1:7–9; 2:8–10; 2 Pet 3:11–12; Rev 19:20). The eschatological universal battle is presented apocalyptically: a major earthquake takes place, the cities collapse, every island flees away, the mountains are thrown down, the hailstones fall (Rev 16:17–21). However, the people of God do not need to enter into the battle, Babylon in Rev 17, because panic breaks loose in“Babylon’s” army, and they strike each other down (17:16–18).

The relationship between Ezek 38–39 and Rev 16 is further strengthened by the battle description.58 Revelation 16:12 notes that the great river Euphrates will dry up to prepare the way for the kings from the East.59 The Euphrates was a river in Babylon that flowed from the north. According to Rev 17:15, water is a symbol for nations. In the book of Ezekiel, these nations from the north are Gog’s allies, paralleling the Euphrates river of Rev 16:12. The drying up of the river would be referring to Gog’s loss of support. In the same way as the army turned on one another in Ezek 38:21b, so will the followers of the beast have an internal fight, according to Rev 17:16. This is a picture of the division and a foreshadowing of Gog’s ultimate judgment of destruction and annihilation. The judgment is clearly described in the seventh plague, where Babylon is Gog, and ch. 17 depicts the punishment of this great Antichrist’s power.

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