Editing Gog and Magog (section)

==Jewish texts==
===Ezekiel===
[[File:Flemish - Ezekiel's Vision of the Sign "Tau" (Ezekiel IX -2-7) - Walters 44616 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Ezekiel's Vision of the Sign "Tau" from Ezekiel IX:2–7. {{right|—[[Mosan art|Mosan]] [[champlevé]] panel, mid-12th century.}}]]
The [[Book of Ezekiel]] records a series of visions received by the prophet [[Ezekiel]], a priest of [[Solomon's Temple]], who was among the captives during the [[Babylonian captivity|Babylonian exile]]. The exile, he tells his fellow captives, is [[God in Judaism|God]]'s punishment on Israel for turning away, but God will restore his people to [[Jerusalem]] when they return to him.{{sfn|Blenkinsopp|1996|p=178}} After this message of reassurance, chapters [[Wikisource:Bible (World English)/Ezekiel#Chapter 38|38–39]], the Gog oracle, tell how Gog of Magog and his hordes will threaten the restored Israel but will be destroyed, after which God will establish a new Temple and dwell with his people for a period of lasting peace (chapters 40–48).{{r|bullock}}

{{blockquote|"Son of man, direct your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince, leader of [[Meshech]] and [[Tubal]], and prophesy concerning him. Say: Thus said the Lord: Behold, I am against you, Gog, the prince, leader of Meshech and Tubal&nbsp;... [[Persia]], [[Cush (Bible)|Cush]] and Put will be with you&nbsp;... also [[Gomer]] with all its troops, and Beth [[Togarmah]] from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you."<!-- passage is dialogue, don't remove quotation marks --><ref>{{Bibleverse|Ezekiel|38|NRSV}} (NRSV)</ref>}}

Internal evidence indicates that the Gog oracle was composed substantially later than the chapters around it.{{efn|Composed between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC<!--Tooman (2011), p. 271-->}}{{sfn|Tooman|2011|p=271}} Of Gog's allies, Meshech and Tubal were 7th-century BC kingdoms in central [[Anatolia]] north of Israel, Persia towards the east, Cush (Ethiopia) and Put (Libya) to the south; Gomer is the [[Cimmerians]], a nomadic people north of the Black Sea, and Beth Togarmah was on the border of Tubal.{{sfn|Block|1998|pp=72–73, 439–440}} The confederation thus represents a multinational alliance surrounding Israel.{{r|hays-duvall-pate}} "Why the prophet's gaze should have focused on these particular nations is unclear", comments Biblical scholar [[Daniel I. Block]], but their remoteness and reputation for violence and mystery possibly "made Gog and his confederates perfect symbols of the archetypal enemy, rising against God and his people".{{sfn|Block|1998|p=436}} One explanation is that the Gog alliance, a blend of the "[[Generations of Noah|Table of Nations]]" in Genesis 10 and [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]]'s trading partners in Ezekiel 27, with Persia added, was cast in the role of end-time enemies of Israel by means of Isaiah 66:19, which is another text of eschatological foretelling.{{sfn|Tooman|2011|pp=147–148}}

Although the prophecy refers to Gog as an enemy in some future, it is not clear if the confrontation is meant to occur in a final "[[Eschatology|end of days]]" since the Hebrew term ''aḥarit ha-yamim'' ({{langx|he|אחרית הימים}}) may merely mean "latter days", and is open to interpretation. Twentieth-century scholars have used the term to denote the [[Eschatology|eschaton]] in a malleable sense, not necessarily meaning final days, or tied to the Apocalypse.<!--p.94-->{{efn|Tooman's view is that the "latter days" means "the end of history-as-we-know-it and the initiation of a new historical age".<!--Tooman, p.96-->}}{{sfn|Tooman|2011|pp=94–97}} Still, the Utopia of chapters 40–48 can be spoken of in the parlance of "true [[eschatology|eschatological]] character, given that it is a product of "cosmic conflict" described in the immediately preceding Gog chapters.{{r|petersen}}

The Septuagint reads "Gog" instead of "Agag" in Numbers 24:7.

[[File:Toulouse ms 815-049v-Gog&Magog.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Gog and Magog besiege the City of Saints. Their depiction with the hooked noses noted by [[Paul Meyer (philologist)|Paul Meyer]].<ref name="meyer-apocalypse">{{citation|last=Meyer |first=Paul |title=Version anglo-normande en vers de l'Apocalypse |journal=Romania |year=1896 |volume=25  |issue=98 |url=http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k16033k/f186.item.zoom |pages=176 (plate), and 246, p. 257 note 2 |doi=10.3406/roma.1896.5446 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><br />{{right|—Old French ''Apocalypse'' in verse, <!--Bibliothèque municipale de-->Toulouse MS. 815, fol. 49v}}]]
[[File:Apokalipsis trekhtolkoviy (1909) 64 - O Goze i Magoze.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|Devil, Gog and Magog attack the Holy City (from a 17th-century Russian manuscript)]]
Over the next few centuries Jewish tradition changed Ezekiel's Gog ''from'' Magog into Gog ''and'' Magog.{{r|boring}} The process, and the shifting geography of Gog and Magog, can be traced through the literature of the period. The 3rd book of the [[Sibylline Oracles]], for example, which originated in Egyptian Judaism in the middle of the 2nd century BC,{{r|wardle}} changes Ezekiel's "Gog from Magog" to "Gog and Magog", links their fate with up to eleven other nations, and places them "in the midst of [[Aethiopia]]n rivers"; this seems a strange location, but ancient geography did sometimes place Ethiopia next to Persia or even India.{{sfn|Bøe|2001|pp=142–144}} The passage has a highly uncertain text, with manuscripts varying in their groupings of the letters of the Greek text into words, leading to different readings; one group of manuscripts ("group Y") links them with the "[[Moesia|Marsians]] and [[Dacia]]ns", in eastern Europe, amongst others.{{sfn|Bøe|2001|pp=145–146}}

The [[Book of Jubilees]], from about the same time, makes three references to either Gog or Magog: in the first, Magog is a descendant of Noah, as in Genesis 10; in the second, Gog is a region next to Japheth's borders; and in the third, a portion of Japheth's land is assigned to Magog.{{sfn|Bøe|2001|p=153}} The 1st-century {{lang|la|[[Pseudo-Philo|Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum]]}}, which retells Biblical history from Adam to Saul, is notable for listing and naming seven of Magog's sons, and mentions his "thousands" of descendants.{{sfn|Bøe|2001|pp=186–189}} The [[Samaritan Torah]] and the [[Septuagint]] (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made during the last few centuries of the pre-Christian era) occasionally introduce the name of Gog where the Hebrew original has something else, or use Magog where the Hebrew has Gog, indicating that the names were interchangeable.{{sfn|Lust|1999a|pp=536–537}}

===Midrashic writings===
The anti-Roman [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] in the 2nd century AD looked to a human leader as the promised [[messiah]], but after its failure Jews began to conceive of the messianic age in supernatural terms: first would come a forerunner, the [[Messiah ben Joseph]], who would defeat Israel's enemies, identified as Gog and Magog, to prepare the way for the [[Jewish messianism|Messiah ben David]];{{Refn|group=lower-alpha|The coming of the Messiah ben David "is contemporary with or just after that of Messiah ben Joseph" (van der Woude (1974), p. 527).{{sfn|Bøe|2001|p=201}}}} then the dead would rise, divine judgement would be handed out, and the righteous would be rewarded.{{r|shengold-jewish-encyclopedia}}{{sfn|Bøe|2001|pp=201–204}}

The [[aggadah]], homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in the [[classical rabbinic literature]] of [[Judaism]], treat Gog and Magog as two names for the same nation who will come against Israel in the final war.{{sfn|Skolnik|Berenbaum|2007|p=684}} The rabbis associated no specific nation or territory with them beyond a location to the north of Israel,<ref>[[Mikraot Gedolot]] HaMeor p. 400</ref> but the great Jewish scholar [[Rashi]] identified the Christians as their allies and said God would thwart their plan to kill all Israel.{{r|grossman}}

===Commentary on Torah portion "Nasso"===
The "Fruit of the Righteous" or "Pri Tzaddik" on the weekly portion Nasso, connects Gog uMagog with '''[[Amalek]]'''. In this work from [[Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin]] it can be read in chapter 15:2:<blockquote>"And after all of this, there still will be war of Gog uMagog upon the [[Messiah ben Joseph|Messiah son of Yoseph]], for Gog uMagog is the seed of Amalek, and Amalek corresponds always to the opposite of the sanctity of Israel, deeply...".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rabinowitz |first=Zadok HaKohen |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Peri_Tzadik%2C_Nasso.15.2?vhe=Pri_Tzaddik,_Lublin,_1901&lang=en&with=all&lang2=en |title=Pri Tzaddik}}</ref></blockquote>Similarly, in the Tanakh, book of Judges 5:14 (JPS 1985) it can be read: <blockquote>"From Ephraim came they whose roots are in Amalek".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Judges 5:14 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Judges.5.14?ven=Tanakh:_The_Holy_Scriptures,_published_by_JPS&lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=www.sefaria.org}}</ref></blockquote>