I now have a little time available. So I will respond in a short way to the previous reguest foe citations.
Gog is “of the land of Magog.” Josephus said that Magog founded the Magogites, but that the Greeks called them Scythians. (Jewish Antiquities,” by Flavius Josephus, Book 1, chapter 6, sec. 123, from “The New Complete Works of Josephus,” trans. by William Whiston, revised by Paul L. Maier, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999, pg. 57.)
There is a problem in the translation of the Hebrew word rosh, which means top, or chief. (word number 7218 in Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary) If we assume this is only a word, the proper translation is “chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” If, however, rosh is a name, the proper translation is, as given in our translation, “prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.” The various translations are divided on this point, some giving one reading, some the other. Some might ask, was the R a capital letter, indicating a name? But ancient Hebrew did not have capital and small letters. We know the ancient Jews considered this a name from the Septuagint, a Hebrew translation of the scriptures into Greek, believed to date from the second century B.C. (In the Septuagint, this Hebrew word was rendered as Ros, preserving its sound as closely as possible in Greek, rather than by translating it as protos, the Greek adjective meaning chief. In translating, it is standard practice to reproduce the sound of a name as closely as possible, rather than attempting to reproduce the meaning of the name. This proves that the scholars that translated the Septuagint considered this word a name, rather than an adjective.)
It is well known that this is commonly thought to mean Russia. But is this correct? It was taught as early as the fourth century. (In 378 A.D., Bishop Ambrose of Milan, wrote concerning Ezekiel 38-39, “Gog is the Goth, whose coming forth we have already seen, and over whom victory in days to come is promised, according to the word of the Lord:” (“Exposition of the Christian Faith,” by Ambrose, book II, chapter XVI, section 138, tran. by H. De Romestin, M.A., asst. by E. De Romestin, M.A., and H. T. F. Duckworth, M.A. - From “Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series,” ed. Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. and Henry Wace, D.D., Edinburgh, 1884, reprint by Hendrickson, Peabody, 2012, vol 10, pg. 241.) It is well known that the Goths came out of what is now Russia.) This was again taught in the fifth century. (As reported in the first volume of George Vernadsky’s highly reputed work “A History of Russia” pp. 138-139. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943. Vernadsky cites the patriarch Proclus (434-447) citing Ezekiel’s prophecy in a sermon on the Hunnic invasion as the earliest known written record of the use of the name "Rus," the name of the ancient tribe from which Russia got its name. He cites his source for this as Nicephorus Kallistus, XIV, 37. But as this ancient source has never been translated into English, it would be pointless to include a quotation here.)
I had long heard this was commonly believed in Russia, so I decided to test it on a Russian I once knew. The man was not someone who would have had any prior instruction in the meaning of this passage. He was, in fact, an atheistic engineer trained in communist universities in the former USSR. I handed him a Russian Bible opened to this passage and asked him to read it and tell me in English what it said. He read it thus: “See, I am against you, oh Gogae, uh– uh– second step.” I asked, “prince?” he answered, “Yes.” He continued reading, “prince of Russia, Meshchovsk, and Tobolsk.” I asked, “Russia, is that what it says?” He answered, “Well, no, not exactly, but that’s what it means.” Then he wrote on a slip of paper the word “Rosh” and said “people.” He then wrote “Rosha” and said “country.” He was therefore saying that it called Gog the “prince of the people of Russia.” It is interesting that without hesitation he read Meshech as Meshchovsk (A Russian city about 135 miles southwest of Moscow.) and Tubal as Tobolsk. (A Russian city about 1200 miles east of Moscow.)
So it is easy to see why Russians generally simply accept without question that this prophecy is about their nation.
Meshech and Tubal are a study in themselves. They are often seen in ancient writings and are almost always mentioned together. On the basis of ancient Greek and Persian accounts, modern historians believe the Moschi (the Greek form of Meshech) lived near the Black Sea, just north of Armenia and a short distance south of the Caucasus Mountains. (“Anatolia - Studies in Strabo,” by Ronald Styme, pg.68. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995.) Ptolemy’s atlas shows the Mosthici Mountains in this area. (This map, which shows the region between the Black (Pontus) Sea and the Caspian Sea, was originally published in Alexandria by Claudius Ptolemy in his famous atlas, “Geographia.” While its exact date is unknown, this atlas was produced around 50 or 60 years after the Revelation was written. No originals of this atlas have survived, but many libraries have reproductions of various mediaeval copies. I personally own a copy published in Venice by Giordano Ziletti in 1574.)
These mountains are now called the Moschii Mountains, or sometimes the Suram Mountains. The “Barrington Atlas of the Greek and ·Roman World” shows them as the Moschici Mountains. (“Barrington Atlas of the Greek and ·Roman World,” ed. Richard J. A. Talbert, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000, Map #88. Based on the most up-to-date historical scholarship and archeological discoveries, this is the most authoritative atlas of the classical world available today.) This Atlas also shows those mountains as inhabited by the “Moschoi.” This area is now in Caucasian Georgia. (Not the American Georgia, but part of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the former USSR.)
In 1944 the Soviet government deported approximately 100,000 Moslem “Meskhi” from this region to distant parts of the USSR for fear they would side with Turkey in a possible future war.(“The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History,” ed. by Joseph L. Wieczynski, vol. 22, pg. 7. Gulf Breeze: Academic International Press, 1981.)
These modern sources are cited to demonstrate that what I am saying is the common judgement of modern secular historians, people whose only interest is historical accuracy, not the promotion any particular doctrine.
But Josephus said Meshech was the Cappadocians. (Josephus, on the same page as noted previously, but in section 125.) As noted above, modern historians favor the Greek and Persian accounts. But ancient Christians considered Josephus very reliable. How could both Josephus and the Greek and Persian writers be correct about where these people lived?
Cappadocia originally stretched all the way to the Mosthici Mountains. It therefore originally extended from southern Turkey to the area where the Greek and Persian writers located the Moschi. Pontus, which lay between these two nations at the time of Josephus, was not a different race. It had been created for political reasons from the northern part of Cappadocia. Thus we see that these two nations have a common root. If this were the case, it would have been only natural for Josephus to name the largest branch of the race, that is, Cappadocia, even though the name Meshech was better preserved in a different place.
But this raises the question, how did these people end up in Russia? Cappadocia remained a nation until the Moslem invasion in the mid to late eleventh century. During this period the Moslems conquered almost all of modern day Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. The inhabitants were forced to convert to Islam or face intolerable persecution. This caused widespread panic and most of the population fled to foreign lands. The name Moscow (the connection between this name and the name Moschi is evident when we see its Russian form, Muskova,) first appears in Russian history about a hundred years later, as an entry for the year 1147 in “The Nikonian Chronicle.” (“The Nikonian Chronicle,” trans. by Serg A. and Betty Jean Zenkovsky, vol. 2, pg. 27. Princeton: The Kingston Press, 1982.)
This chronicle was written in the years 1520-1550. It lists the Meschera as a tribe living along the Oka River, which passes about 60 miles south of Moscow. (“The Nikonian Chronicle,” vol. 1, pg. 7.) “The Russian Primary Chronicle,” written in 1116, lists the tribes in this area, but this name is not included. (“The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text,” copied in 1377 from the 1116 text. trans. and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, pg. 55. Cambridge,: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953.)
The absence of any form of the name Meshech from a description of this area made at approximately the time of the Moslem invasion, coupled with its appearance soon after, strongly suggests that Moschi refugees from Cappadocia and Pontus settled there. Their name is still preserved in this area by the name Meshchovsk, as noted previously.
Josephus also wrote that Tubal was the Iberians. (Josephus, on the same page as notedpreviously, but in section 124.) From this we would naturally conclude that Tubal was Spain and Portugal, as it is commonly known that these two nations occupy the Iberian Peninsula. But in ancient times there was another Iberia, which can be plainly seen in Ptolemy’s atlas and the Barrington Atlas. ("BArrington Atlas, same page as previously noted.) This nation was between Armenia and the Caucasus Mountains, northeast of the Moschi in present day Georgia. The name Tubal is preserved to this day in the name Tbilisi, the capitol of Georgia. As the Russian city Tobolsk was not founded until the middle of the sixteenth century, it is quite possible that refugees from the Moslem invasion of Georgia settled in this region, becoming the source of the name of Tobolsk. Thus we understand that Meshech and Tubal are very possibly the root stocks of the peoples around Moscow and Tobolsk. Even if this is not correct, Meshech and Tubal definitely fled to locations within the borders of the present day Commonwealth of Independent States, the former USSR.
(Continued next post.)
