Gog cannot be identified with The Beast of Revelation 13-19

One thing that really baffles me is all the people who dismiss the significance of the actual names of Gog and Magog appearing in Revelation 20, but then treat the parallels between Ezekiel 39:17-21 and Revelation 19:17-21 as smoking gun proof they are describing the same battle. 

The language those passages share is also shared by other Hebrew Bible passages, Deuteronomy 28:26, Psalm 79, Jeremiah 7:31-33, 16:4, 19:7 and 34:20, 1 Samuel 17:44-46 and it was even earlier in Ezekiel 29:5, and the Pharaoh Oracles of Ezekiel 29-32 have other Parallels to The Beast of Revelation 13-19, like the “Great Dragon” and having a Mortal Head Wound. 

Revelation 19’s version leaves out the beasts of the Field in order to avoid category confusion with its symbolic beasts. What Revelation 19 and Ezekiel 39 share that the others don’t is the concept of someone announcing to the Fowls that this feast has been prepared for them. But in Revelation it’s an Angel literally standing in the Sun, but in Ezekiel it seems to be Ezekiel instructed to do this.

The Beast and the False Prophet are cast alive into the Lake of Fire while Gog is killed and buried. I have a different view from most of what being cast alive into the Lake of Fire means, but it’s certainly not just a poetic way of saying he died, this is done in contrast to the armies who are killed.

I view Ezekiel 38-39 as the same as Revelation 20:7-8. Chris White argued that view from a Futurist/Premillennial perspective, but for me that view is consistent with also viewing the end of Ezekiel 39, from verse 22 on, as about the Parousia like Joel Richardson does.

It’s one thing when someone who doesn’t think Ezekiel 38-39 happens in Revelation at all dismisses the use of those names in chapter 20 as just a comparison of whatever. But it’s bizarre to me when people who want to identify it with something in Revelation are going to decide that mere poetic language for the aftermath of a battle is a more important identifier than what passage uses the exact same names. 

I shall now address some of the alleged inconsistencies first by repeating things I said as BibleNerd64 in a comment on a Joel Richardson Video, but adding stuff I didn’t there and hopefully improving how I say things.

Richardson made a big point in his Gary DeMar debate about Ezekiel referring to Gog as the one Prophesized by all the Prophets, to me that language proves he is the final Human Enemy of Israel defeated, not someone defeated a thousand years previous to the final Invasion of Israel.  John is one of those Prophets who foretold Gog by name.  

Revelation 20 is to me clearly quoting Ezekiel 38 and 39 in a way that says, "this is what that always was", same as Revelation 21-22 quoting Ezekiel 40-48. I believe part of the purpose of Revelation is to explain how all prior Prophecies fit together. The names are not the only similarity, being destroyed by Fire from God is also a pretty explicit similarity. 

Any apparent inconsistencies need to be looked at the same as apparent inconsistencies between how The Gospels describe the Birth, Life, Ministry, Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus. Same for apparent inconsistencies between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles parallel histories which actually provide a useful precedent here. 

1 Chronicles 21:1 describes Satan doing something that 2 Samuel 24:1 describes YHWH doing, Neo-Marcionites use that to try and prove YHWH is Satan but it's really just consistent with Job where God uses Satan to accomplish His purpose.  This is repeated when comparing Ezekiel 38-39 to Revelation 20, in one it's YHWH who inspires them to invade Israel and in the other it's Satan, the same apparent contradiction has the same resolution. 

I believe the phrase that is often translated "Gog and Magog" in Revelation 20 should be “Gog and his Magog”, according to how “kai ton” is used earlier elsewhere in Revelation it means “and his” or “and their” or "and the". Meaning yes Gog is also an individual in the text of Revelation 20, and Magog is his Tribe or Ethnos. Though this reading could still be consistent with Magog as the name of a Land.

Salvation in New Testament theology is ultimately about the Bodily Resurrection of The Dead, that is the clear message of 1 Corinthians 15. No individual can be said to be fully completely Saved until they are risen from The Dead. Therefore All Israel cannot be said to be Saved until every Israelite who ever has or ever will live is Bodily Risen from The Dead. The end of Revelation 20 is when that happens.

Romans 11 also tells us that the Fullness of the Nations will be grafted into first and then All Israel will be Saved, Magog and his allies are the last Gentile Nations to resist being grafted in. 

The Bible sometimes uses Hyperbole, Revelation 20's language does not mean every single nation with no exceptions. In The Bible the “ four corners of the earth” is an idiom for each of the cardinal directions, in this context it means nations coming at Israel from every direction, it doesn’t mean as far away as they could possibly be.  Gomer and Togarmah come from the North, Persia from the East, Cush from the South and Phut from the West. 

The biggest issue to Joel Richardson is his view that there is zero success for Gog and his Magog in Revelation 20 but they are very successful in Ezekiel 38-39. I honestly find his reading these passages odd. 

Revelation 20 is less detailed overall, so it focuses its Hyperbolic description on how the Invasion will fail, but it is also ultimately a failure in Ezekiel 38 and 39, they invaded the Land but nothing says they reached Jerusalem or Zion. It is implicit in Revelation 20 that they do invade Israel because they surround the City. The City is not the entire Land.  

But another reason for this apparent inconsistency could be the audience. Israel has both Jewish and Christian populations. It could be Ezekiel’s subject is the Israelites who still don’t follow Jesus. While Revelation 20 is about the Camp of the Saints, an idiom that in the New Testament would arguably mean Christians. The Beloved City could be Jerusalem, or it could be Zion The City of David which The Bible especially The New Testament identifies as Bethlehem.  New Jerusalem is a very specific term in Revelation for something that does not exist on Earth till chapter 21. This Camp of Saints can be viewed as still the 144,000 on Mount Zion back in Revelation 14.

But I'm hesitant to go all in on that idea. Ezekiel 39 opens with a clarification, God brings Gog to the Mountains of Israel to break him there. That is the main takeaway. 

The return from this final exile is The Resurrection of The Dead that happens at the end of Revelation 20.

In response to an assumption that the White Throne Judgment happens to immediately after Gog and Magog's destruction to fit the implies 7 years of clean up in Ezekiel 39, I would again recommend IP's video about Time in The Bible.

https://materialisteschatology.blogspot.com/2025/01/inspiringphilosphys-video-on-time-in.html

When Dispensationalists and other Christian Zionists like Joel Richardson start talking about modern Israel being in "unbelief" is when it starts becoming clear why actual Jews are often uncomfortable with their support. 

I'm a Christian but one who believes in Universal Salvation and Inclusivism. I don’t think whether or not modern Israel is right with God has anything to do with whether they follow Jesus or not.  Everyone, both Christians and non Christians are judged based on our works, if anything those nominally Christian will be judged for their evil works even harsher.  I think even while currently dominated by a party I don’t like that Israel is more right with God than most Christian nations.

But it’s not just from a Christian perspective that modern Israel can be said to not be faithfully following the God of Israel who spoke through The Prophet Ezekiel. The Anti-Zionist Haredi and Religious Zionists of various forms think the current State of Israel is too Secular and a true restoration of Biblical Israel requires just using The Torah as their Constitution. 

But as a Leftist, as a Gentile fan of the early Labor Zionists who views Moses Hess as the Moses of Modern Israel, I would argue that modern Israel has slowly been betraying its divine mission as it’s been dominated for decades by the Likud Party. 

The Labor Zionists can be described as Secular in their Political Vision, but so were the Revisionist Zionists and Maximalists, the Right Wing of the early Zionist movement. In fact I would argue that both Yitshak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion were personally more religious than either Ze’ev Jaboninsky or the Stern Gang or even Menachem Begin. Begin was more religious than Jabotinsky only that he adopted Edmund Burke’s view on a society needing a religion to function. 

No I don't think the Iran War is likely to have any Biblical Prophetic Significance.

 Incase anyone felt that needed clarification. 

As far as my opinion of the War just check out my Tumblr. 

https://kuudere-hime.tumblr.com/tagged/Free%20Iran

https://kuudere-hime.tumblr.com/tagged/Isolationism

New 70 Weeks Model

This is very different from what I’ve argued for in the past.  It is a model that makes the 70 weeks end during the First Jewish-Roman War, but not like what I’ve seen any Preterist argue for before. 

I was reading Daniel 9:24 as it is in the KJV, and realized that the text isn’t as unclear about how to distinguish the Seven Weeks from the 62 Weeks as I’d long thought. A plain reading of the text does support it saying this “Anointed Prince” translated “Messiah The Prince” comes at the end of the Seven at the End of the Seven Weeks and start of the 62 weeks.

It’s our Christian bias to want that Prince to be Jesus that has blinded us to that reason. 

And that distinction weakens my past argument for beginning the 70 weeks with the Decree Artaxerxes second year from Nehemiah 2. But I still don’t believe it can refer to the Cyrus Decree.  

This theory starts with my argument for changing who we assume each Darius and Artaxerxes mentioned in Ezra-Nehemiah are on my other blog.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2025/09/ezra-nehemiah-chronology.html

Instead the key phrase in Daniel 9 defines the Decree as to “Build Jerusalem” in the traditional Canonical Scripture that is only in Daniel 9.  But my Ezra-Nehemiah argument made use of 1 Esdras, a Greek alternate account of Ezra, and in the 4th chapter of that text “Build Jerusalem” is associated with the decree that Darius issues in the second year of his reign, a Darius I now view as Darius II.

Nisan of the second year of Darius II could be 422 BC.  Seven Weeks or 49 years later is 373 BC the Nisan of which can be argued to be part of the 32nd year of Artaxerxes II.  Which is significant because of Nehemiah 5:14 and 13:6. In this argument Nehemiah is the Anointed Prince of Daniel 9:25. 

So when is 483 years from 422 BC and 434 years from 373 BC?  That would be AD 62.

What typically reads “Messiah shall be cut off” or “Anointed one shall be destroyed” has been argued should be translated “the anointing shall be cut off”. 

Josephus Wars of The Jews Book 6 Chapter 5 Section 3 includes an account of supernatural signs that preceded The Temple’s destruction, the timeline of when these happened have different interpretations. But one interpretation does put the events said to happen in Nisan 4 years before the War started in AD 66, thus AD 62.  And the meaning of those signs can be interpreted to represent the Anointing of The Temple being Cut Off. 

This ends the 70th Week in March of April of AD 69, when then rather than 70? Well that’s when Simon Bar Giora entered Jerusalem. Josephus in Wars of The Jews Book 4 Chapter 9 introduces Giora in section 6 and his taking of Jerusalem happens in section 10-12. I think a compelling argument for that being the end of the 70 weeks can be made, the physical destruction of The Temple Building is a symbolic epilogue. 

I was myself quite surprised how well this all lined up. 

Update: Alternatives.

Alternatively one could argue for viewing the Nisan the second year of Darius II's reign as 421 BC based on a different way of reckoning things moving the end of the 70th week to Adar of AD 70. Or since the 70 Weeks are essentially 10 Jubilees actually starting the weeks in the following Tishri making the 70 weeks end in Elul of AD 70 which at the end of Wars of The Jews Book 6 is defined as when the destruction of The Temple and Jerusalem is completed. 

But the issue with that alternative is I don't know make the other alignments work as well. 

No one was Cyrus in 1948

Truman famously said “I Am Cyrus” on May 14th 1948 after giving Israel mere De Facto recognition while still enforcing an arms embargo on them. And I imagine if the unexpected combination of a Zionist Tankie exists they’d want to give that title to Stalin for being the first to give Israel De Jure recognition.

First of all none of the Persian decrees resulted in a fully Independent Jewish state.  All this obsession with being the Cyrus of 1948 reeks of trying to deny modern Jews agency in their own Liberation.

But as a believer in “History doesn't repeat itself but it does often rhyme” let us indeed look at what interesting insights could come from comparing Ancient history to Zionist history as documented by Sam Aronow in this playlist (Aronow’s Ancient History videos are not as good).

The two Empires that controlled the land in question were first the Ottomans then the British so only they were in a comparable position to Persia. The Ottomans never even pretended to cooperate with the Zionists, and by claiming to be the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire they were openly wanting to be seen as those who forcible removed the ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews from the region in the first place, hence Babylon. 

But by the time the British obtained control of the land an organized grassroots Zionist project was already well underway. 

Still the Balfour Declaration is the closest thing we have to a modern Decree comparable to any of these Persian Decrees.  But as anyone who actually understands Zionist history and doesn't just believe the Anti-Zionist canards will tell you, the Balfour Declaration was a promise that the British became determined not to keep.

However what is often forgotten is how there were also Persian Kings who didn’t consistently support the Jews. The use of the name Artaxerxes in Ezra is a conundrum of Biblical Chronology I'm unsure how to resolve, but the point here is the Artaxerxes of Ezra chapter 4 caves to the enemies of Israel in a way that is very comparable to White Paper British Policy under King George VI following the Arab Revolt, especially under Ernest Bevin.  

The Nations that offered Israel key diplomatic legitimacy while they were fighting their war of Independence against Arab Proxies of British Imperialism (and their Nazi allies) shouldn’t be compared to anything from Persian history but rather the roles the Romans and Lacedemonians play in books of Maccabees. As tired as comparing Rome to America is it fits here as the rising Empire in the West. The text of Maccabees strangely claims that the Lacedemonians claimed to descend from Abraham, that is probably not based on anything real, maybe never even meant to be taken literally.  

Maybe the name "Lacedemonians" in Maccabees really means the Achaean League? (which Sparta was part of from 192-146 BC.) Either way the comparison I’d make here is to the Eastern European nations who gave Israel De Jure recognition around May 17-19.  A lot of the Israeli population at the time came from that region or their recent ancestors had.  And the Nazis’ Antisemitism and Antislavism was partly tied to seeing the two as interchangeable. Some Zionist organizations had vital support from Poland before WW2, and Czechoslovakia was a key source of many of Israel's weapons in the Palestine War.  Sparta in 167 BC didn't have either of it's Kings anymore, just as Czechoslovakia was not governmentally speaking still the same State founded by Tomas Masaryk who in this comparison could be the Areus of 1 Maccabees 12:20..

Since the Seleucid Empire would be the British in that comparison, it’s fitting that their rivals the Ptolemies work well as the French. 3 Maccabees with different subject matter from the other books recounts an incident of Jewish Persecution under the Ptolemies in Alexandria before Judea came fully under Seleucid control, fitting the role the Damascus Affair and Dreyfus Affair played in the early history of Zionism. But after they gained independence the Ptolemies were a sometimes ally of the Hasmonean Polity, and for much of its early history Modern Israel’s most reliable ally was in fact France not the U.S. usually under the influence of French Socialists who had been part of the Resistance to Nazi occupation, like Leon Blum who had been around during the Dreyfus Affair, Vincent Auriol, Christian Pineau and Guy Mollet.

Geographically it’s amusingly reversed though, since during the Mandate Period France had Syria and Lebanon (which originally included Hatay where Antioch is, now part of Turkey) while Britain had Egypt already even before WWI.

Interestingly though, during WWII since Germany indirectly controlled the French Mandate through Vichy and had a brief puppet regime in Iraq, there was a time when the Axis Powers in the Near East kind of looked like the Seleucid Empire.

In that context perhaps Jonathon Apphus and Ptolemy VI Philometer supporting Alexander Balas agaisnt Demetrius I Soter in 150 BC as recorded in 1 Maccabees 11 could be compared to the Palmach and Britain supporting Free France against Vichy in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign in 1941? Both happened largely in June-July, and Ptolemais/Acre plays an important role in both. 

Debunking the Myth of The Red Heifer

Nothing in Numbers 19 at all implies that this Sacrifice is something that can only happen once every several centuries because it depends on the birth of an animal far more rare than a Shiny Miltank.

The word for Red used here is Adumah, the feminine form of Adom.  Different cultures and different eras have not always defined colors the same way we do, there have been a number of good educational YouTube videos on that, but also a few bad ones that go a little too far with the conclusion they draw from that. I talked about it already in the context of why Orange isn't in the Bible.  And since then Tor’s Cabinet of Curiosities did a good video on it. 

In the case of Adom as a color, many scholars have already argued Brown is the color actually meant to be associated with Esau and David.  It’s etymologically tied to a root translated, earth, ground, dirt, dust, and clay. In other words it absolutely can be a word for the normal color(s) of most bovine mammals.

Numbers 19 is the only time Scripture ever pairs this word with the word Parah(Heilfer, Kine, Cow).  However, look at the context provided by the further requirements for this animal, it’s supposed to be without blemish or spot and to have never been yoked. The idea is that this is a perfect ideal Heifer.  (Which is why we Christians see her as a type of Christ, the perfect Sinless Human being offered as a Sacrifice.) 

Its hair color being a rare unhelpful mutation is frankly the opposite of that, I kind of think that’s exactly the kind of blemish that should be disqualifying a Cow from being eligible. 

Hebrew had other words for communicating the idea of a color that we modern English speakers could only describe as Red (or maybe Pink). Such as Shaniy and Towla translated interchangeably as Crimson and Scarlet.  Or just comparing something to Blood.  Sometimes Adom appears in the same verse as one of those, I feel that proves those words are specifying and that Adom alone can apply more broadly. 

The Quran and an Aramaic translation by Saadia Gaon imply the Cow was Yellow/Saffron.  A color that can be interpreted as Red in some contexts but Yellow in others sound to me like what we today call Orange.  Orange cows are not uncommon in The Middle East. 

Yosef Qarfih argued the point was the Cow had to be all one color and that any spots of a different color would be seen as blemishes. 

The Rabbinic Traditions claim a second one didn't happen till the time of Ezra.  However Rabbinic Tradition’s account of the history of the nine Red Heifer sacrifices also has multiple happen during the administration of the same High Priest a few times.

I believe the Mishna accurately remembers the location of the Adumah Parah sacrifices made during the Second Temple period and I agree with the argument that they describe a location currently in the courtyard of the Domminus Flevit Church on the Mount of Olives. But then oral traditions tacked on to those accurate memories this romantic idea of it needing to be some super rare special Helfer that only comes along once every thousand years or so.

If the mere existence of an eligible Heifer was itself a Prophetic sign the way so many contemporary Prophecy Enthusiasts insist, then why isn’t it actually mentioned in any Bible Prophecies?

The idea that it is necessary to do this particular Sacrifice before one can build or consecrate a new Temple/Tabernacle I find odd given that in the days of Moses this isn't introduced till Numbers 19 when The Tabernacle was first built in Exodus and dedicated in Numbers 7-8.  A lot of time had passed. 

And those Rabbinic Traditions if taken at face value say there was never one made during the time of Solomon's Temple and the first for the Second Temple wasn't till Ezra during the reign of Artaxerxes decades after the Second Temple was already built and in operation.

At any rate I'm not a Futurist anymore and so do not expect a Third Temple, in fact I stopped seeing one as necessary when I was still a Futurist. I view The Third Temple and Ezekiel's Temple as being The Church.

Revelation and Chronology

The entire time that I was formally a Futurist one of the major pillars of how I interpreted Revelation was a desire to view it as a strict chronology, its events happen in the order the text of Revelation described them.  And I've maintained that bias for much of my time writing this Blog as a Non Premillennial.

However in Inspiring Philosophy's video on how Matthew and Luke do not contradict each other in their account of when Satan Tempted Jesus by listing the Temptations in different orders, he made a point out of how the Greek word usage gave away that the less Chronological one isn’t listing things in order.  And the word that most Revelation verses benign with is that less inherently Chronological word.  Something I ignored the significance for a long time. 

The first place to look towards for considering that different parts of Revelation are describing the same events from different angles would be to compare Revelation 9 with Revelation 20:7-8.  That both these Abyss being opened events are the same and then the Sixth Trumpet is describing the Gog and Magog invasion.  And then following from that the Seventh Trumpet in Revelation 11:15-19 would equate to Revelation 20:11-15 the very which I as non Premillennial now identify with The Parousia. 

Some Non Chronological readings of Revelation believe the timeline restarts exactly once at the start of Chapter 12. Which can line up well with what I just described.

But the Seventh Trumpet isn’t the only place in Revelation other than the End of the Millennium where I see descriptions of characteristics of the Parousia that Jesus and Paul described in the Olivet Discourses and the Thessalonians Epistles. 

However the connection of the Son of Man and Cloud imagery is not actually complete, I was always over stating it.  The agreed upon Parousia passages have the Son of Man in The Clouds while here it’s “one like the Son of Man” riding on a single Cloud.  And the truth is my confidence in a Seventh Trumpet Rapture when I was a Futurist was partly because of the possibility of seeing Revelation 14 still happen fairly soon after with the in between chapter being very events that happen rapidly. 

So in the process of writing this post I’ve become less convinced of the plausibility of a non Chronological Revelation that I was when I started. 

The one thing I do still see as possible is the Two Witnesses narrative being Chronologically separated from the rest. Because Revelation 11:1-10 is definitely the Angel from Chapter 10 still talking, and maybe verses 11-13 are as well though the tense changing there is curious. 

I lost my original train of thought when discussing Revelation 14.  If Revelation 14 isn't the Parousia then it can be before the Millennium.  Including in a way that's consistent with Revelation 12 as a start over point.

As someone who believes Biblical Zion is Bethlehem not Jerusalem, I could argue Revelation 14 is partially fulfilled by Bethlehem being a majority Christian city for most of the last 17 centuries.

So I remain undecided for now. 

Seven Churches in Judaea

In my post on the Seven Churches in Asia being the historical context of Revelation I spoke rather dismissively of any theory that suggests the names of those Churches are mere codes and all this is really in Judaea.  And that is still my main view.  But....