🔼The names Gog and Magog: Summary
- Meaning
- Rooftop and Place Of The Roof, or Global Discussion and Internet
- Etymology
- From the noun גג (gag), rooftop.
🔼The names Gog and Magog in the Bible
Magog is a son of Japheth, son of Noah (Genesis 10:2). Later this name came to denote a region (Ezekiel 38:2).
Magog is often mentioned in conjunction with Gog and Gog is the name of a Reubenite (1 Chronicles 5:4), but later also the name of a certain prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal (literally the Chief Prince of the Occupied Zone that is The World — Ezekiel 38).
John the Revelator sees Gog (Γωγ) and Magog (Μαγωγ) — "the nations which are in the four corners of the earth" — gathered up by satan for the final battle (Revelation 20:8). This is remarkable because Daniel sees a vision of a male goat whose one horn becomes four horns towards the four winds of heaven, which may allude to a world-wide altar (Daniel 8:8).
The altar on which continuously incense burned (see Ephesians 5:2) had horns on its four corners (Exodus 38:2) and Daniel also speaks of the defilement of the altar (11:31-32). The male goat is explained to be Greece (8:21), or Javan in Hebrew. Javan was a son of Japheth, and a brother of Magog, Meshech and Tubal (Genesis 10:2).
Through the prophet Ezekiel, YHWH foretells an attack upon Israel by Gog, "in order that the nations may know me when I shall be sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog" (38:16), but then diverts onto the undoing of Gog and Magog. Gog will fall where he stands (39:4) and Magog will perish through fire (39:6). The people of Israel will take seven years to burn all the weaponry (39:9) and seven months to bury the people of Gog in the valley of Hamon-gog (39:11-12). And the city (in the valley?) will be called Hamonah (39:16).
🔼Etymology and meaning of the names Gog and Magog
The name Magog is the name Gog with a prefixed mem, which may be a particle of inquisition: מה (me), what, or מי (mi), who? Or it may come from the particle מן (min; often abbreviated to a single mem), meaning from. Nouns that start with an m often describe place or agent of the parent verb, making Magog the Place Of Gog.
Where the name Gog comes from is not clear; BDB Theological Dictionary resolutely declares its root unknown. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names, on the other hand, points towards the Hebrew word גג (gag), usually meaning roof:
גג
The noun גג (gag) means rooftop, but since a society was a "house," its "rooftop" referred to that society's governing council. Note that the information technology that currently drives our society began in the Bronze Age with the invention of the alphabet and hyper-complex fractalic narration.
Because we've already linked God and Magog to the altar of incense (see above), the most remarkable usage is in Exodus 30:3 and 37:26 where גוג denotes the top of the altar of incense.
Gog may be a region, and Magog is then said to mean From Gog (BDB Theological Dictionary). But Ezekiel 38:2 speaks of a man named Gog who is of the land of Magog (= the land of the land of Gog), which seems overly redundant.
But Gog may mean Roof, and Magog may subsequently mean Off The Roof, which means more in English than in Hebrew. Magog might literally mean Place Of The Roof and describe a center of wisdom, or Agent Of The Roof and describe a person who works in such a center.
Simple societies like tribes can be governed by a single chieftain, whose own eyes tell him what's going on and whose verbal commands can be heard by anyone involved. When societies become more complex, a proper government depends on the faithful collection of data, and the proper review of that data by a central council of broadly learned and deeply insightful minds. Such data-processing councils would benefit from a high perspective, and would settle on mountains or the roof of very high buildings (Matthew 4:5-11). The quality of the final advise that comes out of such councils depends, of course, on the quality of its members, which is why societies with any sense restrict access to the roof to anyone except a proven few.
In our article on Apollyon, we argue that the Internet is really the old fashioned postal service imagined to its utter efficiency. The technology that supports the Internet is of course beyond the scope of all our ancient forebears (and most of our peers today, for that matter), but the Internet itself could have been logically foreseen by someone who understood the traditional postal service and had a knack for eliminating inefficiencies.
That said, it seems to us here at Abarim Publications that Gog represents the Global Debate that the Internet (Magog, the place of Gog) has made possible — or said otherwise: the complete demise of any boundary between informed experts and the throngs of buffoons who base their firmest beliefs on five-minute YouTube clips and demand to be heard and taken seriously. Magog is a place where the general population obtains its medical advice from teenage popstars rather than medics and scientists, where the slants of dousing rods cast doubt on the moon landing and the earth remains flat and peopled by aliens.
Jesus said that a house divided against itself will not stand (Matthew 12:25). Likewise, a house that consists of mostly roof and that invites everybody up there, won't last long either (Judges 16:27-30).
Note that the otherwise inexplicable Greek verb γογγυζω (gogguzo) means to mutter or grumble, and may very well stem from our name Gog. The name Apollyon means Destroyer and 1 Corinthians 10:10 reads: "And do not grumble (γογγυζω, gogguzo), as some of them did — and were killed by the destroying angel" (NIV).