Gog and Magog

On the first good day of the Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) and on the Sabbath of Chol Hamoed, we read in the Haftarah (in two versions – from the prophets Zechariah and Ezekiel, respectively) about a war that will be in the end of days, in which a king named "Gog" who reigns over a nation called "Magog" will fight for "Jerusalem".

In each and every generation there were those who tried to equate this to the war in their time. Many of the expressions in Western culture that describe the "end of the world" are taken from these prophecies: For example, one of the locations mentioned in the prophecy - the "Valley of the Megidon" - served as the inspiration for the word Armageddon in the New Testament, and recently President Biden expressed his concern that the Russia-Ukraine War would deteriorate into "Armageddon". READ MORE