I absolutely believe that the Garden of Eden was a real place, Adam and Eve were two real people, and even though there are some language issues to deal with, the story related is real and vital, and the time frame geologically recent, i.e., 6,000 (Ussher) to 10,000 (Whitcomb, if the genealogies skip some generations) years ago.
Where was the Garden located?
Most commentators seem to favor one of two general regions for the Garden: either northern or southern Mesopotamia, though proposals exist for locations surrounding the Arabian subcontinent and in eastern Africa. I’ve seen one suggestion that Eden lies at the bottom of the Red Sea, and another that puts it in the Indian Ocean.
Some proposed locations for Eden, per Babylon Rising.
Northern Mesopotamian versions tend to favor Eastern Turkey/Armenia, since (a) there is a perception that Shinar is in that area, based on Genesis 11:2 (ESV): “And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there”; and (b) the headwaters of both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in that general vicinity.
Possible Mesopotamian locations, per Blue Letter Bible.
Personally, I have favored a southern Iraq location for years, since obtaining a copy of an unpublished book titled, simply, Eden, by a late pastor named David J. Gibson, who understood that rivers don’t divide flowing downstream as described in Genesis 2:10 (ESV), “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” Gibson suggested, and I agree with him, that this verse should be interpreted from the perspective of an observer within the Garden gazing out at four rivers converging as they entered the Garden.
This is awkward language for us, but not necessarily for Moses in antiquity, writing in Hebrew. Consider that in Genesis 2:8 (ESV), “the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east”. This implies to me that the four rivers converged in the western part of Eden before flowing through the Garden, which was planted in the eastern part.
This makes sense, and from a hydrodynamics standpoint, it is the only interpretation that makes sense. Tributaries converge, they don’t diverge. If, for some reason, a river splits to flow around an obstruction or a sandbar, it will always come back together downstream nearby. If, for some reason, it splits to flow down two or more separate drainage basins, an unstable pattern results. One path will erode more quickly than the other(s), and eventually that path will “steal” all the flow from the other(s).
The only exception from that rule is the case of delta flow, but deltas aren’t formed by erosion, they’re formed by deposition of silt carried downstream in the water. As a river flows onto a plain and slows down, turbulence decreases, and silt falls out of suspension and stays more or less where it drops. Without sufficient turbulence to pick it up again, there is just enough energy available to keep the channels open.
Large deltas usually form at the mouth of a river where water leaving the delta’s channels flows into the sea or a lake. Sometimes deltas form inland, usually where a mountain stream empties onto a plain. The water from an inland delta will either evaporate, sink into the substrate, or collect into a single stream or a lake. Two examples are shown below.
The Inner Niger Delta, in Mali, is a wetland that floods during the rainy season in the Guinean Highlands, to the southwest. The delta formed where the topography flattens for 250 miles before spilling downwards again to the east.The Okavango Delta is formed by seasonal flooding form the Angola Highlands, where the Okavango River course flattens and slows in Botswana. Unlike the Inner Niger, this delta has no outlet.Pishon ? The deltaic terminal of Wadi Al-Batin. From Ali Al-Dousari on Researchgate
Genesis 2:10 would make total sense if the four “rivers” were delta channels, but the naming of those four rivers in verses 11–14 belies that possibility. Indeed, in my opinion the naming of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers conclusively fixes the location of the Garden in southern Iraq.
What about the other two rivers named?
The Pishon is fairly well defined because verse 11 says that it “flowed around the whole land of Havilah.” Havilah was a son of Cush who settled in what today is northwest Arabia. 1 Samuel 15:7 (ESV) defines that location: “And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.” “Flowed around” could be literal (I found a map showing the Pishon as an ocean current flowing counterclockwise around the entire Arabian subcontinent), but more likely it simply means that it flowed through and provided water for Havilah. Gibson equated the Pishon with Arabia’s Wadi Al-Batin, an ancient and now-dry river and delta system flowing northeast through Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the Tigris/Euphrates valley. I think he was right.
Gihon? Karun River, Wikipedia
As for the Gihon River that “flowed around the whole land of Cush” (verse 13), I would equate that with the Karun River, flowing out of Iran, through the ancient land of the Elamites.
I think that Christian commentators are thrown off by an assumption that “Cush” refers only to the region around Ethiopia and Somalia. My view is that Cush (a son of Ham) and his descendants settled large regions of Asia, as well as the upper Nile area. They apparently mixed with the Canaanites in the Lavant, and Nimrod, a son of Cush, was described in Genesis 10 as “9a mighty hunter before ADONAI. … 10His kingdom began with Bavel, Erekh, Akkad and Kalneh, in the land of Shin‘ar.” These abodes of Nimrod are all lands of southern Mesopotamia. Nimrod was, I’m convinced, none other than Sargon of Akkad, the world’s first great emperor. Elam and Asshur were Semites, but Cush may have extended into the Steppes alongside Shem (see Nimrod the Empire Builder: Architect of Shock and Awe, 2023, by Douglas Petrovich).
It’s admittedly a stretch, but I have wondered if perhaps the ancient Kushan Empire, spanning the central Asian “stans” might have gotten its name from Cush/Kush. If so, then the influence of Cush stretched all the way to the Xiongnu tribe, north of the Yellow River, because the peoples who started the Kushan Empire, centered around Afghanistan, where refugees from the Xiongnu.
Putting all this together, I think that the following map states the case for Eden in southern Iraq:
What about the placing of Shinar in Turkey? I agree with the predominant view that Shinar is the area once occupied by Sumer, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It’s not hard to explain away migration “from the east.” I suspect that waters from the Great Flood took years to retreat from low-lying areas, so descendants of Noah returning to their homeland in Shinar would have initially moved southeast along the spine of the Zagros Mountains. Saying that Shinar is west of Ararat because they entered from the east is analogous to assuming I live west of my church because I (sometimes) approach it from the west. The full story on that is that I live to the southeast and occasionally take a circuitous route along the freeway.
Post-flood migrations from Ararat to Shinar. From Google Earth. Annotations by Ron Thompson.
Aside from inevitable passing references here and in future posts, I think I’m finally done with banging a drum over Genesis 1. I view verse 1 as the definitive, all-important statement by God that He is the uncreated, everlasting creator of all that exists.(see Gen 1:2 through 2:3), I think, are a polemic against the pervasive pagan claims of the surrounding cultures and of the Israelites, who at the time of writing were migrating from one pagan enclave (Egypt) to another (Canaan). In this post, I want to Move on to chapter 2, verses 4 and following.
I absolutely believe that the Garden of Eden was a real place, Adam and Eve were two real people, and even though there are some language issues to deal with, the story related is real and vital, and the time frame geologically recent, i.e., 6,000 (Ussher) to 10,000 (Whitcomb, if the genealogies skip some generations) years ago.
The first order of business is to tell you where I think the Garden was.
Most commentators seem to favor one of two general regions for the Garden: either northern or southern Mesopotamia, though proposals exist for locations surrounding the Arabian subcontinent and in eastern Africa. I’ve seen one suggestion that Eden lies at the bottom of the Red Sea, and another that puts it in the Indian Ocean.
Some proposed locations for Eden, per Babylon Rising.
Northern Mesopotamian versions tend to favor Eastern Turkey/Armenia, since (a) there is a perception that Shinar is in that area, based on Genesis 11:2 (ESV): “And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there”; and (b) the headwaters of both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in that general vicinity.
Possible Mesopotamian locations, per Blue Letter Bible.
Personally, I have favored a southern Iraq location for years, since obtaining a copy of an unpublished book titled, simply, Eden, by a late pastor named David J. Gibson, who understood that rivers don’t divide flowing downstream as described in Genesis 2:10 (ESV), “A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” Gibson suggested, and I agree with him, that this verse should be interpreted from the perspective of an observer within the Garden gazing out at four rivers converging as they entered the Garden.
This is awkward language for us, but not necessarily for Moses in antiquity, writing in Hebrew. Consider that in Genesis 2:8 (ESV), “the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east”. This implies to me that the four rivers converged in the western part of Eden before flowing through the Garden, which was planted in the eastern part.
This makes sense, and from a hydrodynamics standpoint, it is the only interpretation that makes sense. Tributaries converge, they don’t diverge. If, for some reason, a river splits to flow around an obstruction or a sandbar, it will always come back together downstream nearby. If, for some reason, it splits to flow down two or more separate drainage basins, an unstable pattern results. One path will erode more quickly than the other(s), and eventually that path will “steal” all the flow from the other(s).
The only exception from that rule is the case of delta flow, but deltas aren’t formed by erosion, they’re formed by deposition of silt carried downstream in the water. As a river flows onto a plain and slows down, turbulence decreases, and silt falls out of suspension and stays more or less where it drops. Without sufficient turbulence to pick it up again, there is just enough energy available to keep the channels open.
Large deltas usually form at the mouth of a river where water leaving the delta’s channels flows into the sea or a lake. Sometimes deltas form inland, usually where a mountain stream empties onto a plain. The water from an inland delta will either evaporate, sink into the substrate, or collect into a single stream or a lake. Two examples are shown below.
The Inner Niger Delta, in Mali, is a wetland that floods during the rainy season in the Guinean Highlands, to the southwest. The delta formed where the topography flattens for 250 miles before spilling downwards again to the east.The Okavango Delta is formed by seasonal flooding form the Angola Highlands, where the Okavango River course flattens and slows in Botswana. Unlike the Inner Niger, this delta has no outlet.Pishon ? The deltaic terminal of Wadi Al-Batin. From Ali Al-Dousari on Researchgate
Genesis 2:10 would make total sense if the four “rivers” were delta channels, but the naming of those four rivers in verses 11–14 belies that possibility. Indeed, in my opinion the naming of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers conclusively fixes the location of the Garden in southern Iraq.
What about the other two rivers named?
The Pishon is fairly well defined because verse 11 says that it “flowed around the whole land of Havilah.” Havilah was a son of Cush who settled in what today is northwest Arabia. 1 Samuel 15:7 (ESV) defines that location: “And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.” “Flowed around” could be literal (I found a map showing the Pishon as an ocean current flowing counterclockwise around the entire Arabian subcontinent), but more likely it simply means that it flowed through and provided water for Havilah. Gibson equated the Pishon with Arabia’s Wadi Al-Batin, an ancient and now-dry river and delta system flowing northeast through Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the Tigris/Euphrates valley. I think he was right.
Gihon? Karun River, Wikipedia
As for the Gihon River that “flowed around the whole land of Cush” (verse 13), I would equate that with the Karun River, flowing out of Iran, through the ancient land of the Elamites.
I think that Christian commentators are thrown off by an assumption that “Cush” refers only to the region around Ethiopia and Somalia. My view is that Cush (a son of Ham) and his descendants settled large regions of Asia, as well as the upper Nile area. They apparently mixed with the Canaanites in the Lavant, and Nimrod, a son of Cush, was described in Genesis 10 as “9a mighty hunter before ADONAI. … 10His kingdom began with Bavel, Erekh, Akkad and Kalneh, in the land of Shin‘ar.” These abodes of Nimrod are all lands of southern Mesopotamia. Nimrod was, I’m convinced, none other than Sargon of Akkad, the world’s first great emperor. Elam and Asshur were Semites, but Cush may have extended into the Steppes alongside Shem (see Nimrod the Empire Builder: Architect of Shock and Awe, 2023, by Douglas Petrovich).
It’s admittedly a stretch, but I have wondered if perhaps the ancient Kushan Empire, spanning the central Asian “stans” might have gotten its name from Cush/Kush. If so, then the influence of Cush stretched all the way to the Xiongnu tribe, north of the Yellow River, because the peoples who started the Kushan Empire, centered around Afghanistan, where refugees from the Xiongnu.
Putting all this together, I think that the following map states the case for Eden in southern Iraq:
What about the placing of Shinar in Turkey? I agree with the predominant view that Shinar is the area once occupied by Sumer, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It’s not hard to explain away migration “from the east.” I suspect that waters from the Great Flood took years to retreat from low-lying areas, so descendants of Noah returning to their homeland in Shinar would have initially moved southeast along the spine of the Zagros Mountains. Saying that Shinar is west of Ararat because they entered from the east is analogous to assuming I live west of my church because I (sometimes) approach it from the west. The full story on that is that I live to the southeast and occasionally take a circuitous route along the freeway.
Post-flood migrations from Ararat to Shinar. From Google Earth. Annotations by Ron Thompson.
The creation passage and the Garden passage are separated by verse 2:4 (see below).
There seem to be contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, as traditionally understood. Because I believe Scripture is inerrant, but tradition is not, I inevitably try to let the former inform the latter.
Here are the relevant passages that I wish to discuss now:
[11] And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. [12] The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [13] And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. …
[26] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” [29] And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
—Genesis 1:11–13,26–29 (ESV)
and
[4b] …in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. [5] When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, [6] and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— [7] then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. [8] And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. [9] And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. …
[15] The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. …
[18] Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” [19] Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. [20] The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. [21] So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. [22] And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. [23] Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
—Genesis 2:4b–9,15,18–23 (ESV)
Almost all conservative Evangelicals believe that Genesis 1:27 describes the creation of Adam and Eve: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” But Scripture never actually states that these are Adam and Eve!
I have suggested in past posts that Christians should be willing to consider alternatives where erroneous understandings might exist in uninspired translations and interpretations, but not in inspired autographs(the original manuscripts as prepared by the human authors). When comparing these passages, we must account for apparent contradictions and ambiguities.
John H. Walton, a conservative Old Testament scholar with Moody Bible Institute and later with Wheaton College, has proposed alternative understandings of these passages, suggesting that chapter 1 describes one human creation event, and chapter 2 a separate creation of just Adam and Eve. He bases this idea on several observations, including:
There are obvious contradictions in the reported order of the creation events (see below).
The descriptions of each category of creation in chapter 1, including humankind, gives the impression that a significant population of every species were created. Creation of just 2 humans in Genesis 1 would be a breaking of the pattern.
Verse 4 is a “toledah” (Hebrew for “generations”), which is a fragment of Scripture used to separate two “chapters”, or thematic passages, of Genesis.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. —Genesis 2:4 (ESV)
Walton presents the following table to show how other toledoth (plural) relate to material preceding and following them:
— Walton, John H. The Lost World of Adam and Eve. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017.
In the table, all of the cases marked as “sequel” separate events in the past from events in the future.
The three labeled “recursive” indicate cases where one individual or family is followed, then the timeline is reset to follow another. In these cases, there may be chronological overlap, but no detail added to the first.
In the single case labeled “parallel/sequel” Cain is followed, then the timeline reset to Adam; then a toledah introduces parallel coverage of Seth.
There is no precedent in the ten cases enumerated for a toledah introducing an expanded account of the same thing previously covered. This is not definitive proof, but it is suggestive.
First, “creation” in verse 27 is the Hebrew word בָּרָא (bara‘, which means ex nihilo creation, or creation from nothing at all). In contrast, the Genesis 2 description is יָצַר (yatsar, which means to form something specifically by molding some constituent material into a shape, i.e., as a potter forming something in clay). The potter imagery is consistent with forming Adam “of dust from the ground”. “Dust”, here is Hebrew עָפָר, (‘afar), meaning things like “dry soil”, “loose earth”, “rubble”, or even “ashes”. None of these is clay, and none of them alone can be worked by a potter, but the intended image is of the detritus of death. More likely, it simply refers to the familiar elements on the periodic table, pasted by God into organic molecules.
Second, and more telling, we appear to have a serious contradiction regarding the creation of beasts of the field and birds of the heavens.
The sequence as written in Genesis 2 is (a) God formed Adam and gave him life; (b) God planted a garden on the east side of Eden; (c) God placed Adam in that garden; (d) God caused plants to grow from the ground; (e) God gave Adam his mission statement; (g) from the ground, God “formed” (yatsar) the land and air creatures; (h) Adam named the creatures; and finally (i) God formed Eve from Adam’s rib.
The serious contradiction here is that:
in chapter 1, air creatures are created on day 5 and land creatures on day 6, both of these prior to the creation of man on day 6.
In chapter 2, Adam (though not Eve) was created on or after day 6 while both the air and land creatures were created later.
The ESV translation above follows NIV in trying to resolve the problem by hedging on the language in 2:19. I can’t find any support for “Now the LORD God had formed“. This translation certainly does leave room for saying, “Oh, this isn’t where he forms them, that was already done.” But the correct translation seems to be “And out of the ground the LORD God formed.” Almost every translation words it this way, and even ESV includes that as a footnote. NIV is notorious for paraphrasing Scripture to make it say what they think it should say. I take this passage to mean that God formed new animals in the garden in addition to those that existed—possibly just new individuals, not new species.
I don’t see a clear, fair, and decisive path to resolving this contradiction.
On the other hand, if Genesis 2 is subsequent to Genesis 1 rather than a retelling, the garden theoretically becomes sacred space—a prototype tabernacle—and Adam’s race a priesthood.
While the concept that Adam and Eve’s creation at a time when earth was already populated by humans may be startling, it answers more questions than it raises. It gives Cain a wife without requiring biologically harmful incest. It reveals who it was who Cain thought might kill him. It answers the question, where did all the people come from to populate the city that Cain founded.
By the way, what was that city? Depending on how you define the term, it may have been Uruk, shown on the map above with the four rivers of Eden. Uruk was founded about 6,000 years ago, which fits very nicely with the picture I’m painting here.
You may say, “But the Bible teaches we’re all descended from Adam!” Yes, it does, and since Noah was descended from Adam, and we’re descended from Noah, then where’s the problem? The other humans all perished in the Flood.
Are we also descended from the pre-Garden people? I don’t know. Perhaps no pre-Garden genes were in the chromosomes of Noah or Mrs. Noah. But would it have mattered if there was some mixing? I don’t think it matters if Noah had non-Adamic genes mixed in, any more than it matters that Jesus had genes not contributed by Judah or King David. Mitochondrial DNA shows that all humans today have a common “mother” and Y-chromosomal analysis shows a common “father”, but both of those are way too late to have been Mr. or Mrs. Noah’s. Due to the nature of genetic inheritance, it will never be possible to trace back that far.
The Genesis 1 creation, whether it was Adam or not, was created in the image of God. They, too, were righteous or sinful, saved or unsaved. The difference is that they had not eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, so they were presumably innocent in the same way as Adam and Eve before the fall.
But wait! you say. That means that they were immortal! No, it doesn’t. Were Adam and Eve immortal before the fall? I think “you will surely die” is talking about spiritual death, not physical. Maybe they were immortal, but if so, why was there a Tree of Life in the Garden?
Was death even possible, theologically, before the fall? That’s way too big a subject to take on here, in this post. I’ll eventually write about it. It’s a key question, since part of the reason some Christians shun fossil evidence is that they think it’s a violation of Scripture for animals to have died pre-fall. Obviously, I believe death was possible before the fall, but I owe you some analysis to justify my belief.
Then, there’s the biggest question of all. I’ve been telling you that the 7-day creation story is a polemic and not literally true as written. What about Adam and Eve, and the Garden? Well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. From Genesis 2 on out, there is way too much specificity for me to doubt. I mean, we have the begats, for crying out loud, and they are way too believable to dismiss.
I want to address just a few issues here that may seem confusing.
On the day that the LORD God made earth and heavens, no shrub of the field being yet on the earth and no plant of the field yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not caused rain to fall on the earth and there was no human to till the soil, and wetness would well from the earth to water all the surface of the soil… —Genesis 2:4b–6 (Alter)
The first phrase above, ending “made earth and heavens”, bookends the Genesis 1 story, which begins with “In the beginning … heavens and earth”. That makes it more likely that the phrase is part of the toledah, packaging the entire process—”the day that the LORD God made the earth and heavens.” Most of you take this “day” as seven literal 24-hour days—I take it to mean the entire 13.8-billion-year period from the Big Bang to the formation of Adam.
The term “LORD God” here is the Hebrew “YHVH Elohim“, the first occurrence in Scripture of God’s covenant name.
In 2:5 we are told that, before God created Adam or planted the Garden, there was as yet no “brush of the field”, i.e., no wild vegetation, in the land (the Garden). Paleontology suggests that Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years, but for most of that time they were strictly hunter-gatherers. Agriculture doesn’t appear until around 10,000 years ago, and it didn’t predominate until around 6,000 years ago. Domestication of livestock began during that same period. Given some flexibility in dating by means of Biblical genealogies, it is entirely realistic to date Genesis 2 somewhere in that 6-to-10,000-year time frame, and thus to consider that Genesis 2:5 implies that both herding (hunting) and farming (gathering) were inaugurated in the Garden.
There are two major events on God’s prophetic calendar which could occur at any time, now or years from now. One, of course, is the Rapture. There are no other prophetic events which have to occur before the Rapture. The same can be said for the other imminent event, the War of Gog and Magog, described in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. It is this war that I want to discuss here, because it seems to me that all of the pieces for it are in place.
Gog and Magog, which I will refer to hereafter as, simply, The War, may happen either before or after the Rapture, but must precede Antichrist’s treaty and the Tribulation period. Why? A number of compelling reasons are proposed by Arnold Fruchtenbaum in his book, The Footsteps of the Messiah: The Sequence of Pretribulational Events. I may reprise additional reasons in a future posting, but for now I will simply say that the prophesied seven years of cleanup after the war seems to preclude any other possibility.
There are numerous geopolitical events and conditions that I saw as lining up or lined up when I first wrote this post in 2015. Now, in late 2021, not much has changed to alter my views.
The War will be an invasion of Israel by Russia, Iran, and a number of additional players. As most news-savvy Americans know, Iran is allied with Russia, which sends them military technology, including advanced offensive and defensive armaments.
The West has long been worried about Iran’s nuclear missile development program. Over the last decade or so, Israel has launched several limited strikes against Iranian facilities in Iran itself and in their client state, Syria. Unfortunately, serious physical and political risks prohibit them from attacking in a more decisive manner.
With all the talk about Iran’s nuclear development, relatively little has been said about their build-up of conventional forces and armaments. According to GlobalFirepower.com, as of April 1, 2015, Iran had at that time over a half million active front-line military personnel, with 1.8 million reserves and almost 40 million citizens fit to serve. They were and surely are very highly trained and well equipped. The result is that their level of aggression against other Arab states was high. They continue to flex their military muscles, with two primary ends in view: (1) hegemony in the Middle East and ultimately the world; and (2) the total destruction of Israel in the short term, and the United States eventually.
The reason that The War has not yet begun is simply Eastern fear of Israel’s might, particularly with the US as her ally, along with a perennial inability of the Muslim faction in the Middle East to unite effectively in a common cause.
Clearly, the US alone is no longer a viable deterrent. Anti-Israel sentiment in our political and educational institutions and even in some American Jewish circles, has grown too strong. America is not mentioned in Biblical prophecy because we will voluntarily take no part in the defense of our allies. The EU and the United Nations will also certainly not side with Israel. I don’t believe that Iran would risk an attack on Israel on its own without first completing its nuclear program, but with Russia’s help and additional Shiite allies, there simply is no longer a viable deterrent. As for the lack of Muslim commonality, I believe that with powerful non-Muslim allies, the potential reward to Islam as a whole could at any time prove to be an overriding factor.
Players in the Gog & Magog War. Base map annotated by Ron Thompson
Ezekiel 38:2-6 lists the participants we can expect to see coming against Israel in The War:
38 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. 4 I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. 5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops — many people are with you. NKJV
Nations are defined Biblically by their peoples, not necessarily by the lands that they occupy; furthermore, they are named as they were in the day of writing, and boundaries occupied by the lands and peoples must be understood to be fluid over time. One would like to say, “Magog is Russia”, and “Gomer is Germany”, as was common in the early days of American “popular prophecy”, but it just is not that simple. Modern Eurasian civilization is an incredibly complex mixture of peoples who often can only roughly be identified, based largely on archaeological and linguistic evidence. With the exception of Gomer and Rosh (see below), I am more or less inclined to stick with my conclusions from some seven years ago when I prepared the attached map.
Gog and Magog: The invading forces will be led by “Gog, of the land of Magog” (v2a). Magog corresponds roughly to the area of modern European Russia, particularly the southwest region, between the Caspian and Black Seas, including Georgia and Azerbaijan. Of course, we won’t see a war launched by “Southwest European Russia.” My assumption is that the entire Russian Federation will be involved. Gog is not a name, but rather a leadership title, like “Pharaoh.” Presumably, then, this refers to Vladimir Putin or a successor. Russia is closely allied to Iran. With extensive natural resources of its own, Russia still desires to control Middle Eastern oil and natural gas, for strategic purposes.
Rosh, Meshech and Tubal: Gog is also the “prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal (v2b)”. These three names, and most of the others, can most likely be equated with some of the many nomadic tribes that over centuries swept west and south from Mongolia and the Russian Steppe regions. Meshech and Tubal constitute most of modern Turkey and are probably Scythian in origin. Though I seem to have omitted it from my map, I think that Rosh refers to the well-attested Rus people, namesakes of modern Russia, who migrated from western Russia and Belarus, southward into the Baltic regions. The peoples of the coastal areas west of the Black Sea are largely of Rus (again, Scythian) origin. European Turkey and parts of modern Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia were known as Rus until after the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans. From the time of the Ottoman conquests, the area has been largely Muslim.
Persia:Persia (v5a) of course refers to Iran, probably along with her client states of loyalist Syria; Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, eastern Iraq and perhaps Yemen.
Cush:Ethiopia (or Cush, v5b) may refer to the upper Nile regions of modern Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, or it may refer to parts of Iraq. Or both. I believe that Cush, as referred to in Genesis 2:13, refers to the upper Mesopotamia region around the Diyala River, and that river is, in fact the Gichon, or Gihon, River ofthe same verse. Cush, a son of Ham, is thought to have populated a wide region of the ancient Middle East and Africa. The ancient empire of Babel, in modern Iraq, was founded by Nimrod, a Cushite.
Put: The KJV and most modern translations equate Put (v5c) with Libya; however, some authors including Fruchtenbaum claim that Libya is equivalent to “Lud”, and Somalia corresponds to “Put.” My own opinion is that Libya is primarily Put, and Somalia is part of the general region of Cush. I would place Lud in Tunisia and far western Libya.
S1cyythian Gomer?
Gomer: According to Josephus and some other early sources, Gomer (v6a), corresponds to Anatolian Galatia, in central Turkey; however, many conservative scholars have identified it with Germany, and that was the view taken by Hal Lindsey and Herbert W. Armstrong. I went with that in the original writing of this post, but I am now convinced that Gomer refers instead to the ancient Scythians, who were once united in a nomadic empire that covered much of the Steppe region north of the Black and Caspian Seas, eastwards into Mongolia, and westwards into Eastern Europe. I would surmise that the region in view here is the Islamic regions of Eastern Europe.
Beth Togarmah: The “House of Togarmah” (v6b) is located around present-day Armenia.
As you can see from this listing, all these pieces of the puzzle make total sense today, in the context of current geopolitical alignments. In fact, I would not hesitate to say that all or most of the colored regions on the map above will be included in the alliance.
I don’t believe that the US, the EU or the UN will lift a hand to help Israel. At most, there might be a weak diplomatic protest from these entities. They are becoming more and more anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. The Bible mentions no allies for Israel, aside from Almighty God Himself! Ezekiel 38:13 hints at the only protest from Israel’s neighbors:
13 Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?'”‘ NKJV
Sheba was located around modern northern Yemen, and Dedan is the present Al Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Tarshish, mentioned in a number of Biblical passages, is known only to be someplace in the ancient Mediterranean area “far away” from Israel. Possibly the site of Carthage, or as usually cited, Spain. The reference to its “young lions” is an idiomatic expression indicating colonies or an empire; I would speculate that it actually has in mind the Emirates of Arabia, which are Saudi and American allies, and lean towards friendship with Israel.
Ezekiel 38:8-17 describes the setting and prosecution of the war:
8 After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely. 9 You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.”
10 ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan: 11 You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates’ — 12 to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land. 13 Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?'”‘
14 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it? 15 Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army. 16 You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.” 17 Thus says the Lord God: “Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them? NKJV
This passage describes Israel today, a peaceful nation though not at peace, alive again after nearly 2,000 years, and dwelling in their own land, in relative safety, comfort and confidence. The invasion will come from the north, up into the mountains of Israel (and Jerusalem is always considered “up”, no matter where you come from). Russia, at least, is seeking booty: oil and gas, the mineral riches of the Dead Sea, and above all, the strategic positioning of the nation at the “crossroads of the world.” The booty listed here, as well as the weapons used, are metaphorical because Ezekiel could know nothing of today’s riches and weaponry.
18 “And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel,” says the Lord God, “that My fury will show in My face. 19 For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: ‘Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, 20 so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.’ 21 I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains,” says the Lord God. “Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22 And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23 Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.”‘ NKJV
God will overtly and miraculously intervene, and the invading armies will be totally destroyed. The effects of God’s wrath will be felt and recognized around the world, with Russia’s homeland itself leveled. Reading on, the mountains of Israel will be literally covered with the dead and their armaments. Seven months will be required to bury the dead and seven years to dispose of the armaments.
I believe that tremendous damage will have been done to Israel and its armed forces, but at the close of this war, the power and might of Russia and the militant Muslim countries will be at a complete end. Into this milieu, I see the rise of a world leader, the Antichrist, who will take advantage of the chaos, offering to guarantee peace to all sides. Neither the Muslims nor the Anti-Semitic West will have power to prevent him from granting Israel the right to rebuild the Temple; thus will begin the Tribulation.
I have shown that The War could happen at any time. It may follow the Rapture, but I would not be at all surprised if it happened first, in order to give the world, and especially Israel, one final glimpse of God’s awesome power, and to give them one final chance to repent–or more likely, to demonstrate how utterly blind humanity can be!
Ezekiel 39:6b-8: 6b Then they shall know that I am the Lord. 7 So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let them profane My holy name anymore. Then the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. 8 Surely it is coming, and it shall be done,” says the Lord God. “This is the day of which I have spoken.” NKJV
The Back of My Mind 