Hello everyone. Welcome to episode number 14 of our series in which we have been focusing
primarily on one critical aspect of End Times Bible prophecy. Based upon the series we have
titled the Bible prophecy masterclass. In this study, part 2 of our addendum of studies,
our chief aim is to appease our curiosity surrounding the, who, of Magog and the, why,
of God's hostile attitude toward that land and its End Times leader. As usual, the text
for this study is volume 2 of the series called Judgment Day, Israel catapulted to global
superpower, subtitle, a Muslim's nightmare, the writer of said series being Mr. Alvin
Mitchell and, I am Carol, your host. Please feel free to join us as we invoke the blessing
of God upon this and all of the studies to come in this highly informative and instructive
series.
Magog. Who were they? In antiquity. Thus far then, we now know that Magog finds its roost
today in all of the landmass known as, and now occupied by, modern Russia. Likewise,
we also know that Russia as it relates to and falls within the grand scheme and plan
of God consists of two major parks or sections separated by the Ural Mountains. One, Western
or European Russia and two, Siberia.
That leaves open the question, who were these people during the Bible days of Ezekiel? Who
were they prior to his day during and across the 2000 years following the birth and life
of the Christ? What did they ever do to provoke God's ire? European Russia. Playground for
murderers and marauders, wild and untamed, haven to pillagers and plunder seekers, more
savage than the climate itself, ruled apparently for millennia by no one codified, written
law or civilized authority. Such was this, and in reality, the rest of the world of humanity,
their thoughts and knowledge of God had failed to grace the minds of men. Although the writing
cultures appear to have managed a much greater sense of civility and stability.
This section of the land of Magog refers to the western 25% of the old Soviet Union,
one might say their early, old West, makes the American version look, sissy.
Specifically, it is that part of Soviet Russia. Known since the Soviet breakup in 1991 as
the Russian Federation, which lies west of the Euro mountains, but more precisely between
the Caspian Sea on the east and the Baltic in the west, having as its southern border
the Black Sea, whereas the white is its northernmost boundary. Its actual westernmost boundary
or border has varied widely throughout history, dependent on who had the biggest sword and
who could muster and manage the most living bodies after appeasement of the sacrificial
demands and bite of one senseless battle after the other to enforce a shift.
At no point along a timeline spanning millennia, has any one group ever peacefully peopled
that region for any significantly long duration of time, apparently. The historical record
suggests that in a span reaching back as far as 4000 years BC to the relatively recent
mid-800s AD Europe's portion of today's Russia has been inundated repeatedly by floods of
many different tribes of people, many, if not most, from Central Asia.
Its steppes, great plains, said to be relatively infertile and part of a roughly 5,000-mile
stretch. Reaching from the Ukraine to China, hosts an environment known for climatic contrasts
which are extreme and are able to support only small bands of horsemen over huge allotments
thereof. All of this begs the question. What then served
as the virtual magnets attracting and luring these bands of murderous, marauding thugs,
who either forced out whatever group happened to be in occupation upon their arrival or,
simply killed them off, outright making this area a veritable slaughterhouse, or, more aptly,
a killing field? Whatever the reason, it might well be said
that this segment of the land of the realm of GOG in its entirety was hardly what God
had in mind in terms of the, unknown, given that it was in fact quite well known to the
outside world. One group of nomads is known for positioning itself in the area of well-worn
trade routes, some of which like the, silk routes, traversed this area.
Thus not to in any way minimize its sheer brutality, gore, and gruesomeness we see that
Hitler's final solution was not by any means the beginning of man's inhumanity to man.
Side note. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, Nido-Persia, the Greeks, the Romans, the
Rome Catholic Church. Islam, Napoleon Bonaparte, the British Empire,
Idi Amin, Chochiske, the Rwandan Massacre, and Milochevich murders. Even America the
Beautiful, with its 250 years or so of slavery and its alleged slaughter of approximately
100 million Native Americans, followed hard by 100 years plus of open, rampant Jim Crow,
trace elements of which are still upon us today. All these are prime examples of man's
want to be God over his neighbor, on account of which he is unable and often unwilling
to live in harmony with him. Our industrialized world of today, the vast
majority of which can realistically be confined to the past 50 years, although undeniably,
its roots sink deeply into the prior 55 is not one which could not have been realized
6,000 years ago. The same resources over which they trampled
and fought like fools, each in hopes of subjugating or liquidating, the other, all these resources
were available to them, at any point in time, on any page, in any chapter in history. Nothing
has ever changed. All indications are such that their intellects
were just as keen as any today. Their capacity for education, even where no
formal investment was ever made. An engineering was identical to that manifested today. Across
the board, in every culture. Yet, humanity for the most part, could think
in no other terms than, what's yours is mine, and I want it. Including your life, your
soul if need be, or where that's feasible. This kind of narrative just lends substance
to the psalmist's musing, does it not, as he pours out his heart before Almighty God?
What is man that you are mindful of him, or the Son of man? That you visit him? Do not
man who is born of a woman, whose days are few, yet full of trouble.
Psalm 8 verse 4. 144-3, 4. Job chapter 14 verses 1, 2.
The one assurance common to all invaders was such that as assuredly as they had slaughtered
their way onto the horizons of history and into the historical narrative of some writing
culture, for, being nomads, most came and went with no written language, and thus, no
written records of their own. And, as soon as they had settled into some comfort zone,
just as assuredly, sooner or later. Another would come behind, bent on doing to it. What
it had done to others before? So, who were these invaders of Europe's western Russia,
and how do they relate to, Magog, or, today's Russia?
What, if anything, do they bring to the bargaining table of God's eschatological plans for G.O.G?
Samarians. Before the advent of these nomadic barbarians, southern Russia is said to have
been inhabited by a culture known as the catechome. These were forced out of their homes by another
called the shrubna. In an upheaval which occurred in or around the second half of the second
millennium BC very little is known about this group of Samarians, although their place in
history is a fact said to be confirmed by three reliable, if not immutable records given
that they are mentioned in the writings of.
1. The Greek writer Homer. 2. The historian Herodotus.
3. And the annals of the Assyrians, compiled during the years of Sargon II and Asarhodon.
Known for their nomadic lifestyle, barbarism and utter savagery. No one, on the other hand,
seems to know where they came from before settling in the plains just north of the Black
Sea in an area known as Thrace, in southern modern Ukraine, having as boundaries the Prut
and Don rivers, west and east respectively. However, insofar as the leadership is believed
to have been fluent in the Iranian dialect, there is speculation that they were most likely
of that origin.
They were recognized as a tall people, having black eyes, and they are credited with being
the first to domesticate the horse, using it for 500 years as a draft animal before
it ever occurred to them that it could be ridden.
Having lived in Magog since around 1200 BC, some insist, as early as 2000 BC, the Samarians
were almost completely wiped out by another group of nomads, more barbarous and cruel
than they, called the Scythians, who moved into the area and forced them out around 700
BC.
In spite of their greatly reduced numbers, they still managed to be a menace and nuisance
wherever they went.
Their ability to cause trouble and inflict harm was aided tremendously by, and particularly
after their appreciation and expectation of the horse was revved up a notch, thanks to
the lessons they learned from their disastrous encounter with the Scythians.
They are blamed for the final demise of the Hittite, Prigean, and Lydian kingdoms, all
located at one point in the western Anatolia, or the area known today as modern Turkey.
Although they were chased for years by the Scythians some escaping and settling in the
Crimean Mountains, where they were called Tori.
They're settling in the old home of the Hittite homelands, there, later being called Gauls
or Galatians.
This area is said to have also been inhabited by the Celts, who were also identified by
some historians as, Gauls, and with, Gomor.
See comments on verses 4 and 5, page 7-5, or so, though still identifiable as Samarians
met their Waterloo while trifling with the Assyrians, augmented by fresh defeats from
the Scythians, in 635 BC, and Lydian King-Eliots.
History lost sight of them altogether after 500 BC.
Scythians.
Oddly, perhaps, it seems that men and women, living since the arrival and disappearance
of these nomads have at least two things for which we are, unfortunately, indebted to them.
1, domestication and use of the horse as a riding implement, and 2, a dress code and
fashion statement centered around the wearing of trousers.
Apparently, no other, known people groups anywhere, civilized or savage, had ever considered
these options prior to their arrival.
Moreover, it is believed that a certain prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah the Prophet makes
reference to them, which may well be true, given that no military power prior had any
reputation for the exploits and stunts they contrived for or during combat.
As with the Samarians, not much is known of the Scythians, as they were called by the
Greeks.
The Persians knew them as Sackas.
All the information available to date comes mainly from historians like Herodotus, who
is said to have actually visited their territory, and whose work has been expanded upon in our
day chiefly by Russian anthropologists, and dioderous, and from the many frozen graves
– robbed, having been found in Russia, Kazakhstan, and the Eurasian plains.
They were in a literate people, more preoccupied with the business of preparing for raids and
war, which they often started, than with formal education and building of schools.
Hence, they themselves maintained no written records of who they were, their origins, or
of their daily activities.
And yet, all indications are such that though addicted to savagery and barbarism as a way
of life they were in fact a talented, crafty people, capable both intellectually as well
as physically.
Relics of their prior existence are found most plentifully in southern Russia and in
the territories of the Crimean Peninsula.
The well-preserved artifacts and remains found in Scythian graves, one of which was found
frozen stiff in 1947, in Siberia, yield only mixed messages in terms of who they were ethnically
and where they were from.
Some had Mongolian features.
Others were more European in appearance, having blonde hair.
No one knows with any amount of certainty whether they came from Central Asia, Iran,
or the Russian steppes between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains.
What is certain is that these bearded men with long hair, dark, deep-set eyes, their bodies,
having never, ever apparently, in a lifetime received the benefit of a good washing.
Covered in elaborate tattoos, did in fact crawl out of the woodwork, from some dark corner,
moving chiefly, if not only, to plunder and to raid.
Recognized as an exotically colorful folk, they were committed pagans, highly superstitious
believers in witchcraft, magic and amulets.
They employed and highly exalted cross-dressing, effeminate men called, ennorees, men women
or half men, as their shaman or religious leaders.
Known as perpetually restless, they were referred to as the people of the North Parts
who posed a constant threat.
There seems to be some confusion among scholars and researchers as to the place of Scythian
women in that hostile, turbulent culture.
Some say they were powerless and confined to the home, traveling behind their warrior
men in covered wagons with the children.
Researchers insist that the women were often warriors, like their husbands, complete with
matching full-body tattoos, on equal footing and were some of the Scythians' best and
most celebrated fighters.
Confirmation of this was found late in the 20th century when archaeologists uncovered
the remains of some of these women who had been buried, dressed in their riding garments
the same as those worn by their men as well as their bows, their swords and their horses.
Some claim, or had claimed that this tradition of warrior women was only typical of the Sarmatians,
a study of whom will follow this one.
Moreover, the Sarmatians do not appear to have ever been known to have applied the bow,
as a weapon, in battle.
Some say that to earn the right to marry, according to Herodotus, she was required to
sustain the blood of at least one enemy, others say, three.
To strengthen her pectoral muscle so that she could better handle her sword, the female
warrior to be would be deprived of her right breast, while yet in her infancy.
The testimony of Deodorodorus asserts that they fought like men and were not the least
bit inferior with regard to courage.
The Scythians were expert horsemen.
While the Sarmarians are credited as the first, or as among the first, to domesticate the
horse.
The Scythians who were highly accomplished both in the area of breeding, training, and
where the historical record goes, were the first to recognize and appreciate it for its
ride potential.
And that without saddles or stirrups.
They took great pride in their animals, often decorating them lavishly, riding them as they
sat upon cloths for saddles.
Many among the peoples they terrorized saw horses ridden for the first time because
of them.
Warriors in death were often buried with their weapons and their horse.
In addition to his horsemanship, his savagery and barbarity aside the Scythian was also
noted for being an outstanding craftsman and skilled metalworker.
Certain of their tribes were particularly talented workers with iron, while one of their
trademarks was works of gold, found in abundance.
They are said to have used gold profusely, decking themselves, their weapons and their
horses out lavishly, in preparation for battle, as if they were going to a celebrity ball.
Indeed, for a people whose culture never bothered to cultivate the art of reading and writing
in which case they left no written records of their own history it might just as easily
be said that their graves speak volumes, given that much of what is known of them today has
been gleamed from the metalworks, said to be of fine workmanship, to the extreme, found
in their frozen tombs scattered across what is often called today, the Eurasian plains,
in the Black Sea and Crimean areas they inhabited.
Thousands of their tombs have also been found as well throughout the Caucasus and Anatolia,
or modern Turkey.
In battle, virtually, if not always instigated by them for the purpose of plunder, the Scythian
was known for being fierce, murderous and merciless.
Their skill at horseback riding as well as their ability to handle the bow and arrow
while on the run made them formidable enemies.
There was no foot soldier among them, unlike the Samarians who utilized both infantry and
chariots, but no riders, that is, until after their encounters.
This meant of course that attacks on targets of choice and promise could be swift and deadly,
while getaways were just as quick given that horse-drawn chariots were neither as fast
nor as maneuverable, and the foot soldier, well, there was, needless to say, simply no
contest.
Since the Scythian fighter was a freeman, who received no compensation for his participation,
beyond food and clothing, motivation and enthusiasm might have been low or nonexistent,
but for the fact that each could share in the booty of any plunder mission, merely upon
presentation of the head of an enemy, assuming he lived, and the enemy didn't.
Thus, it might well be said that his chief incentive, his sole purpose, in general, in
war was to murder for plunder.
Although he also carried a sword said to be of a Persian type, his primary weapon was
a double curved bow from which he fired a tree-foil-shaped arrow, which he shot with
apparent deadly accuracy from the left side of his horse, while on the run.
They were experts in this type of warfare.
Sidebar.
Although there is no specific reference to any specific encounters between them, there
is a prophetic reference in one of the OT prophets which seems at least, and is thought
by some authorities, to be a definite inference to them coming against Israel.
Their exploits, as shown earlier, do seem to have taken them through the holy land,
right up to the gates of Egypt, before her pharaoh bought them off.
The general practices and customs of the Scythian made him an individual as bizarre as he was
bloody.
They were notorious for decapitating their enemies.
This practice provided him at once with several amenities.
1.
A scalp, which when scraped free of all its skin, he used as a napkin.
2.
In the case of multiple scalps, he would decorate his horse, hanging them on its bridle or,
weave himself a cloak, all the while increasing his status amongst his fellows.
3.
The skulls were leather-bound and used as drinking cups, as well as gold-lined trophies
by which to impress others.
Of several different tribes or divisions of the Scythians, the royal group was the
dominate one.
When the king, always a member of this group, died, his death automatically implied, signaled
and occasioned the death of many others, by strangulation.
One of his concubines, the cupbearer, his cook, the king's lackey, his messenger, and
the best of his horses, each was strangled so as to accompany their leader in death.
One year later, up to fifty youths might be singled out from among the ranks of those
who had been unlucky enough to be in the direct employ of the king, chosen to join their former
chief executive in death, also by strangling.
Their bodies would then be placed in a circle, around the sixty-foot-tall mound covering the
tomb of the late king.
In addition to the difficulty of settling the question of the origin of this utterly
strange, nomadic people, believed to be of Iranian stock, due to certain elements of
their linguistics.
Recorded history knows of no place for them before 700 BC.
Although, one historian A.I.
Meljukeva has written suggesting that early Scythians may be descended from a so-called
shrubnaya culture which migrated from the Volga-Yural Great Plains to the area north
of the Black Sea, there to be absorbed by the Samarians sometime around or between the
middle of the 2nd millennium BC and the end of the 7th century BC.
It is at about this time that they galloped onto the scene.
Some say from the plains east of the Don River, west of the Ural Mountains.
Others say they came from Central Asia, Siberia.
Having meandered westward from that region, early in the 1st millennium this according
to Herodotus and other ancient Near Eastern documentation.
They were for at time allied with the Syria against the Samarians, who were forced out
of the Black Sea plains to seek refuge toward the south.
In spite of being as ruthless, cruel and as ferocious as the Scythians, the few chariots
and slow-moving infantry was simply no match for the speed and might of the horse-mounted
newcomers, archers all, to the region.
The meads south of the Caucasus Mountains rendered fruitless their bid to make their tumultuous
presences felt in the Near East, so that, from the end of the 7th century to the 3rd
century BC, this latest nomadic savage occupied the plains north of the Black Sea extending
from the Don River in the east to the Danube River in the west, a span of roughly 950 miles.
Their empire is said to have included also West Persia, Syria, and Judea to the Egyptian
borders this, apparently before being driven out by the meads.
During the 4th century BC, the Scythian Empire reached its zenith politically, economically,
culturally and socially, all the various tribes being united by one king Atheas.
It was at this time that they began to lose their grip on the southern Russian steppes.
In keeping with the true spirit of the Maxim, some folks just don't know when to quit.
This king was killed at age 90, during a battle with Philip the Macedonian, in 339 BC mounting
pressure from the Celts and Thracians out of the west and the Sarmatians from the east
during the second half of the 3rd century contributed to the subsequent cave-in of the
Scythian world, as they, having become more sedentary, were absorbed into other invading
powers following which assimilation, the blight of their particular, peculiar brand of presence
too, like that of the Samarians was stricken or hidden from the pages of time.
Ironically, perhaps, a few rather than mix or be destroyed, simply retreated to the same
general area in a peninsula known as the Crimea, into which they had forced the Samarians,
approximately 400 years earlier.
Here their memory would survive not even as a jaded recollection by the 3rd century AD.
Alright then, with that, we will hear, stop this edition of the podcast in the Bible
prophecy masterclass.
Please plan to be with us next time for episode number 15, in which we will continue our look
at some of the strange, utterly godless but colorful cultures that may have contributed
to the shaping of God's current vitriol toward that land He unaffectionately dubs as, Magog.
Until our next encounter, may the good Lord bless and keep you safe.