Israeli citizen and End Times author Joel Rosenberg says in a new interview he wonders if the Middle East is “the early stages” of one of the most hotly debated prophetic events described in Scripture -- those surrounding “Gog and Magog” -- although he cautions Christians not to take a firm position because there is “not nearly enough data.”
The editor-in-chief of All Israel News and the author of numerous books on the region, Rosenberg made the remarks on the podcast Inside The Epicenter, saying he sees two possible scenarios involving the events described in Ezekiel 37 and 38. Ezekiel 38:2 references a “Gog” from the “land of Magog” who will attack the land of Israel.
Rosenberg holds a premillennial, pretribulation view of the End Times.
In the first scenario, he said, Israel defeats Hamas and its enemies “decisively,” sparking a period of peace in the region.
“As the smoke clears off the battlefields, suddenly, Israel's the strongest power in the region. Suddenly, all of our immediate threats and enemies have been vanquished, or at least so humbled that they can't throw any more punches right now. And out of that wreckage, everybody in the region wants to make peace with the most powerful nation in the region, Israel.”
Such a future era of peace, Rosenberg said, would parallel the events described in the latter verses in Ezekiel 37, where Israel is enjoying a lengthy period of time without war. That period, he said, takes place “before the war of Gog and Magog, where it says Israel is living securely in the land and with enormous prosperity.”
But in the second scenario, Rosenberg is considering the prophesied era of peace ended on Oct. 7. In other words, Israel’s time without war in Ezekiel 37 is in the past.
“It would mean that the period we've just gone through in the last, say, five or six years, has been the precursor -- that in God's sovereign view, Israel has been living securely -- so securely, that that's the only way you could possibly imagine an Israeli government not having combat forces on the Gaza border [during the Oct. 7 attack],” he said.
That era of peace included the Abraham Accords, he said.
“Scenario two is that we are in the early stages of Gog and Magog. I'm not saying that we are because there are things that are happening right now that aren't in the text. So that's why I highly caution anybody on television, anybody on the radio, anybody on the internet ... there's not nearly enough data to tell us that we're heading into Ezekiel 38 and 39. But what if we were, what would that mean?”
Rosenberg and many others in the premillennial pretribulation camp believe “Gog” is the leader of Russia and “Magog” is the Russian-led military.
“The Bible says -- remember -- that God put hooks in the jaws of Gog, the euphemistic name for the Russian dictator, and forces him, pulls him out of Russia with his military,” Rosenberg said, referencing Ezekiel 38:4.
In the second scenario, “Iran persuades Russia” to get involved.
“[The Russian leader is] so guilty of sin that God's going to show the supernatural judgment. But He pulls him into a war that Gog doesn't really want to be in, in order to show that the end has come for Gog and Magog.”
Rosenberg cautioned: “I don't know which scenario we're in.”
“Right now, this is unprecedented -- the moment we're in. So it feels prophetic. But we've got to look carefully and wait before we make any conclusions because otherwise, we're just going to bring discredit on the Lord if we're wrong. I mean, he'll still be sovereign, but we'll look like idiots.”
Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Dan Kitwood / Staff
Video Courtesy: Inside the Epicenter Podcast via YouTube
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.