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Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Gog


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Gog Gog Magog Magog

Magog is a son of Japheth, son of Noah. Later this name came to denote a region. Magog is often mentioned in conjunction with Gog. Gog is the name of a Reubenite (1 Chr 5:4), but later (Eze 38) also the name of a certain prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal (literally the Chief Prince of the Occupied Zone that is The World). John the Revelator sees Gog and Magog - "the nations which are in the four corners of the earth" - gathered up by satan for the final battle (Rev 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. The altar on which continuously incense burned (see Eph 5:2) had horns on its four corners (Ex 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.

Magog is Gog with prefix mem, which may be a particle of inquisition: ma (me 1149), what, or mi (mi 1189), who? Or it may come from the particle min (min 1212; often abbreviated to a single mem), from.
Gog may come from gag (gag 312), usually meaning roof, housetop, or (as TOWOTOT puts it) the highest point of an edifice.
gag denotes most commonly the flat roof of a building on which things can take place (1 Sam 9:25-26; 2 Sam 11:2; Judge 16:27; Josh 2:6; Jer 19:13; but also Acts 10:9). The housetop seems to indicate a certain spiritual exposure. Someone on the housetop opens himself for something, preferable something soothing, or higher.
Because we've already linked God and Magog to the altar of incense (see above), the most remarkable usage is in Ex 30:3 and 37:26 where Gog denotes the top of the altar of incense (TWOTOT reads Ezk 30:3 and 37:26, which is a typo).

Gog may be a region, and Magog is then said to mean From Gog (BDB). But Ez 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. Magog may rather mean Off The Roof, which means more in English than in Hebrew. Possibly, the rooftop is semi-synonymous to a place of worship, especially pagan worship, and Magog denotes that same inclination.



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