An important part in the eschatological drama is assigned to Israel’s final combat with the combined forces of the heathen nations under the leadership of Gog and Magog, barbarian tribes of the North (Ezek. xxxviii-xxxix.; see Gog and Magog). Assembled for a fierce attack upon Israel in the mountains near Jerusalem, they will suffer a terrible and crushing defeat, and Israel’s land will thenceforth forever remain the seat of God’s kingdom. Whether originally identical or identified only afterward by Biblical interpretation with the battle in the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel iv. [A.V.iii.] 12; comp. Zech. xiv. 2 and Isa. xxv. 6, where the great warfare against heathen armies is spoken of), the warfare against Gog and Magog formed the indispensable prelude to the Messianic era in every apocalyptic vision (Sibyllines, iii. 319 et seq., 512 et seq., 632 et seq.; v. 101; Rev. xx. 8; Enoch, lvi. 5 et seq., where the place of Gog and Magog is taken by the Parthians and Medes; II Esd. xiii. 5, “a multitude of men without number from the four winds of the earth”; Syriac Apoc. Baruch, LXX. 7-10; Targ. Yer. to Num. xi. 26, xxiv. 17, Ex. xl. 11, Deut. xxxii. 39, and Isa. xxxiii. 25; comp. Num. xxiv. 7 [Septuagint, … for “Agag”]; see Eldad and Medad).
R. Eliezer (Mek., Beshallaḥ, l.c.) mentions the Gog and Magog war together with the Messianic woes and the Last Judgment as the three modes of divine chastisement preceding the millennium. R. Akiba assigns both to the Gog and Magog war and to the Last Judgment a duration of twelve months (‘Eduy. ii. 10); Lev. R. xix. has seven years instead, in accordance with Ezek. xxxix. 9; Ps. ii. 1-9 is referred to the war of Gog and Magog (‘Ab. Zarah 3b; Ber. 7b; Pesiḥ. ix. 79a; Tan., Noah, ed. Buber, 24; Midr. Teh. Ps. ii.).
The destruction of Gog and Magog’s army implies not, as falsely stated by Weber (“Altsynagogale Theologie,” 1880, p. 369), followed by Bousset (“Religion des Judenthums,” p. 222), the extermination of the Gentile world at the close of the Messianic reign, but the annihilation of the heathen powers who oppose the kingdom of God and the establishing of the Messianic reign (see Enoch, lvi.-lvii., according to which the tribes of Israel are gathered and brought to the Holy Land after the destruction of the heathen hosts; Sifre, Deut. 343; and Targ. Yer. to Num. xi. 26).
The Gentiles who submit to the Law are expected to survive (Syriac Apoc. Baruch, lxxii. 4; Apoc. Abraham, xxxi.); and those nations that did not subjugate Israel will be admitted by the Messiah into the kingdom of God (Pesiḥ. R. 1, after Isa. lxvi. 23). The Messiah is called “Hadrach” (Zech. ix. 1), as the one who leads the heathen world to repentance ( ), though he is tender to Israel and harsh toward the Gentiles ( : Cant. R. vii. 5). The loyalty of the latter will be severely tested (‘Ab. Zarah 2b et seq.), while during the established reign of the Messiah the probation time of the heathen will have passed over (Yeb. 24b). “A third part of the heathen world alone will survive” (Sibyllines, iii. 544et seq., v. 103, after Zech. xiii. 8; in Tan., Shofeṭim, ed. Buber, 10, this third part is referred to Israel, which alone, as the descendants of the three patriarchs, will escape the fire of Gehenna). According to Syriac Apoc. Baruch, xl. 1, 2, it is the leader of the Gog and Magog hosts who will alone survive, to be brought bound before the Messiah on Mount Zion and judged and slain. According to II Esd. xiii. 9 et seq., fire will issue forth from the mouth of the Messiah and consume the whole army. This indicates an identification of Gog and Magog with “the wicked one” of Isa. xi. 4, interpreted as the personification of wickedness, Angro – mainyush (see Armilus). In Midrash Wayosha’ (Jellinek, “B. H.” i. 56) Gog is the leader of the seventy-two nations of the world, minus one (Israel), and makes war against the Most High; he is smitten down by God. Armilus rises as the last enemy of God and Israel.