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The Russian Chapters of Ezekiel: Part 2

Prophecy teachers have claimed for many years that Russia will invade "Israel." I recall in the 1960's how they read Ez. 38:15, "all of them riding on horses," and they eloquently told us how the Russians were amassing the world's largest stock of horses. I always wondered why they would ride south on horses, which were quite slow and inefficient. Supposedly, the world was going to run out of oil. But Russia has huge oil deposits.

Also, Verse 11 says that they would attack "the land of unwalled villages" against people who were "at rest, that live securely, all of them living without walls and having no bars or gates." The Israeli state has always been an armed camp. In recent years, their great Wall separating the Palestinians from the Israelis is only exceeded by the Great Wall of China.

The Russian motive for war, we were told, was (vs. 12) "to capture spoil and to seize plunder." We were told about the minerals and potash (fertilizer) deposits in the Dead Sea, and since the world was soon going to run out of food, the Russian hordes would want to obtain this. Of course, no one mentioned the fact that the cost of extraction would hardly make it worthwhile.

Finally, the well-known Jewish author, Arthur Koestler, wrote a book in 1976 that opened my eyes to the true meaning of these so-called "Russian Chapters of Ezekiel." It was a conquest by immigration, and it came from Russia and many other nations, but it was an invasion of Jewish Zionists--not a Russian invasion per se. They came to rob and plunder the Palestinians, who for centuries had lived in peace and security in the Ottoman Empire.

Of course, the Zionists did not come on "horses," for this was simply Ezekiel's way of expressing the fact that the Zionists were relying on horses--the flesh, and fleshly means of conquest--rather than upon God. The law speaks of this in Deut. 17:16 and Isaiah 31:1-3 explains its meaning. Horses signify "flesh" rather than spirit (vs. 3).

Arthur Koestler's book, The Thirteenth Tribe, showed how the majority of world Jewry today are from Eastern Europe and Russia, and they are descended from the Khazars who converted to Judaism in 760 A.D. As I showed in Part 1, even the Jewish Encyclopedia gives the history of this conversion.

Koestler writes about the correspondence from the Jewish doctor in the Court of Spain during the rule of the Muslims in the 8th century. This doctor was named Hasdai ibn Shaprut. Koestler writes on page 66,

"According to his own account, Hasdai first heard of the existence of an independent Jewish kingdom from some merchant traders from Khurasan in Persia; but he doubted the truth of their story. Later he questioned the members of a Byzantine diplomat mission to Cordoba, and they confirmed the merchants' account, contributing a considerable amount of factual detail about the Khazar kingdom, including the name--Joseph--of its present king. Thereupon Hasdai decided to send couriers with a letter to King Joseph.

"The letter . . . contains a list of questions about the Khazar state, its people, method of government, armed forces, and so on--including an inquiry to which of the twelve tribes Joseph belonged. This seems to indicate that Hasdai thought the Jewish Khazars to hail from Palestine--as the Spanish Jews did--and perhaps even to represent one of the Lost Tribes. Joseph, not being of Jewish descent, belonged, of course to none of the tribes; in his Reply to Hasdai, he provides, as we shall see, a genealogy of a different kind. . . ."

On page 72 we read the essential facts of Joseph's genealogy:

"Joseph then proceeds to provide a genealogy of his people. Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the 'Sceptre of Judah,' he cannot and does not claim for them Semitic descent; he traces their ancestry not to Shem, but to Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarma, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes. 'We have found in the family registers of our fathers,' Joseph asserts boldly, 'that Togarma had ten sons, and the names of their offspring are as follows: Uigur, Dursu, Avars, Huns, Basilii, Tarniakh, Khazars, Zagora, Bulgars, Sabir. We are the sons of Khazar, the seventh . . ."

Thus, we see by King Joseph's own account, the Khazars were descended from Togarma, or Togarmah, who were living, obviously, in the area that later became southern Russia. According to Genesis 10, his father was Gomer, and his uncles were Magog, Meshech, and Tubal--all of whom Ezekiel mentions as invaders of the mountains of Israel.

The fact that they were converted to Judaism did not change their genealogy, nor did it change their status before God. Only those few who came to know Jesus Christ had altered their citizenship from Togarma to the Kingdom of God. The rest remained as citizens of Togarma--or Magog, Tubal, etc.

Prophecy teachers never mentioned this piece of history in their expositions of Ezekiel 38 and 39. They all assumed that the Zionists were the ones being threatened by Togarma and company AFTER their conquest of Palestine. And so even today there are many Churches who are busy raising funds to pay for Jews to immigrate from Russia to Palestine. They do not realize that they are helping to fund the invasion of Palestine and thus fulfill the prophecy of Ezekiel.

Things are not what they seem, because prophecy teachers do not study history. If they would read Arthur Koestler's book, available in most bookstores, they might understand something about prophecy. But history is not their strong suit. And so they continue to assume that Russia covets minerals and fertilizer from the Dead Sea. Unless, of course, they follow the more recent views that have shifted more toward China than Russia.

Ezekiel 39 tells us how the invaders will "fall on the mountains of Israel" (vs. 4). God will "send fire upon Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety."

Here we see the important detail that the people Magog not only invade, but also "inhabit the coastlands in safety." Prophecy teachers generally teach that when these so-called Russian troops invade, God will simply destroy them at the last minute, saving the nation of "Israel" in the midst of a great conversion of Jewish people to Christ. But Ezekiel tells us that these invaders will actually be living along the coast of Palestine. It takes time to settle in after an invasion. It takes time to build a house and to live IN SAFETY.

The Palestinians live inland, except for the tiny strip called Gaza. It is the Israelis who live along the coastland, and now with their Great Wall of Palestine, they are beginning to feel safer. But this only proves that they are the MAGOG of Ezekiel's prophecy. It only proves that they are the ones that God will overthrow. Ezekiel 39:11-13 says,

" ¹¹ And it will come about on that day that I shall give Gog a burial ground there in Israel. . . So they will bury Gog there with all his multitude, and they will call it the valley of Hamon-gog. ¹² For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land. ¹³ Even all the people of the land will bury them."

The house of Israel will bury them. The house of Israel are the "lost tribes of Israel." They will help "all the people of the land" (Palestinians) bury the Zionist invaders, and it will take seven months to complete (vs. 12).

So if Christians really do love Jews, they should volunteer to pay their way to LEAVE that Israeli state before the disaster of Ezekiel 39 occurs.