Magog is referred to by Ezekiel as the “land of Gog” (38:2; 39:6). This is the area of Russia, not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but the older and smaller country of Russia. Ezekiel tells us that Magog lived in the North parts (Ezek. 38:15, 39:2). If you travel due north from Israel, past Turkey, and across the Black Sea, you will arrive in the Russian Ukraine. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, the ancient name for Ukraine is Scythia. Josephus records that those whom he called Magogites the Greeks called Scythians (1:vi:1). Scythe is another name for a sickle. If anyone were required to associate some modern nation with the sign of the scythe, or sickle, the association would not be hard to make. We are all very well acquainted with the sign of the hammer and sickle. That modern Russian logo clearly identifies modern Russia with ancient Scythia, the ancient Magogites.
Some have proposed from the resemblance between Gog and Gyges (Gugu), king of Lydia, that Magog is Lydia. However, it is more probable that Magog is a variant of Gog. The names, Gog and Magog, frequently occur in the Jewish apocalyptic literature. Revelation 20:7-9 reads, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven[b] and consumed them.” We are told by the media that communism is dead, the cold war is over, but the prophecies of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is clear that the threat of God’s people will arise from this region.