Facing Armageddon and Yajuj and Majuj with Hope and Faith

The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference convened in Baku. These conferences have a bad name because they usually end with weak decisions. They must reach a consensus on climate-related issues from 190+ countries with wildly different interests. Maybe an awareness of Biblical and Qur’anic foresights might enable leaders to see farther and wiser.

Gog-Magog (Hebrew Bible) and Yajuj-Majuj (Arabic Qur’an) are the long-time threats to God’s future Messianic Age. In the 17th to 19th centuries, they took the form of European Empires. In the 20th century they took the form of mass murder genocide Nazi (Hitler) and Communist (Stalin, Mao) political dictatorships.

And now in the 21st century Gog and Magog are taking the form of worldwide human misuse of Planet Earth’s natural resources though Global Warming, and the human arrogant misuse of generated Artificial Intelligence.

Yajuj and Majuj are mentioned both in Qur’an and hadith. In Islam their appearance will be one of the signs of the end times. These events will transpire after the arrival of Dajjal, Mahdi and Prophet Jesus. Gog and Magog (“Gog u-Magog” in Hebrew and “Yajuj and Majuj” in Arabic) are names that appear in both the Hebrew Bible and in the Arabic Qur’an.

They are sometimes personified as individuals, and sometimes identified as nations or as geographic regions: but all references in Bible, Qur’an and Hadith (oral and then written tradition) clearly indicate that they are very numerous in number, and will appear from the north toward the end of times, before the Day of Judgement: “They said, ‘O Dhul-Qarnayn, indeed Gog and Magog are [powerful] corrupters in the land. So may we pay you to make a barrier (wall) between us and them?’” [Qur’an 18:94]

The good news is that climate change think tank Ember, said a record-breaking 30% of the world’s electricity was produced by renewables in 2023. That’s a huge step on the way to reaching a worldwide climate target of 60% renewable electricity by 2030.

And America’s largest Jewish denomination is pledging to divest from the fossil fuel industry as a response to the climate crisis. Citing the biblical teaching of “till and tend the earth,” the Union for Reform Judaism announced that its investment and pension plans are now free of direct ties to oil, gas, and coal companies; and will redirect investments toward renewable energy.

More good news is that between 2005 and 2022, Maryland reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 36%, with Maine and New Hampshire close behind. And there were about 97,000 overdose deaths in the year-ending June 30 2024, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control. That’s down 14% from 113,000 for the previous 12-month period. But there was much more bad news plaguing Planet Earth.

Last summer (2024), marked by extreme heat and devastating wildfires, was the warmest in at least 2,000 years. It was at least 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the warmest summer during this 2,000 year period. And a report found that humanity had just lived through the hottest 12-month period in the last 125,000 years.

The word Armageddon does not appear in the Hebrew Bible, and appears only once in the Greek New Testament, in Revelation 16:16 which makes no mention of armies being predicted to one day gather on or near Mount Megiddo; but instead seems to predict only that “they (will gather) the kings together to … Armageddon”. We know now that oil, gas and coal are the kings of global warming.

The Christian New Testament book of Revelation implies, based on the text from an earlier passage of Revelation 16:14, that the purpose of this gathering of kings in the “place called Armageddon” is “for the war of the great day of God Almighty” which is now seen as the ongoing battle against Global Warming.

As ibn Babuya writes in Thawab ul-A’mal, “The Apostle of God said: `There will come a time for my people when there will remain nothing of the Qur’an except its outward form, and nothing of Islam except its name, and they will call themselves by this name even though they are the people furthest from it. The mosques will be full of people but they will be empty of right guidance. The religious leaders (Fuqaha) of that day will be the most evil religious leaders under the heavens; sedition and dissension will go out from them and to them will it return.”

Most secularists believe that these religious apocalyptic visions of the future are absurd, although many secularists themselves fervently believe that artificial intelligence, run away genetic modification of food, and/or extreme climate change is going to doom much of human civilization in the next generation.

The basic difference between the pessimistic, humanist secularists and the religious optimists is that those who believe in the God of  Prophet Abraham also believe that God’s inspiration guarantees that the spiritual forces of good will overcome all the world’s evils at the end of days; and justice, peace and religious pluralism will prevail.

Or as the Biblical Prophet Micah envisions: (4:1-5) “In the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established  as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many (not all) nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. who will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths. Torah will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. God will judge between many (not all) peoples and will settle disputes among powerful nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughs, and their spears into pruning hooks.

“Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations will walk in the name of their gods, and we (Jews) will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.”

If we can live up to the ideal that religious pluralism is the will of God. we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel  will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”…(Isaiah 19:23-5)

Thus, the Bible and the Qur’an’s final judgement is the self-destruction of violent, hate filled terrorism and narrow ‘my way or death’ philosophy and the victory of kindness, love, justice and religious pluralism. As a Hadith warns: “Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, curtails their rights, burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against him or her on the Day of Judgment.” (Abu Dawud 10)

Many first century Jews believed Jesus was not an original prophet; but was a revived Biblical prophet: “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man [the term Jesus used to describe himself] is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the [other] prophets.” (Matthew 16:13-14, Mark 8:27-28, and Luke 9:18-19)

And perhaps this is why Prophet Jesus stresses so strongly that he has not come to replace, but only to enhance Judaism: “Do not think that I have come to abolish Torah laws, or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not a dot, will pass from the Torah until all is accomplished.

“Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same; will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them, and teaches them, will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the [synagogue] scribes and Pharisees [Orthodox Jews]; you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-20)

But what most Jews failed to understand was that nowhere in the Hebrew Bible, or in the rabbinic tradition, does it state that there will never be any non-Jewish Prophets for all the polytheistic nations and tribes that remained. Indeed, there is one passage in the Talmud that indicates that there were three spiritually powerful individual non-Jews from the past; who in the future would help the Jews survive an evil occupation of the Land of Israel.

Prophet Micah asserts that: “When the Assyrian shall come into our land, and tramples our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight princes among men” (Micah 5:4).

The Talmud asks: Who are these seven shepherds, and explains: David is in the middle; Adam, Seth, and Methuselah to his right; Abraham, Jacob, and Moses to his left: and who are the eight princes among men? They are Yishai, Saul, Samuel, Amos, Zephania, Zedekiah, the Messiah, and Elijah.” (Jerusalem Talmud Sukkah 55b, and Babylonian Talmud  Sukkah 52b)

The princes are all Jewish, but of the more important seven shepherds, the first three are non-Jews: Adam, Seth, and Methuselah who are placed on the right hand of King David. The next verse [6] states: “They will shepherd the land of Assyria with swords, the land of Nimrod [Mesopotamia] at its entrances; and He [God] will deliver us from the Assyrian when he attacks our land and when he tramples our territory.”

Thus, in the time of turmoil from Ya’juj and Ma’juj (Qur’an 18:92-99 and 21:96-97) Israel is destined to be protected by three non-Jewish leaders comparable spiritually to Prophets Abraham, Jacob and Moses.

Also Prophet Micah asserts that even in the peace time of the Messianic Age,  “All peoples will walk, each in the name of its God.” (Micah 4:5) So world wide peace and religious unity will not be the result of conformity to one universal religion, but will result from the harmony of many different monotheistic religions, each following its own view of the one God, respecting other monotheistic religions’ views; while disagreeing with them.

“Prepare yourself not to be of those who will grieve on that Day of Resurrection, when neither your material worth nor your family status will benefit you; What will rather benefit is presenting yourself to Allah with a sound heart.”  [Qur’an 26:87]

As the Qur’an says: “For every one of you did We appoint a law and a way. If Allah had wanted He could have made you one people (nation), but (He didn’t) that He might test you in what He gave you. Therefore compete with one another to hasten to do virtuous deeds; for all return to Allah (for judgement), so He will let you know [about] that in which you differed.” [Qur’an 5:48]