Gog of Magog

I have this old KJV witho no publication date but I estimate it to be at least 150 years old. I have handled other copies from the same era so I can guess with reasonable degree of accuracy.

In the notes there is this subtopic "The Ethnology of the Bible by Rev. A. H. Sayce:

Here's Wikipedia entry on Rev. Sayce:
Archibald Sayce - Wikipedia

I looked up Gog and Magog entries and I found Gog was actually Gugu or Gyges, King of Lydia.

Magog means Mat-Gugu or Land of Gugu/Gyges.

The next page is about the language of Magog. They were Aryans.


Question
How and when did Gog and Magog come to represent Russia among 'end times' aficionados?

 

PS
Here's a map showing Paul's missions with Lydia highlighted

 

Quite possible Red Scare contributed to popularity of these theories in the 20th century.

 

Fit in what sense while we know Gog of Magog is Lydia?

 

I checked him out. He has a Bible dictionary not commentary. Here is Gog’s entry;


Gog [N] [H]

• A Reubenite ( 1 Chronicles 5:4 ), the father of Shimei.

• The name of the leader of the hostile party described in Ezek. 38,39, as coming from the "north country" and assailing the people of Israel to their own destruction. This prophecy has been regarded as fulfilled in the conflicts of the Maccabees with Antiochus, the invasion and overthrow of the Chaldeans, and the temporary successes and destined overthrow of the Turks. But "all these interpretations are unsatisfactory and inadequate. The vision respecting Gog and Magog in the Apocalypse ( Revelation 20:8 ) is in substance a reannouncement of this prophecy of Ezekiel. But while Ezekiel contemplates the great conflict in a more general light as what was certainly to be connected with the times of the Messiah, and should come then to its last decisive issues, John, on the other hand, writing from the commencement of the Messiah's times, describes there the last struggles and victories of the cause of Christ. In both cases alike the vision describes the final workings of the world's evil and its results in connection with the kingdom of God, only the starting-point is placed further in advance in the one case than in the other."
  It has been supposed to be the name of a district in the wild north-east steppes of Central Asia, north of the Hindu-Kush, now a part of Turkestan, a region about 2,000 miles north-east of Nineveh.

Gog - Easton's Bible Dictionary Online

And Magog


Magog [N] [H]

region of Gog, the second of the "sons" of Japheth ( Genesis 10:2 ; 1 Chronicles 1:5 ). In ( Ezekiel 38:2 ; 39:6 ) it is the name of a nation, probably some Scythian or Tartar tribe descended from Japheth. They are described as skilled horsemen, and expert in the use of the bow. The Latin father Jerome says that this word denotes "Scythian nations, fierce and innumerable, who live beyond the Caucasus and the Lake Maeotis, and near the Caspian Sea, and spread out even onward to India." Perhaps the name "represents the Assyrian Mat Gugi, or 'country of Gugu,' the Gyges of the Greeks" (Sayce's Races, etc.).
Magog - Easton's Bible Dictionary Online

 

what was the last inhabited land when the prophecy was given?

 

Neither were you born when the prophecy was given.

If you cared about scriptures you'd first find out what was the north most inhabited part when the prophecy was given, find out if there was a historical Gog and Magog. But you are working backwards, from Putin to scriptures

 

The biblical passages concerning Gog and Magog became the focus of later exegetes, who made repeated attempts to associate them with specific individuals and places. Gog has been identified by modern scholars with Gyges, a 7th-century BCE king of Lydia, and with the Akkadian god Gaga; and it has also been argued that the name Magog is derived from an Akkadian word meaning “the land of Gyges.”

Gog and Magog | religion and mythology

 

What if it’s spiritual war?

“for we wrestle not against .....”

I always wonder why we would be all spiritual and suddenly switch to physical

1. Jesus the King of Kings is not seated at a chair in Israel yet he is Lord of Lords

2. We are already reigning with Christ yet I can’t see your subjects

3. Death is cast into the lake of fire. Death is a creature?

4. The church is the temple of Holy Spirit

And so forth

then comes an era where all that goes away

1. We revert to animal sacrifices
2. We have Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem
3. We have a king of Israel.
4. We start lording over men

What role does Jerusalem serve in eternity? Zero. It’s just carved/shaped rocks and architecture as good as any other in this world.