Who is Russia in Bible Prophecy?

Russia has been a major player in end-time world events starting with World War I. It was the Bolshivek revolution in 1917 that opened the way for Russia to become communist. This had a tremendous impact on World War 2 and directly caused the Cold War. Russia has spread communism all over the world, and the effects of its Cold War influence are still felt today.

They are one of the world’s leading oil and gas producers. They have the largest nation in terms of land mass on planet earth. Due to the large expanse of their nation and the types of peoples it covers, they will be found in various places in the Bible.

The Assyrian Historian A.H. Sayce notes that the names of peoples called the “Tubla and Muska” were found in ancient inscriptions in Northern Iraq (A.H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament, 1893. pg. 48). Herodotus also mentions these peoples together as the Moschi and the Tiberani (Book 3:94). The geographer Strabo, writing in the early 1^st century AD, discusses the Moschi Mountains as extending from lower Armenia and into Albania (Strabo, Book XI, Chapter 2,12). Strabo did not do much research north of this area. These people groups eventually migrated north into the nation we call Russia.

In history, one of the nations in Russia proper was called the Muscovite Nation. Meshek is an ancient name for Moscow, which is in the region of Muskovy and sits on the Moskva river (Meshek in Hebrew is simply MSHK, which could be pronounced any number of ways over time). Tubal refers to the middle part of Russia, in which is a city named Tobolosk. This city sits on the Tobol river.

Rosh is a word in Hebrew which means “head” or “chief”. Rhos and Rus have been names used for Western Russia/Eastern Europe for over 1,000 years. This is where the name Russia actually comes from (see also nations like BelaRUS). This evidence allows us to pair Rosh, Meshek, and Tubal together, as they are all mentioned beside each other in Ezekiel 38:6 as dwelling “in far north.”

The Russians and other Eastern Europeans have another Biblical nation associated with them. The Medes and Persians were an alliance of two nations between 600 and 334 BC. Herotodus mentions that they had colonies in Eastern Europe around 400 BC (Book 5:9). The Medo-Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great in 334 BC. At this time, the Medes began to migrate. In Strabo’s account of Geography, he mentions the Medes alongside the Moschi (Strabo, Book XI, Chapter 2,12). These people dwelt together. Pliny the Elder in the latter 1^st century noted that some of the Medes had migrated to the Don River, which is one of the major rivers of Southern Russia (Natural History Book VI, verse 19).

About 9 years ago, Russia and Iran began formal cooperation with each other, especially in the area of military development. The symbol for Russia is the bear, which is the same animal used to describe the Medo-Persian empire of Ancient times (see Daniel 7:1-10). The bear in Daniel has one side raised up. In ancient times, the Persians had a stronger control of this alliance. In modern times, the MEDES (Western Russians) have the upper hand. They are raised up. When these nations agreed upon formal cooperation, it was bringing back this ancient alliance.

We see from these brief explanations of history that Russia is referred to as “Rosh,Meshech, and Tubal” and also as the descendants of the Medes.