Gog, Armilus, and the Two Messiahs in Midrash Vayosha

"The Lord shall reign forever and ever." Our Sages of blessed memory said: Moses said to Israel, You have seen the miracles and mighty deeds that the Holy One, blessed be He, performed for you; far more than these is He destined to do for you in the time to come, in this world and in the world to come. In this world there are wars and troubles and the evil inclination and Satan and the Angel of Death, who have permission to rule in the world; but in the world to come there are neither troubles nor groanings nor servitude nor the evil inclination nor Satan nor the Angel of Death, as it is said, "And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces" (Isaiah 25), and it is written, "And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation" (ibid. 25). And when the days of the Messiah arrive, Gog and Magog will come up against the land of Israel, because he will hear that Israel is without a king and dwells securely. At once he will take with him seventy-one nations and go up to Jerusalem, and he will say: Pharaoh was a fool, for he decreed to kill the males and left the females; and Balak was stupid, for he wished to curse them and did not know that their God blessed them; and Haman was mad, for he wished to slay them and did not know that their God could deliver them; but I will not do so to them. Rather, I will go up and wage war first with their God, and afterward I will slay them, as it is said, "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed" (Psalms 2). And the Holy One, blessed be He, will say to him: Wicked one! Do you seek to make war with My people? By your life, I will make an end of you. At once He will bring down upon him hailstones that are stored away in the firmament and strike them with a great plague, as it is said, "And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth" (Zechariah 14:12). And after him there will arise another king, wicked and brazen of face, and he will wage war with Israel for three months, and his name is Armilus, and these are his signs: he will be bald, and one of his eyes small and one large, and his right arm a handbreadth and his left two and a half cubits; and he will have leprosy on his forehead, and his right ear stopped up and his left open. When a man comes to speak to him good things, he turns toward him his stopped-up ear, and if a man wishes to speak to him evil, he turns toward him his open ear. And he will go up to Jerusalem and slay Messiah son of Joseph, as it is said, "And they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son" (Zechariah 12:10). And afterward Messiah son of David will come in a cloud, as it is said, "Behold, one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven" (Daniel 7), and it is written after it, "And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom"; and he will slay Armilus the wicked, as it is said, "And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked" (Isaiah 11). And afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, will gather in the dispersed of Israel scattered here and there, as it is said, "I will hiss for them and gather them, for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase as they have increased" (Zechariah 10:8). And there will hang in Jerusalem seventy-two pearls that shine from one end of the world to the other, and the nations of the world will walk by that light, as it is said, "And nations shall walk by thy light, and kings by the brightness of thy rising" (Isaiah 60). And the Temple the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring down from heaven, just as the Holy One, blessed be He, showed it to Moses, as it is said, "Thou bringest them in and plantest them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, O Lord." And Israel will dwell there two thousand years and eat of the Leviathan; and at the end of two thousand years the Holy One, blessed be He, will sit upon the throne of judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and at once the heavens and the earth are changed, and the sun and moon are ashamed, as it is said, "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed" (Isaiah 24). And whence that on the third day (in the third millennium) the judgment will be? As it is said, "On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him" (Hosea 6) — this is the judgment. And the Holy One, blessed be He, brings every nation and tongue and says to them: Whom did you serve in the world that has passed, and to whom did you bow down? And they say: To idols of silver and idols of gold. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: Pass, you yourselves, through this fire, and your gods — if they are able to deliver you, let them deliver you. At once they pass through and are burned there, as it is said, "The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God" (Psalms 9). And afterward Israel comes, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: Whom did you serve? At once they answer, "For Thou art our father, for Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us; Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer from of old is Thy name" (Isaiah 63). At once the Holy One, blessed be He, delivers them from the judgment of Gehinnom, and they dwell in the Garden of Eden and take delight in its fruits, as it is said, "But the humble shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Psalms 37). And afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, renews for them the heavens and the earth, as it is said, "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65). And the earth which the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to renew will bring forth good trees and all kinds of sweet fruits, and all live forever and unto all eternity. He who performed miracles and wonders in those days, may He perform miracles and wonders with us in these days and at this time, and gather us from the four corners of the earth and lead us to Jerusalem; may it be built and established speedily in our days, Amen.