MAGOG. The name of a people, enumerated in Genesis 10:2 among the ‘sons’ of Japheth, between Gomer (the Cimmerians) and Madai (the Medes), and mentioned in Ezekiel 38:2 (cf. Ezekiel 39:6 ) as under the rule of Gog , prince of ‘Rosh, Meshech , and Tubal ,’ who is to lead in the future a great expedition against the restored Israel, from ‘the uttermost parts of the north,’ and who has among his allies Gomer and Togarmah , the nations whose names are italicized being also mentioned in Genesis 10:2-3 as closely connected with ‘Magog.’ From these notices it is evident that Magog must have been the name of a people living far N. of Palestine, not far from Meshech and Tubal, whose home is shown by Assyrian notices to have been N.E. of Cilicia. Following Josephus, Magog has commonly been understood of the Scythians, a wild and rough people, whose proper home (Hdt. iv. 17 20, 47 58) was on the N. of the Crimea, but who often organized predatory incursions into Asia and elsewhere: about b.c. 630 there was in particular a great irruption of Scythians into Asia (Hdt. i. 104 6), which seems to have supplied Ezekiel with the model for his imagined attack of nations from the N. upon the restored Israel (chs. 38, 39). Why, however, supposing this identification to be correct, the Scythians should be called ‘Magog’ is still unexplained. The name has not as yet been found in the Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] inscriptions. In Revelation 20:8 ‘Gog and Magog’ are applied figuratively to denote the nations who are pictured as brought by Satan, at the end of the millennium, to attack Jerusalem, and as destroyed before it (see, further, Gog).
S. R. Driver.