Gog and Magog.
James Dodson
[from The Covenanter, Devoted to the Principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 7.7 (February 1852) ed. James M. Willson. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1852. pp. 197-199.]
They are described, Ez. xxxviii. 2; 3: “Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him; and say. Thus saith the Lord God, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.”
Meshech is Moscow, and Tubal is Tobolsk, the former the ancient capital of European Russia, the latter that of the Asiatic.[1] There is an account of the martial array—cavalry and infantry of the huge Russian army. Gomar, v. 5, was the grandson of Noah. (Gen. x. 3.) From him the Gomerans or Germans are descended. Togarmah was the third son of Gomar. He was the ancestor of the nations along the foot of the Baltic, the chief of whom are the Prussians. They are the same race as the Turkomans, who inhabited the mountains of Hindostan [India], from which issued hordes, who were called Scythians, now the Don Cossacs. They are dispersed to the west, now known as the Sarmatians, a people north of the Danube and the Rhine. These nations, Ezekiel says, are “of the north quarters,” xxxvii. 6. They are all vassals of the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. Persia, Ethiopia, on the head waters of the Nile, and Libya, west of Egypt, are in the arms of this great Northern power. The Vandals, from ancient Vandalia, have often emigrated in large masses through Western Asia into Africa. In very many respects they retain the habits and manners of the Northern nations from which they sprung, and are of the same spirit. These Northern, European, Asiatic and African tribes are all acting together under one head, “the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” The Hebrew word translated chief is ראש, rash, or rosh, whence the name Russ or Russia is derived. This chief prince is the Emperor of Russia. He rules with iron sway a vast assemblage of tribes, from Kamschatka [Kamchatka] to the Gulf of Bothnia, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Danube in Europe, and the Caspian Sea. The realms of this potentate embrace a population of 61,000,000. Every year he drafts 200,000 young men, who are kept on drill two years. This process has been going on for 30 years. If the one half of these have died, there remain more than 3,500,000 drilled troops in Russia. Besides, a warlike spirit has been diffused through the whole empire,—it is one vast camp.
This is the storm cloud seen by Ezekiel, and recorded in the first chapter of his prophecies. It is the gathering of the fearful hail storm of the seventh vial. (Rev. xvi. 21.) One advance cloud burst over Poland, 1830, and another, the same year, on the lower Danube. In 1849, another spread fearful desolation through Hungary.
It is not strange that alarmed nations, even the mightiest, gaze at the rising tempest in dismay. This mighty despot of the North has his emissaries employed in every kingdom of Southern Europe and even in our own country. Greece is little more than an appanage [a gift of land] of the chief prince of the North.
The prophet, for the consolation of the saints, predicts the entire overthrow of this tremendous Northern power after it shall have executed God’s vengeance on the fourth beast, with seven heads and ten horns, “out of the bottomless pit,” the Roman Empire, and upon Popery—the harlot woman that rides the beast.
“I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands.” (Chap, xxxix. 3, 4.) The left hand is East and the right West, as the Russian Chief advances on the South, on which he has had his eye for more than 100 years. There has been a commencement of fulfilling this remarkable prophecy, in the failure of the Russian armies in Circassia. The bow has fallen almost out of his right hand, He shall fall upon “the mountains of Israel.” The Circassian battles, in which Russia has failed, are on the west side of the Euphrates, and so within the territory promised to the seed of Abraham.[2] (Joshua i. 2, 4.) But the full accomplishment is yet future and very near at hand. The destruction of human life, indicated in this war, can refer to no less than the battle of Armageddon, הרמּגדדון in the highest mountain of Gad and Dan. The mountains of Israel, where the army of the North will be defeated.
In that war, the last on our planet, the Mahometan empire will fall to rise no more. Israel will be restored to his own land (Ez. xii.) immediately after the “temple will be built, the national Church will be organized, and the land divided.” Thy kingdom come.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Granville Sharp, and Paxton’s Illustrations.
[2] Keith’s Land of Israel.