b. Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God: this is the day whereof I have spoken., 9. And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the hand-staves and the spears; and they shall burn them with fire seven years-11. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea; and it shall stop the noses of the passengers and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude and they shall call it The valley of Hamon-Gog. 12. And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. 13. Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them renown the day that I God. 14. And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land, to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. 15. And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man's bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-Gog. 16. And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.

and it shall be to them a am glorified, saith the Lord

17. And

A

17. And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl*, and to every beast of the field; Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. 18. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, of all the fatlings of Bashan. 19. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 20. Thus shall ye be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men and with all men of war, saith the Lord God.

21. And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. 22. And the house of Israel shall know,

* Speak unto every feathered fowl.] St. John has borrowed the imagery of this passage in his description of the overthrow of the Antichristian Roman confederacy (Rev. xix. 17—21.) : but a mere adaptation will not prove the identity of the two confederacies against positive argument. This allegory of Ezekiel has called forth in a very singular manner the critical powers of an unbeliever. Voltaire quoted it to prove, that the Jews of old times eat the flesh of horses and even of men: and, though cautioned that not Jews, nor men, but wild "beasts and birds, were invited to this feast of slaughter, "that is, to the consumption of the slain, yet insisted to the "last on his strange accusation." Michaelis cited by Abp. Newcome in loc.

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that I am the Lord their God, from that day and forward. 23. And the nations shall know, that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies so fell they all by the sword. 24. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them;

25. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name; 26. And they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they trespassed against me, when they dwelt in their land in confident security, and none made them afraid. 27. When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of the lands of their enemies, and have been sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; 28. Then shall they know, that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the nations but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. 29. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.

COMMENTARY.

The principal difficulty in the exposition of this prophecy is to ascertain, what people and what sovereign Ezekiel means by Magog and Gog: whether they be the same, or not the same, as the apocalyptic Gog and Magog; whether their expedition will be undertaken at the beginning, or at the end, of the Millennium.

Mr. Mede supposes, that they are not the same as the apocalyptic Gog and Magog, but only typical of them; that their expedition takes place at the beginning, not at the end, of the Millennium; and that the nation intended by them is that of the Turks. The reasons, which he assigns for his opinion, are these: that Ezekiel's Gog and Magog come out of the north parts, where the posterity of Magog was scattered; whereas St. John's Gog and Magog are said to be nations, which are in the four quarters of the earth: that Ezekiel's Gog and Magog are to be some terrible enemy, which should come against Israel at the time of their return, and should be destroyed by the Lord with a dreadful slaughter; whereas St. John's Gog and Magog are not brought upon the stage till the close of the Millennium *.

Bp. Newton expresses himself much to the same purpose as Mr. Mede, though somewhat more

* Mede's Works. B. iii. C. 12. and B. iv. Epist. 41.

guardedly

guardedly and indecisively, as if it were possible that the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel might be the same as the Gog and Magog of St. John. "At "the expiration of the thousand years," says he, "the restraint shall be taken off from wickedness. "For a little season, as it was said before, Satan "shall be loosed out of his prison, and make one "effort more to re-establish his kingdom. As he "deceived our first parents in the paradisaical "state, so shall he have the artifice to deceive the "nations in this millennial kingdom, to shew that

no state or condition upon earth is exempted "and secured from sinning. The nations, whom " he shall deceive, are described as living in the "remotest parts of the world, in the four quarters "of the earth; and they are distinguished by "the name of Gog and Magog, and are said to be "as numerous as the sand of the sea. Gog and

Magog seem to have been formerly the general

name of the northern nations of Europe and "Asia, as the Scythians have been since, and the "Tartars are at present. In Ezekiel there is a "famous prophecy concerning Gog and Magog; "and this prophecy alludes to that in many par"ticulars. Both that of Ezekiel and this of St. "John remain yet to be fulfilled; and therefore we cannot be absolutely certain that they may "not both relate to the same event; but it appears more probable that they relate to different events. "The one is expected to take effect before, but "the other will not take place, till after the Mil"lennium.