Genesis 10:2; Ezekiel 38-39. A race, like Gomer (the Cimmerians), dwelling in the N. country. Its weapon was the bow, its warriors were all horsemen. Probably the European Scythians, dominant in the region between the Caucasus and Mesopotamia for 30 years from 630 to 600 B.C., who were famous for the bow and fought almost wholly on horseback. They invaded Israel, and besieged Ascalon under the Egyptian Psamineticus. They appear in Ezekiel inhabiting "the sides (the remote recesses) of the N.," adjacent to Togarmah (Armenia) and the "isles," i.e. maritime regions of Europe (Ezekiel 39:2; Ezekiel 39:8; Ezekiel 39:6; Ezekiel 38:6; Ezekiel 38:15). Connected with Meshech (the Moschi) and Tubal (the Tibarenes).
        Their own traditions represent them to have lived first in Asia near the Araxes, afterward to have possessed the whole country to the ocean and lake Maeotis, and the plain to the Tandis or Don. Mixed with the Medes they became the Sarmatians, from whence sprang the Russians. Derived from Sanskrit mah "great" and ghogh "mountain" (Persian). (See for the prophetical sense, etc., (See GOG.) The Syrians in the middle ages applied Magog as a geographical term to Asiatic Turkey; the Arabians applied it to the region between the Caspian and Euxine. Forced by the Massagetae from the N. of Caucasus, they swept down into Asia Minor, took Sardis (629 B.C.), and thence passed into Media and defeated Cyaxares, 624. Their name thus was a terror in the East just before Ezekiel's prophecies, and naturally symbolizes rude violence. Their origin is clearly Japhetic, as Genesis 10:2 implies.