2. Magog is elsewhere mentioned by Ezekiel only, first among the countries ruled by Gog, and espe cially associated with Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal (Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3), and apparently spoken of as dwelling in the isles' (xxxix. 6). The term isles' certainly must not be taken necessarily to indicate islands, but it is apparently limited to maritime, transmarine, and very remote regions (Ges., Lex., S. V. It has been generally held that Magog, used for a nation, is applied to the Scythians of the Greeks, though perhaps in a restricted sense. Certainly, in the time of Ezekiel, the Scythians who invaded western Asia were the most powerful nation of the country to which the confederacy mentioned by the prophet may reasonably be as signed ; and the agreement of Josephus (Antiq. i. 6. 1) and Jerome (Quest. in Gen. x. 2) in the identification is not to be overlooked.
3. Madai, always later applied to the country Media, very appropriately follows Magog, if the latter, when used geographically, indicates the Scythian neighbours of the Medes. Madai, like other names afterwards employed for a country rather than a people, may originally have been a man's name (cf. Mizrahn, infra).
4. Javan.—Except where applied to an Arabian place or tribe (Ezek. xxvii. 19 ; and perhaps Joel iii. 6), this is, in all later places, the name of the Greeks, or at least the Hellenic Greeks. The Persians, like the Hebrews, called all the Greeks Ionians.
a. Elishah, at the head of the descendants of Javan, is to be looked for in Hellenic geography. It is mentioned in Ezekiel as trading with Tyre, Blue and purple, from the isles of Elishah, was that which covered thee' (xxvii. 7). The name has been compared with Elis, Hellas, and the jEolians. Etymologically the first and third are equally probable, but other circumstances seem almost decisive in favour of the latter. The coast of the fEolian settlements in Asia Minor produced purple, and the name of so important a division of the Hellenic nation would suit better than that of a city which never was rich and powerful enough to he classed with Sidon, Tyre, or Carthage.
b. Tarshish is in later Biblical history the name of a great mart, or, as some hold, of two The famous Tarshish, supposing there were two, was one of the most important commercial cities of the period of the kings, second only, if second, to Tyre. It was accessible from the coast of Pales tine, but its trade was carried on in large ships, ships of Tarshish,' which implies a distant voyage from Palestine. It brought to Tyre silver, iron,
tin, and lead' (Ezek. xxvii. 12). These products seem to point incontestibly to a Spanish emporium, and the majority of modern commentators agree in fixing on the celebrated Tartessus, said to have been founded by the Phcenicians, and with which the Phcenicians traded. In some places Tarshish seems to be evidently a country.
c. Kittim.—This gentile noun, usually written Chittim in the A. V., is generally connected with Citium of Cyprus. Other indications of Scripture seem not unfavourable to this identification, which would make the Kittim or Chittim a sea-faring population of Cyprus.
d. Dodanim, closely connected in the table by construction as well as in form, with Kittim Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim (Gen. x. 4)--was a maritime or insular people. Ezekiel says of Tyre, The men of Dedan [were] thy merchants ; many isles [were] the merchandise of thine hand : they brought thee Iforl a present horns of ivory and ebony' (xxvii. 15). The read ing in the list as given in 1 Chron. (i. 7), is Ro danim, a form which is probably the true one, as supported by the LXX. and Samaritan versions. The LXX. identifies this people with the Rho dians in all instances, including that in Ezekiel. In the prophet's time Rhodes was a great seat of Phoenician commerce, and at the site of Camirus, one of its three important cities before Rhodes the city was founded, many objects of Phoenician style have been discovered. It may be added that ivory is one of the materials of its antiquities. The identification, considering the probable place of the Kittim, is very likely.
5. Tubal, and 6. Meshech, are in later places mentioned together (Ezek. xxvii. 13 ; xxxviii. 2, 3; xxxix. I), and were evidently northern nations (xxxix. 2). They have been traced in the Moschi and Tibareni mentioned together by Herodotus (iii. 94 ; vii. 7S), and as Muskai and Tuplai, in the Assyrian inscriptions (Rawlinson's Herodotus, p. 535), which inhabited the northern coast of Asia Minor towards the Caucasus.
6. Tiras, last in the list of the sons of Japheth, has not been satisfactorily identified. The best comparison is perhaps with the Tyrrhenians or Tyrsenians, as then all the chief territories of Japhethite civilization would seem to have been indicated— Armenia, Asia Minor, Thrace, the Asiatic Islands, European Greece, Italy, and Spain.