As in Ezekiel Gog and Magog are represented as prince and people, and in their combination the sym bol of the heathen nations as opposed to Israel, so in the Apocalypse (xx. 8) we find the two names appear ing as the designations of separate peoples, the com bination of which represents the entire anti-christian force of the world. This is in accordance with later Jewish notions, and with an apparently wide spread tradition which represented Gog and Magog as synonymous with the aggregate powers of evil as opposed to the kingdom of God. We find traces of this in the Targums (see that of Jerusalem on Num. xi. 27, and that of Pseudo-Jonathan on Lev. xxvi. 44, and Num. xi. 27), and in the Talmud (Sanked. xciv. z ; Edaioth, ii. It); Avoda Zarah, s ; Wetstein, in lac.) We find it also in the tra• ditions of the Syrians (Knos, Chrestanzath. Syr., p. 66, ff.) and of the Arabians (Koran, xviii. 93-97 ; D'Herbelot, Bibliath. Orient., s. v. jagiouge). The idea arose probably from the phrase being in the first instance vaguely used of the barbarous, little known, and much feared tribes which hung around the outskirts of Semitic civilization in the ancient world. Similarly the Arabs used Chin wa Machin, to designate the vast distant and little known empire of China.
As to the derivation of the word Magog, no thing cad be said with certainty. Knobel connects Gag with the Pers. Koh, mountain, and regards the Ma as the Sansc. Mahe?, great, thus making Magog =the g,reat mountain, and supposing an allusion to the Caucasus. Fiirst agrees in connecting Gag with Koh, but he thinks the Ma is the Copt. ma, place
(comp. Sansc. mahi, earth). Others compare Gag with Chakan, a name given by the north ern Asiatics to the sovereign, and still retained by the Turks as one of the titles of the Sultan. What throws doubt on all these etymologies is, that they proceed on the assumption that Gog is the original word from which Magog is formed, whereas the reverse is obviously the fact ; from Magog, the name of the son of Japheth, the Jews taking the l as the Mem loci derived Gog. Bochart suggests a derivation from :41*, the Hithpael of which is used in the sense of melting or wasting; but he does this merely to get an argument in support of his notion that Magog is the Greek Prometheus, of whom the tradition was, that, chained to a rock on Caucasus, his liver was consumed by an eagle ; a notion which, though embraced by Stillingfleet (Origines Sacr., bk. iii. c. 5), and by Gale (Court of the Gentiles, pt. I. bk. ii. c. 6), must be regarded as a mere learned fancy. There is more proba. bility in the suggestion that Magog stands related etymologically to Agag, Ogyges, etc., and that we have in it the syllable ag or ak, which plays so im portant a part in the languages of the Japhetic peoples, and which conveys the general concept of activity, energy, greatness, or majesty ; comp. dyap, fl-ya,uat, dyn, dyco, Ityp6s, ktaKpos, macer ; Sansc. moh, to grow, kte-yas, magma, macht, nagen, ktayetu, pow ; Sansc. magh, to move productively, macho:, Sansc. ag, to move, Lat. aqua, etc.—W. L. A.