tivated, and consequently much more populous than in our days1os'

It is in the name of Almighty God, that Ezekiel says, And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded: and I will-do better unto you than at your beginnings.-And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, this land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden: and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know, that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it1.

After having stated Dr. Hartley's general arguments, on the practicability of the restoration of the Jews to the country of their ancestors, it may not be unallowable to enter into the field of conjecture, and concisely to state the more immediate causes, which may possibly contribute to their migration and their establishment in Palestine. Should the Turkish empire be overturned by Russia, and should many of the Jews discover an inclination to settle in Palestine, which it is likely they would do on the event of so important a revolution; it is by no means improbable, that the policy of the Russian government would embrace an opportunity of colonising without expence a country, possessed of so many natural advantages, but which is, at present, so scantily inhabited, and so imperfectly cultivated. In such a climate, and under such circumstances, the first settlers would be likely to prosper; and, having prospered, it surely is not irrational to conjecture, that they would be followed by greater numbers, and at length by the general mass of their countrymen, encouraged, as they would be, by the

105 Volney's Travels through Syria and Egypt, vol. II. p. 365.

6

106 Ch. xxxvi. 10, 11, 34, 35, 36. This chapter of Ezekiel contains, says Mr. Lowth, a prediction of the general restoration both of Israel and Judah.'

predictions of the Hebrew scriptures, and animated by the hope of attaining to national independence and personal security. Now should the Russian empire, already greatly superior in point of magnitude to any permanent empire which has ever existed, in consequence of her insatiable ambition and the progress of her arms, become still more extensive; and should the various climes under her dominion be afterwards governed by the rash and fluctuating counsels of a feeble prince; it can hardly be a matter of doubt, that the unwieldy and ill-compacted fabric, requiring the most steady and discerning hand to direct its multifarious movements, and containing within itself the principles of discordancy and dissolution, would, in a short time, fall to pieces, and its disunited fragments be so arranged as to form separate governments. Amid these changes and convulsions, it is easy to conceive, that some of the provinces of Syria, which the Jews had recently colonised, might, with little difficulty, and without any violation of justice, be erected into an independent and respectable state.

But however easy, as we may conjecture, may be the settlement of the Jews in Palestine, there are prophecies in the Old Testament, which lead us to expect, that they will not remain unmolested in the possession of their country.

The following propecy is extracted from the xxxviiith ch. of Ezekiel. The word of Jehovah came also unto me, saying: Son of man, set thy face against Gog of the land of Magog, prince of Rhos, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: behold I am against thee, O Gog.-Thou shalt go up, as a storm cometh, thou shalt be as a cloud to cover the land; thou and all thy bands, and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: it shall come to pass at the same time, that things shall arise in thine heart, and thou shalt think an evil thought; and shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; and I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely; all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates: to take a spoil, and to divide a prey; to turn mine hand against the desolate places that are become

inhabited, and against a people gathered out of the nations, possessing cattle and goods, dwelling in the middle of the earth. In that day, when my people Israel dwelleth securely, shalt thou not rise up and come from thy place, from the northquarters, thou and many people with thee, all them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army? Shalt thou not come up against my people as a cloud to cover the land? Shall it not be in the latter days, that I will bring thee against my land; that the nations may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes?—Art not thou he, of whom I spake in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days and years, that I would bring thee against them. And in the next chapter the prophet says: And I will turn thee back, and leave but a sixth part of thee, when I cause thee to came up from the north-quarters, and bring thee upon the mountains. of Israel.-Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy bands, and the many people that are with thee. And I will set my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and mine hand which I have laid upon them. And the people of Israel shall know that I am Jehovah their God, in that I caused them to be carried away captives among the nations, and afterwards collected them into their own land. And none of them will I leave there any more, neither hide my face any more from them 108

In his argument to the xxxviiith and xxxixth chapters of Ezekiel, Mr. Lowth says, 'the prophecy, contained in this and the following chapter concerning Israel's victory over Gog and Magog, without question relates to the latter ages of the world, when the whole house of Israel shall return

107 The expressions here used, of old times, and which prophesied in those days and years, plainly imply, that there was to be a succession of many ages between the publishing those prophecies and this event fore. told by them.' Mr. Lowth in Loc.

108 The passages above are copied from bp. Newcome's Improved Ver. sion of Ezekiel.

into their own land.' And in commenting on the 8th v. of ch. xxxviii he says, 'the sense is, that after the return of the people of Israel into their own country, and their having lived there for some time in peace and safety, this enemy will think to take advantage of their security, and fall upon them unexpectedly.'

'As for the name Gog, it signifies,' says Mede,' the very same with Magog, for mem is but an Hemantic letter; and it pleased the spirit of God to take away this first syllable to distinguish between the people and the land of the people, calling the people Gog and the land the land of Magog That the Gog and Magog of the Apocalypse11 cannot be understood of the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel, this sagacious commentator has remarked"; and I regard his observation as indubitable.

Bochart, one of the most learned men whom France, or indeed Europe, ever produced, after observing, that among the ancients, it was the opinion of Josephus, Eustathius, Jerom, and Theodoret, that Magog was the father of the Scythians; and that this opinion is perfectly true; alleges various reasons to prove, that Magog signifies Scythia. The beginning of the passage recently quoted from Ezekiel may, he says, be thus paraphrased. Prepare yourself to prophecy against the king of the Scythians, of the land of Magog or Scythia, who is also the prince of Rhos, of Meshech, and of Tubal", that is, of the districts of Araxene,

109 Mede's Works, p. 374.

110 Mentioned ch. xx. v. 8, 9.

111 See his Works, p. 751.

112 Rhos signifies, says Bochart, those who inhabit the Araxene of the Greeks, a province watered by the Araxes and in the neighborhood of the Caspian. Meshech and Tubal, according to the same writer, are the appellations of two adjoining nations, who in the times of Grecian antiquity were called the Moschi and Tibareni, who had immediately to the North of them the people of Gog, and who themselves inhabited a considerable part of the country between the Euxine and the Caspian, and to the South of the Euxine. See the Phaleg of Bochart, 1. iii. c. 12. See also a similar statement in the commentary of that learned Benedictine, Calmet. That Magog, Tubal, and Meshech were the grandsons of Noah and the

Moschica, and Tibarenia, countries contiguous to each other, and, at the time of the publication of the prophecy, subject to the Scythian power.

After observing that the territories of Tubal were situated to the South-East of the Euxine, Mr. Mede speaks of the original seat of the posterity of Magog, and says, Magog, with the consent of all men, we place North of Tubal, and make him the father of those Scythians, that dwelt on the East and North-East of the Euxine sea.' For this we have also an argument from the report of Pliny, in that Scythopolis and Hierapolis, which these Scythians took when they overcame Syria, were ever after by the Syrians called Magog.' In course of time, his descendants, he observes, would have an opportunity of spreading over a vast extent of country, and of penetrating even to Nova Zembla113.

Magog,' says Mr. Lowth, was the son of Japhet, Gen. x. 2. from whence the Scythians are generally supposed to be derived. The Mogul Tartars, a people of Scythian race, are still called so by the Arabian writers.' To the same purpose speaks bp. Newcome. In 'Gen. x. 2.' says he, we learn, that Magog was the second son of Japhet. Ezekiel uses Magog for the country of which Gog was prince.' Michaelis (Spic. Geogr. p. 34) thinks, that Magog denotes those vast tracts of country to the north of India and China, which the Greeks called Scythia, and we Tartary The Arabs call the Chinese wall Sud Yagog et Magog, that is Agger Gog et Magogs?

Notwithstanding the Scythians and the Tartars are admitted to be the ancient aad modern names of the same people, and notwithstanding the passages which have been

sons of Japhet, we are told in the 2d verse of the xth chapter of Genesis. On the districts of Asia which they colonised and gave name to, Dr. Wells's Historical Geography of the Old Testament may also be consulted, vol. I. p. 154-159.

113 Mede's Works, p. 374, 378.

114 Hyde's Works by Sharpe, II. 426.

115 Newcome on Ezek. xxxviii. 2.