GOG and MAGOG, two names generally joined together in scripture, Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3, &c. xxxix. 1, 2, &c. Rev. xx. 8.). Moses speaks of Magog the son of Japhet, but says nothing of Gog, (Gen. x. 2. 1 Chr. i. 5.). Gog was prince of Magog, according to Ezekiel. Magog signifies the country or people, and Gog the king of that country. The generality of the ancients made Magog the father of the Scythians and Tartars; and several interpreters discovered many footstep of their name in the provinces of Great Tartary. Others have been of opinion that the Persians were the descendants of Magog; and some have imagined that the Goths were descended from Gog and Magog; and that the wars described by Ezekiel, and undertaken by Gog against the saints, are no other than those which the Goths carried on in the fifth age against the Roman empire.

Bochart has placed Gog in the neighbourhood of Caucalus. He derives the name of this celebrated mountain from the Hebrew Gog chafan "the forts of Gog." He maintains that Prometheus, said to be chained to Caucalus by Jupiter, is Gog, and no other. There is a province in Iberia called the Gogaren.

Lastly, the generality believe, that Gog and Magog, mentioned in Ezekiel and the Revelation, are to be taken in an allegorical sense, for such princes as were enemies to the church and saints. Thus many by Gog in Ezekiel understand Antiochus Epiphanes, the persecutor of the Jews who were firm to their religion; and by the person of the same name in the Revelations, they suppose Antichrist to be meant, the great enemy of the church and faithful. Some have endeavoured to prove that Gog, spoken of in Ezekiel, and Cambyses king of Persia, were one and the same person; and that Gog and Magog in the Revelation denote all the enemies of the church, who should be persecutors of it to the consummation of ages.