25.--FUTURE MAGNITUDE Of GOG'S DOMINION

Daniel does not particularize the extent of the dominion of the King of the North in the eleventh chapter; though indeed he symbolizes it in his second. But what he has omitted in the eleventh, Ezekiel has sufficiently supplied in his prophecy of Gog. By the names of the peoples he mentions in Gog's title, and the description of his army, the reader may learn what nations this Autocrat gathereth and heapeth to himself as thick clay in the day of his high exaltation (Hab. 2: 5, 6).

Daniel says of him in general terms, "He shall enter into the countries, and shall overwhelm and pass over"--and "many (ravboth, referring to eretzoth, countries, understood) shall fall"; that is, from weakness, as the word implies--the worn-out condition of the powers facilitating his progress. Ezekiel tells us that these countries are those of Magog, Gomer, Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, and Togarmah, with their hosts; in addition to Rosh, Meshekh, and Thuval. He says that the King of the North, or Gog, is to be for mishmar, a guard, sentinel, shepherd, or supervisor, over all these (Ezek. 38: 7). It is not to be supposed that he will be the sole emperor, or crowned head. 'The position marked out for him is that of a King of kings, and a Lord of lords, as was his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, the post-Nimroudian founder of the Kingdom of Babylon. It is probable that the House of Hapsburg will continue imperial; nay, I would say more than probable. The Autocrat's supervisorship of the Kingdom of Babylon is not at all incompatible with the Western Imperiality of Austria. Alexander in Constantinople, and Francis Joseph in Vienna, with the priority assigned to the former, would only be a resuscitation of an old form of the catholic Kingdom of the Fourth Beast, as when Arcadius and Honorius amicably divided, or rather agreed to sustain, the Majesty of the Two-Legged Iron and Brass dominion upon their united shoulders. According to this arrangement there will then exist a Dragon, a Beast with Two Horns like the horns of a Lamb, and the Ten Horns, exercising all the power now exercised by the thrones, principalities, and powers, in the countries named by Ezekiel, and represented by the Diademed Ten-Horned symbol.

The Autocrat, then, as chief emperor, will become in the progress of events "Lord of the Ascendant", even the Agag* of the East and West; shining forth from his lofty throne as Lucifer, son of the morning, over the nations weakened by the gratification of his insatiable ambition. If he have not yet said it, the time is coming when he will "think an evil thought" (Ezek. 38:10), and say in his heart, as it is revealed of him, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation (Zion) in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!" (Isa. 14:13, 14). He who made man, and knows thoroughly the vanity and presumption of the human heart, has spoken thus of Belshazzar the type of the last occupant of the throne of the Kingdom of Babylon. A man of such a soul as this is not upright, and therefore unfit to rule the world for God; for "He that ruleth over men must be just,-ruling in the fear of Yahweh" (2 Sam. 23: 3). His dominion's duration must therefore of necessity be brief. But while it lasts, he will prove himself to be "a proud man, who enlargeth his desire as the grave, and as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto himself all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples,... lading himself with thick clay" (Hab. 2: 4-6).

* In the MS. from which the seventy Jews in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus translated Num. 24:7, Agag seems to have read Gog. Their rendering is, "A man shall come out of the seed of (Jacob), and he shall rule many nations; the kingdom shall be exalted above Gog, and his kingdom shall be increased". "The Samaritan text, the Greek text of Symmachus, and also the old Italic version quoted by Cyprian, read the same; and we are told that the same reading is preserved in the Sclavonian, Russian, and Armenian versions."

By turning to a map of Europe and Asia, the reader may trace out the territory of the Kingdom of Babylon as it is destined to exist in its last form under the King of the North in his Gogian manifestation. The names of countries furnished by Ezekiel will lead him to a just conception of its general extent. Besides "All the Russias", it will take in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Prussia, Austria, Turkey, Persia, Tartary, Greece, the Roman Africa, and Egypt. This will be a dominion of great magnitude, extending from the North Sea to the Wail of China and Afghanistan, and from the Ice-Sea to the Deserts of Africa and Arabia.