The Peopling of the Earth

MESHECH

In the Scriptures Meshech and Tubal are always mentioned together, with a single exception. Ezekiel 27:13; 38:2, 3; 39:1. They are named and can be traced in the Assyrian inscriptions “from the commencement of the twelfth to the middle of the seventh century b. c.” In these inscriptions they are called Muskai, and are placed in the vicinity of the Tuplai, with whom they are constantly associated, as in the Bible. By Herodotus they are called Moschi and are always mentioned in connection with the Tibarini-Meshech and Tubal. Their troops and those of the Tibarini were under the same commander in the great expedition of Xerxes against Athens, 484-479 b. c. The country of Meshech-the Moschi-was in Cappadocia, Colchis, and Armenia, about what is now the vicinity of Kars and Erzeroum. Those of the people of Meshech and Tubal who dwelt there were not all that there were of either nation. For about 650 b. c. the Cappadocians, a people of Persian origin, forced their way into the country of the Moschi and Tibarini, and pressed them back to narrow limits on the Black Sea and about the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, and some of both peoples crossed the Caucasus into the Steppe country on the North-Scythia, now the Russian possessions. There the Moschi became known as Muskors and then “Muscovites, who built Moscow and who still give name to Russia [Muscovy] throughout the East.” The Tibarini-people of Tubal-who went with the Moschi-people of Meshech-settled on and gave name to the River Tobol and the place Tobolsk, another portion of the Russian possessions, east of the Ural Mountains. POTE 263.2

Right here we may mention an interesting point: There is a name so intimately associated with these last two that, although it is not mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis, we ought not to pass it by. In Ezekiel 38:2, 3 and 39:1, King James’s Version of the Scriptures reads; “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal”-margin, “prince of the chief,” etc. But the Revised Version reads, “Gog, the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.” Now from this “Rosh” comes the modern name and nation of Russians (Rosh, Roas, Rouss, Russ, Russians; or Rosh, Roust Rossia, Rossiane). POTE 264.1

“Gesenius considers it beyond doubt that by Rosh is intended the tribe on the north of the Taurus, so called from the neighborhood to the Rha or Volga, and that in this name and tribe we have the first trace of the Russ or Russian nation.”-Smith’s Bible Dictionary. “This early Biblical notice of so great an empire is doubly interesting from its being a solitary instance.”-McClintock and Strong. POTE 264.2

We have already seen that “the land of Magog” through his descendants comprises the entire country of Northern Asia from Germany to the Pacific Ocean. This prophecy of Ezekiel refers in some way to the last days (38:2, 3, 8, 16) and shows that then Russia and the prince of Russia, will be the chief of all that country, and that Meshech and Tubal would also dwell in the land of Magog under its Russian chief. So that 587 years b. c., 2474 years ago, the prophet of God pointed out the Russian Empire as it exists to-day. The Scripture is given by inspiration of God. POTE 264.3

The seventh and last of the sons of Japheth is POTE 265.1