[681] Sayce, _Ethnology of the Bible; Records of the Past_, ix. 40; Schrader, _K. A. T._, 159. Some identify Gog with Gyges, King of Lydia, who was killed in battle _against_ the Scythians, but whose name stood for a geographical symbol of Asia Minor, sometimes called Lud. It is said that in 665 Gyges (Gugu) sent two Scythian chiefs as a present to Nineveh.
[682] Hence, in 2 Macc. iv. 47, 3 Macc. vii. 5, Scythian is used with the modern connotation of "Barbarian."
[683] Ezek. xxxii. 26, 27; Cheyne, _Jeremiah_ ("Men of the Bible") p. 31.
[684] _Expositor_, 2nd series, iv. 263; Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, 31. Hitzig and Ewald (erroneously?) refer Psalms lv., lix., to these events, and it seems also to be an error to suppose that the later name of Bethshan--Scythopolis--has anything to do with this incursion. Like the names of Pella, Philadelphia, etc., it is later than the age of Alexander the Great. See 2 Macc. xii. 30; Jos., _B. J._, II. xviii., _Vit._ vi. Perhaps Scythopolis is a corruption of Sikytopolis, the city of Sikkuth; or Scythian may merely stand for "Barbarian," as in 3 Macc. vii. 5; Col. iii. 11 (Cheyne, _l.c._).
[685] Nah. i. 10, ii. 5, iii. 12; Diod. Sic., ii. 26.
[686] Nah. iii. 8-11.
[687] Strabo, xvi. 1, 3: ἠφανίσθη παοαχρῆμα.
[688] Xen., _Anab._, III. iv. 7.
[689] Chaldees, Kardim, Kasdim, Kurds.
[690] Nabu-pal-ussur, "Nebo protect the son" B.C. 625-7. Jos., _Antt._ X. xi. 1: comp. _Ap._, i. 19.
[691] Newman, _Hebrew Monarchy_, p. 315.