Ezekiel 32:26

Meshech: see Ezekiel 27:13. Tubal: see Ezekiel 27:13; to which interpretation I still adhere, adding that in the full extent of these Moschi and Tibareni, these Cappadocians and Albanians, the Scythians may be included, many of which were next neighbours to them. Junius is of opinion that the Scythians are here meant, and so am I. But it will be said they never had such a settled kingdom worth noting. It is true of that barbarous people, there is no account that ever they were lords of the world; yet they caused their terror in the land of the living, and were slain by the sword under the command and in the expeditions of their kings into Asia, who were accompanied with her multitudes. Velleius reports they wasted Asia 350 years before Rome was thought of, and that is about 1082 years before Christ's birth. Again, we find them in arms, (no doubt in numbers much like what they appeared in when Tomvris their queen destroyed Cyrus, or when they have moved against their neighbours in later days,) and with those arms wasted the Cimmerii, a people seated near them on the Euxine Sea and the Maeotis Palus; and about that time they did under their chieftains waste Asia, they forced Cyaxares from the siege of Nineveh, such considerable strength they had then; this was 634 before Christ's birth, were lords of Asia for twenty-eight years, and it seems that their power was such, Cyaxares was glad to decline plain dealing, and to overthrow them by a wile, as Calvisius tells us, ad A.M. 3344, and the help of Halyattes, king of the Lydians. These things were fresh in memory when Ezekiel prophesied thus against Egypt, for they fell out about the eighth or ninth year of Pharaoh-necho, some fourteen years before Pharaoh-hophra came to the crown; now about the sixth year of his reign came this word of the Lord to Ezekiel; so that the prophet might well mention these as instances of God's power abating the pride and destroying the kingdoms of the mighty, and these are with reason brought in among the Persians and Assyrians.