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COMMENTARY ON AMOS, CHAPTER SEVEN This is what the Lord showed me: a plague of locusts coming early, and one young locust King Gog. They will finish eating the grass of the land. I said, Lord, Lord, be merciful: who will raise up Jacob, for he is tiny? Relent, Lord, in this matter. This will not happen, says the Lord (vv.1–3). OD REVEALS to the prophet what nation will be brought upon the people of Israel, or what harm will befall them; on the other hand, he follows his custom of informing him of what will be done through things of which he has a precise knowledge. The locust and the young locust always strike shepherds as being frightful, and really are; when fodder is, as it were, sheared off by them, the flocks then necessarily perish. God therefore indicates the calamities of war to the prophet as to a shepherd. (497) He indicates the Assyrian under the guise of a locust, eating and consuming, as it were, the land by its unlimited numbers; and he calls it early as though falling like dew and poured out on the land in the manner of snowflakes. There was, however, he says, one young locust; it was King Gog. Then God says, They will finish eating the grass of the land, that is, when they finish eating the numerous herd that is in Samaria, obviously, and in the cities of Judea. Then, when he is on the point of adding something else, the prophet intervenes , asking him to cease his wrath: Lord, be merciful: who will raise up Jacob, for he is tiny? That is, if you intend, as I see you do, to surrender Israel to the enemy as food, it will be quite tiny. In reply, This will not happen, says the Lord; I would not grow weary or give up, for I would never cease from chastising offenders. There being need to investigate who Gog is, our view is that the blessed prophet Ezekiel also uses him in writing a lament at God’s direction. In our opinion he is Sennacherib; when the Rabshakeh mocked God, “an angel of the Lord issued forth and 97 98 CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA in a single night slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians from the camp.”1 Now, we shall quote what is recorded of him in the account of Ezekiel, which goes as follows: “Thus says Lord the Lord to Gog: Are you the one of whom I spoke (498) in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel in those days and years that I would bring you against them?” Do you hear how he says it was he and no one else who threatened through holy prophets to attack the people of Israel? The fact that he was called to account for his brazen language, and when expecting to dominate he was unexpectedly done away with and fell in the land of Israel, he goes on straightway to indicate by saying, “And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, prince of Meshech and Tubal: I shall assemble you, guide you, and lead you to the remotest parts of the north, and bring you to the mountains of Israel . I shall strike your bow from your left hand and your arrows from your right hand. I shall bring you down on the mountains of Israel, and you will fall along with those about you, and the nations about you will be given to a large flock of birds. I have given you to every bird and to all the wild beasts of the plain to be eaten; you will fall on the open plain, for I have spoken, says Lord the Lord.” And later again, “On that day I shall give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the cemetery of those traveling to the sea. They will block the mouth of the valley and bury there Gog and all his multitude, and it will then be called cemetery of Gog. The house of Israel will bury them so as to be purified in seven months, and all the people of the land will bury them, (499) and it will bring them honor on that day, says Lord the Lord.”2 When, in fact, the Assyrians fell, who are referred to as Gog, perhaps the population of Israel buried the dead to prevent cities and countries being harmed by the unbearable nature of such a...

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