Ezekiel 38

38: 1, 2 AND the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal: and I will turn thee about, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armour, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them handling swords: Persia, Cush, and Put with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes: even many peoples with thee. Be thou prepared, yea, prepare thyself, thou, and all thy companies that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, upon the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste: but it is brought forth out of the peoples, and they shall dwell securely, all of them. And thou shalt ascend, thou shalt come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy hordes, and many peoples with thee. Thus saith the Lord God: It shall come to pass in that day, that things shall come into thy mind, and thou shalt devise an evil device: and thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at quiet, that dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates: to take the spoil and to take the prey; to turn thine hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and against the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the middle of the earth. Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take the spoil? hast thou assembled thy company to take the prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil? Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God: In that day when my people Israel dwelleth securely, shalt thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north, thou, and many peoples with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army: and thou shalt come up against my people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring thee against my land, that the nations may know thee, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. Thus saith the Lord God: Art thou he of whom I spake in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring thee against them? And it shall come to pass in that day, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up into my nostrils. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; so that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him unto all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man’s sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his hordes, and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing shower, and great 23 hailstones, fire, and brimstone. And I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am the LORD. 39:1 And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God: 2 Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal: and I will turn thee about, and will lead thee on, and will cause thee to come up from the uttermost parts of the 3 north; and I will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: and I will smite thy bow out of 4 thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy hordes, and the peoples that are with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be de- 5 voured. Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell securely in the isles: and they shall 7 know that I am the LORD. And my holy name will I make known in the midst of my people Israel; neither will I suffer my holy name to be profaned any more: and the nations shall 8 know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. Behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, 9 saith the Lord God; this is the day whereof I have spoken. And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall make fires of the weapons and burn them, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and 10 they shall make fires of them seven years: so that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall make fires of the weapons: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God. 11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place for burial in Israel, the valley of them that pass through on the east of the sea: and it shall stop them that pass through: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The 12 valley of Hamon-gog. And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that 13 they may cleanse the land. Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be 14 to them a renown, in the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord God. And they shall sever out men of continual employment, that shall pass through the land to bury them that pass through, that remain upon the face of the land, to cleanse it: after the end of seven 15 months shall they search. And they that pass through the land shall pass through; and when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it 16 in the valley of Hamon-gog. And Hamonah shall also be the name of a city. Thus shall they cleanse the land. 17 And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord God: Speak unto the birds of every sort, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come: gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, 18 that ye may eat flesh and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of 19 Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice 20 which I have sacrificed for you. And ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, 21 with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God. And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgement that I have executed, and my hand 22 that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, 23 from that day and forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; because they trespassed against me, and I hid my face from them: 24 so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they fell all of them by the sword. Ac- cording to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions did I unto them; and I hid my face from them. 25 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and 26 have mercy upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. And they shall bear their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against 27 me, when they shall dwell securely in their land, and none shall make them afraid; when I have brought them again from the peoples, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, 28 and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, in that I caused them to go into captivity among the nations, and have 29 gathered them unto their own land; and I will leave none of them any more there; neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.

Chaps. 38, 39. The last conflict of the world with God, and the complete overthrow of the former. It is a gathering together of the enemies of Jehovah to make their last effort, and to be overthrown. The seer passes now to the final struggle between Good and Evil, and the triumphant establishment of the Divine rule. It is the same struggle which is depicted in the Book of Revelation (20: 7-10), where John adopts words and phrases of Ezekiel, indicating thereby that he is predicting the same event which Ezekiel had foretold.

There are four main divisions of this prophecy: 38: 1-13, describing Gog’s march on a peaceable and unoffending people; 38: 14-23, his punishment; 39: 1-16, the completion of his ruin; 39: 17-29, the issue of Gog’s ruin in Israel’s redemption and sanctification. Each division, however, is broken up like a poem into stanzas, where the subject is from time to time reintroduced and treated with variety, while the same phrases recur, giving force and unity to the whole. B. C.

These two chapters are essentially one in their subject-matter and aim, and are closely connected with chaps. 34, 36 and 37 preceding, and with chaps. 40-48 following. They are manifestly part of the series of prophecies recorded in the three preceding chapters—refer to the same great future of Zion, and are in the same sense general rather than specific in their ultimate meaning. The one great truth which they teach is expressed forcibly by Isaiah (54: 17, 15). “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.” “Behold, they shall gather together (i.e., against thee), but not by Me; who-souver shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.” H. C.

The predictions of Ezekiel respecting Gog present many difficulties; but one thing we may at least say, that they have not yet been fulfilled. Whether by Gog we are to understand an enemy distinct from the Antichrist who wars against the Church, or that the Antichrist is here described in his special relations to the Jewish people, it is impossible to say; but the manner of his destruction and the national blessedness that follow it seem to point to one and the same chief and last enemy. Andrews.

2-6. “Meshech and Tubal,” the countries of the Moschi and the Tibareni, lay on the south of the Caspian, the home of the people known by the ancient Greeks as the Scythians. Josephus (Antiquities 1: 6: 1) says that “Magog, second son of Japheth (Gen. 10: 2), founded those who were called by the Greeks Scythians,” “Gomer,” named first of the sons of Japheth (Gen. 10: 2), probably the father and founder of the Cimmerians, helped to swell the great Scythian horde. “Tagarmah” was a kindred tribe, thought by some to be the Armenians. Persia, Ethiopia and Libya are named here with them to fill out the representation of an immense and countless horde. These names do not occur again. H. C.

8. This verse does not speak of the punishment and overthrow of Gog’s army, but of their attack upon Israel; but as Gog was drawn on to this attack in order to his ultimate ruin, his preparations and his advance were in truth the first step in his visitation from the Almighty.

After many days. Many a long day shall the hand of God be upon thee, drawing thee on to thy ruin, and in the latter days shall thou come. B. C.

14-17. The points made here are not intricate. Shall not these combined nations know their time for assault on my defenceless people? They will. They are to come from the northern parts, analogous to the avalanche from Northern Europe that overran the old and effete Roman empire; or in later times, the sweep of the Tartar hordes under Tamerlane. It should be “in the latter days,” here quite indefinite and very probably referring in part, perhaps in large part, to events yet future. Verse 17 intimates that this onslaught upon the kingdom and people of God is the same which His prophets had predicted in years then past. Since no prophet up to that time had named precisely these enemies, we are compelled (as above indicated) to give these names a general and not specific sense, accounting them to represent not those nations in particular, but any and every form of hostility to the kingdom of God. Only in this sense could it be said to have been the burden of previous prophecy. In the clause, “In those days many years,” the word “many” is superfluous, the sense being, “in those days and years.” H. C.

17. Gog is not mentioned by name in any existing prophecy before Ezekiel’s time. The reference here shows (1) that the conflict with Gog does not represent a particular event, but one of which the prophets in general had to speak; (2) that in the interpretation of Old Testament prophecy we are to look beyond special fulfilments. Events in the world’s history come within a prophet’s ken as parts of the Divine administration whereby evil struggles against but is overcome by good. As every such conflict is a prelude to the final struggle, so its prediction has reference ultimately to the consummation here foretold. B. C.

19-23. The visible creation takes part in this great catastrophe. A dreadful scene of confusion ensues, and ruin bursts forth from every side upon the head of sinners. In fierce bewilderment they draw their swords one upon another. All conceivable plagues work together for their destruction, and so Jehovah is manifested as the Holy God. Hävernick.

19. Jealousy in Hebrew is literally “a glowing fire,” from a root meaning deep red. It is one of the most fruitful of Old Testament ideas in relation to the reconciliation of man to God. It is two-sided. The fire of love has for its obverse the fire of wrath. For jealousy contends for the object of its love against every-

thing that touches either the object or the love itself. Delitzsch.