1And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus says the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal; 2and I will turn you around and lead you on, bringing you up from the recesses of the north, and bring you upon the mountains of Israel. 3And I will knock the bow out of your left hand, and cause the arrows to fall out of your right hand. 4You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the people who are with you. I will give you to the birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. 5You shall fall upon the open field; for I have spoken, declares the Lord Jehovah. 6And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. And they shall know that I am Jehovah. 7Thus I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations shall know that I am Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel. 8Behold, it is coming, and it shall be done, declares the Lord Jehovah. This is the day of which I have spoken. 9And those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins and spears; and they shall kindle fires with them for seven years. 10They will not take wood from the field nor cut down any from the forests, because they will kindle fires with the weapons; and they shall plunder those who plundered them, and pillage those who pillaged them, declares the Lord Jehovah. 11It will come to pass in that day that I will give Gog a burial place there in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea; and it will stop the noses of travelers, because there they will bury Gog and all his multitude. Therefore they will call it the Valley of Hamon Gog. 12For seven months the house of Israel shall be burying them, in order to cleanse the land. 13Indeed all the people of the land will be burying, and they will gain renown for it on the day that I am glorified, declares the Lord Jehovah. 14And they will assign men to continually pass through the land, traveling along, to bury those remaining on the face of the earth, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search. 15And any traveler passing through the land, when anyone sees a man's bone, he shall set up a marker by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon Gog. 16The name of the city will also be Hamonah. Thus they shall cleanse the land. 17And as for you, son of man, thus says the Lord Jehovah, Speak to every sort of bird and to every beast of the field: Assemble yourselves and come; gather together from all sides to My sacrifice which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. 18You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, drink the blood of the rulers of the earth, of rams and lambs, of goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. 19You shall eat fat till you are full, and drink blood till you are drunk, at My sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 20You shall be filled at My table with horses and riders, with mighty men and with all the men of war, says the Lord Jehovah. 21And I will set My glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgments which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them. 22Thus the house of Israel shall know that I am Jehovah their God from that day forward. 23And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; because they were unfaithful to Me, therefore I hid My face from them. I gave them into the hand of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword. 24According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I have dealt with them, and hidden My face from them. 25Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah: Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name; 26after they have borne their shame, and all their treachery in which they were unfaithful to Me, when they dwelt safely in their own land and no one made them afraid. 27When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of the lands of their enemies, and I am sanctified in them in the eyes of many nations, 28then they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their own land, and left none of them there. 29And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Lord Jehovah.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY AGAINST GOG. (Eze. 39:1-29)
Repeated from
Ezek 38:3, to impress the prophecy more on the mind.
2 leave but the sixth part of thee--Margin, "strike thee with six plagues" (namely, pestilence, blood, overflowing rain, hailstones, fire, brimstone,
Ezek 38:22); or, "draw thee back with an hook of six teeth" (
Ezek 38:4), the six teeth being those six plagues. Rather, "lead thee about" [LUDOVICUS DE DIEU and Septuagint]. As Antiochus was led (to his ruin) to leave Egypt for an expedition against Palestine, so shall the last great enemy of God be.
north parts--from the extreme north [FAIRBAIRN].
3 bow--in which the Scythians were most expert.
4 (Compare
Ezek 39:17-
Ezek 39:20).
upon the mountains of Israel--The scene of Israel's preservation shall be that of the ungodly foe's destruction.
6 carelessly--in self-confident security.
the isles--Those dwelling in maritime regions, who had helped Gog with fleets and troops, shall be visited with the fire of God's wrath in their own lands.
7 not let them pollute my holy name--by their sins bringing down judgments which made the heathen think that I was unable or unwilling to save My people.
8 it is come . . . it is done--The prediction of the salvation of My people, and the ruin of their enemy, is come to pass--is done: expressing that the event foretold is as certain as if it were already accomplished.
9 The burning of the foe's weapons implies that nothing belonging to them should be left to pollute the land. The seven years (seven being the sacred number) spent on this work, implies the completeness of the cleansing, and the people's zeal for purity. How different from the ancient Israelites, who left not merely the arms, but the heathen themselves, to remain among them [FAIRBAIRN], (
Judg 1:27-
Judg 1:28;
Judg 2:2-
Judg 2:3;
Ps 106:34-
Ps 106:36). The desolation by Antiochus began in the one hundred and forty-first year of the Seleucidć. From this date to 148, a period of six years and four months ("2300 days,"
Dan 8:14), when the temple-worship was restored (1 Maccabees 4:52), God vouchsafed many triumphs to His people; from this time to the death of Antiochus, early in 149, a period of seven months, the Jews had rest from Antiochus, and purified their land, and on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month celebrated the Encćnia, or feast of dedication (
John 10:22) and purification of the temple. The whole period, in round numbers, was seven years. Mattathias was the patriotic Jewish leader, and his third son, Judas, the military commander under whom the Syrian generals were defeated. He retook Jerusalem and purified the temple. Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, succeeded him: the independence of the Jews was secured, and the crown vested in the Asmonean family, in which it continued till Herod the Great.
11 place . . . of graves--Gog found only a grave where he had expected the spoils of conquest.
valley--So vast were to be the masses that nothing but a deep valley would suffice for their corpses.
the passengers on the east of the sea--those travelling on the high road, east of the Dead Sea, from Syria to Petra and Egypt. The publicity of the road would cause many to observe God's judgments, as the stench (as English Version translates) or the multitude of graves (as HENDERSON translates, "it shall stop the passengers") would arrest the attention of passers-by. Their grave would be close to that of their ancient prototypes, Sodom and Gomorrah in the Dead Sea, both alike being signal instances of God's judgments.
13 I . . . glorified--in destroying the foe (
Ezek 28:22).
14 with the passengers--The men employed continually in the burying were to be helped by those happening to pass by; all were to combine.
after the end of seven months shall they search--to see if the work was complete [MUNSTER].
15 First "all the people of the land" engaged in the burying for seven months; then special men were employed, at the end of the seven months, to search for any still left unburied. The passers-by helped them by setting up a mark near any such bones, in order to keep others from being defiled by casually touching them, and that the buriers might come and remove them. Denoting the minute care to put away every relic of heathen pollution from the Holy Land.
16 A city in the neighborhood was to receive the name Hamonah, "multitude," to commemorate the overthrow of the multitudes of the foe [HENDERSON]. The multitude of the slain shall give a name to the city of Jerusalem after the land shall have been cleansed [GROTIUS]. Jerusalem shall be famed as the conqueror of multitudes.
17 (
Rev 19:17).
sacrifice--Anciently worshippers feasted on the sacrifices. The birds and beasts of prey are invited to the sacrificial feast provided by God (compare
Isa 18:6;
Isa 34:6;
Zeph 1:7;
Mark 9:49). Here this sacrifice holds only a subordinate place in the picture, and so is put last. Not only shall their bones lie long unburied, but they shall be stripped of the flesh by beasts and birds of prey.
18 rams . . . lambs . . . goats--By these various animal victims used in sacrifices are meant various ranks of men, princes, generals, and soldiers (compare
Isa 34:6).
fatlings of Bashan--ungodly men of might (
Ps 22:12). Bashan, beyond Jordan, was famed for its fat cattle. Fat implies prosperity which often makes men refractory towards God (
Deut 32:14-
Deut 32:15).
20 my table--the field of battle on the mountains of Israel (
Ezek 38:8,
Ezek 38:20).
chariots--that is, charioteers.
22 So the house of Israel shall know . . . Lord--by My interposition for them. So, too, the heathen shall be led to fear the name of the Lord (
Ps 102:15).
23 hid I my face-- (
Deut 31:17;
Isa 59:2).
25 bring again the captivity--restore from calamity to prosperity.
the whole house of Israel--so "all Israel" (
Rom 11:26). The restorations of Israel heretofore have been partial; there must be one yet future that is to be universal (
Hos 1:11).
26 After that they have borne their shame--the punishment of their sin: after they have become sensible of their guilt, and ashamed of it (
Ezek 20:43;
Ezek 36:31).
27 sanctified in them--vindicated as holy in My dealings with them.
28 The Jews, having no dominion, settled country, or fixed property to detain them, may return at any time without difficulty (compare
Hos 3:4-
Hos 3:5).
29 poured out my Spirit upon . . . Israel--the sure forerunner of their conversion (
Joel 2:28;
Zech 12:10). The pouring out of His Spirit is a pledge that He will hide His face no more (
2Cor 1:22;
Eph 1:14;
Phil 1:6).
The arrangements as to the land and the temple are, in many particulars, different from those subsisting before the captivity. There are things in it so improbable physically as to preclude a purely literal interpretation. The general truth seems to hold good that, as Israel served the nations for his rejection of Messiah, so shall they serve him in the person of Messiah, when he shall acknowledge Messiah (
Isa 60:12;
Zech 14:17-
Zech 14:19; compare
Ps 72:11). The ideal temple exhibits, under Old Testament forms (used as being those then familiar to the men whom Ezekiel, a priest himself, and one who delighted in sacrificial images, addresses), not the precise literal outline, but the essential character of the worship of Messiah as it shall be when He shall exercise sway in Jerusalem among His own people, the Jews, and thence to the ends of the earth. The very fact that the whole is a vision (
Ezek 40:2), not an oral face-to-face communication such as that granted to Moses (
Num 12:6-
Num 12:8), implies that the directions are not to be understood so precisely literally as those given to the Jewish lawgiver. The description involves things which, taken literally, almost involve natural impossibilities. The square of the temple, in
Ezek 42:20, is six times as large as the circuit of the wall enclosing the old temple, and larger than all the earthly Jerusalem. Ezekiel gives three and a half miles and one hundred forty yards to his temple square. The boundaries of the ancient city were about two and a half miles. Again, the city in Ezekiel has an area between three or four thousand square miles, including the holy ground set apart for the prince, priests, and Levites. This is nearly as large as the whole of Judea west of the Jordan. As Zion lay in the center of the ideal city, the one-half of the sacred portion extended to nearly thirty miles south of Jerusalem, that is, covered nearly the whole southern territory, which reached only to the Dead Sea (
Ezek 47:19), and yet five tribes were to have their inheritance on that side of Jerusalem, beyond the sacred portion (
Ezek 48:23-
Ezek 48:28). Where was land to be found for them there? A breadth of but four or five miles apiece would be left. As the boundaries of the land are given the same as under Moses, these incongruities cannot be explained away by supposing physical changes about to be effected in the land such as will meet the difficulties of the purely literal interpretation. The distribution of the land is in equal portions among the twelve tribes, without respect to their relative numbers, and the parallel sections running from east to west. There is a difficulty also in the supposed separate existence of the twelve tribes, such separate tribeships no longer existing, and it being hard to imagine how they could be restored as distinct tribes, mingled as they now are. So the stream that issued from the east threshold of the temple and flowed into the Dead Sea, in the rapidity of its increase and the quality of its waters, is unlike anything ever known in Judea or elsewhere in the world. Lastly, the catholicity of the Christian dispensation, and the spirituality of its worship, seem incompatible with a return to the local narrowness and "beggarly elements" of the Jewish ritual and carnal ordinances, disannulled "because of the unprofitableness thereof" [FAIRBAIRN], (
Gal 4:3,
Gal 4:9;
Gal 5:1;
Heb 9:10;
Heb 10:18). "A temple with sacrifices now would be a denial of the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. He who sacrificed before confessed the Messiah. He who should sacrifice now would solemnly deny Him" [DOUGLAS]. These difficulties, however, may be all seeming, not real. Faith accepts God's Word as it is, waits for the event, sure that it will clear up all such difficulties. Perhaps, as some think, the beau ideal of a sacred commonwealth is given according to the then existing pattern of temple services, which would be the imagery most familiar to the prophet and his hearers at the time. The minute particularizing of details is in accordance with Ezekiel's style, even in describing purely ideal scenes. The old temple embodied in visible forms and rites spiritual truths affecting the people even when absent from it. So this ideal temple is made in the absence of the outward temple to serve by description the same purpose of symbolical instruction as the old literal temple did by forms and acts. As in the beginning God promised to be a "sanctuary" (
Ezek 11:16) to the captives at the Chebar, so now at the close is promised a complete restoration and realization of the theocratic worship and polity under Messiah in its noblest ideal (compare
Jer 31:38-
Jer 31:40). In
Rev 21:22 "no temple" is seen, as in the perfection of the new dispensation the accidents of place and form are no longer needed to realize to Christians what Ezekiel imparts to Jewish minds by the imagery familiar to them. In Ezekiel's temple holiness stretches over the entire temple, so that in this there is no longer a distinction between the different parts, as in the old temple: parts left undeterminate in the latter obtain now a divine sanction, so that all arbitrariness is excluded. So that it is be a perfect manifestation of the love of God to His covenant-people (Eze. 40:1-43:12); and from it, as from a new center of religious life, there gushes forth the fulness of blessings to them, and so to all people (Eze. 47:1-23) [FAIRBAIRN and HAVERNICK]. The temple built at the return from Babylon can only very partially have realized the model here given. The law is seemingly opposed to the gospel (
Matt 5:21-
Matt 5:22,
Matt 5:27-
Matt 5:28,
Matt 5:33-
Matt 5:34). It is not really so (compare
Matt 5:17-
Matt 5:18;
Rom 3:31;
Gal 3:21-
Gal 3:22). It is true Christ's sacrifice superseded the law sacrifices (
Heb 10:12-
Heb 10:18). Israel's province may hereafter be to show the essential identity, even in the minute details of the temple sacrifices, between the law and gospel (
Rom 10:8). The ideal of the theocratic temple will then first be realized.