FM559

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Ezekiel 38:1, 2. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him. – The Truth people, the reformers, are to set themselves against the proud, lofty rulers (Gog, high, mountain, D554) of the revolutionary republics after the war and the fall of Christendom, and of the ignorant, degraded revolutionists. (Magog was Scythia, a rude, ignorant, degraded people, including the savages of Europe [D556], savage by nature and made doubly so in the most barbarous wars of history. Meshech, north of Armenia, and Tubal, south of the Black Sea, and also Spain, represented the remotest and rudest nations of the world.) The prophecy is to have a double fulfillment, for it refers also to the gathering, at the close of the 1,000 years, of Satan, and the deceivable among restored mankind against the camp of the saints. – Rev. 20:7-10.

Ezekiel 38:3. And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. – God will be against the rulers of the worst of earth's peoples.

Ezekiel 38:4. And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. – God will lead them on (Revised Version) and bring them forth to do this deed, them and all their multitude, equipped with every conceivable weapon of destruction.

Ezekiel 38:5. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet. – The dark peoples of Africa (descendants of Ham, typical of sinful, degraded peoples), trained and equipped in the European war.

Ezekiel 38:6. Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands; and many people with thee. – The remotest peoples of Europe (D556) (Gomer was ancestor of the Celts, Scotch, etc.; Togarmah was north of Armenia) and their armies, and a multitude with them; and, a thousand years later, all whose heart attitude answers this description. FM560

Ezekiel 38:7. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. – The foregoing and their savage multitudes of revolutionists are to be the vanguard of the evil host. These people symbolize also those after the 1,000 years whose heart condition will be like the actual state of these savages.

Ezekiel 38:8. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. – After the career of the Ezekiel class is terminated in the flesh, the nations of Europe (and after the thousand years are finished the hosts of Satan, unbound) shall be called to do their dreadful work. At the close of the turbulent revolutionary era. Europe shall come against Palestine, then living in a peace contrasting with their turbulence; and, at the close of the Millennium Satan shall come against the Millennial order of things, abounding in holiness and peace.

Ezekiel 38:9. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. – They shall make the attack in vast numbers.

Ezekiel 38:10. Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought. – At the end of the revolutionary era turbulent Europe and Africa will be obsessed with an idea full of evil for them and for the Hebrews; and at the close of the Millennium Satan and the hosts in sympathy with his deceptions will dream of seizing the established Kingdom of God.

Ezekiel 38:11. And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates. – They shall say that they will go up against Palestine, against the Hebrews living in unwonted peace in a turbulent world. – D553.

Ezekiel 38:12. To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. – They will seek to plunder their property, to turn their weapons against once desolate Palestine, against the regathered Hebrews, enjoying some measure of prosperity. In like manner the hosts of Satan will seek to seize the restored Kingdom of God, at the close of the 1,000 years. FM561

Ezekiel 38:13. Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? – The people surrounding Palestine (D556), with their soldiers, will join in the plunder. After the Millennium all classes not in heart harmony with "the camp of the saints," will seek to capture the Kingdom, to take captive the power of the Little Flock and the Great Company (silver and gold), and the masses of perfect humanity (cattle, etc.)

Ezekiel 38:14. Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when My people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? – When God's people, the Hebrews, are living peacefully in Palestine, the fact will be well known by revolutionary Europe and Africa. After the Millennium Satan and his former associates, the apostate clergy of Christendom and the Hebrew Pharisees, bound for a thousand years, and loosed for a short time, will behold the prosperity of restored mankind.

Ezekiel 38:15. And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army. – Europe's hosts shall come from the countries north (D555) of Palestine with many people, riding on horses, motor cars and railroad trains, a vast and mighty army. And a thousand years later, Satan will appear, permitted to come by the spiritual phase of the Kingdom (the north), with many new, lying doctrines (horses) to deceive the people.

Ezekiel 38:16. And thou shalt come up against My people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against My land, that the heathen may know Me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. – The revolutionists will come against the Hebrews in the closing years of the Time of Trouble, just at the outbreak of anarchy (D555). This invasion will be permitted by God, that the peoples may know that Jehovah is God, when His mighty power shall perform a dreadful work upon these wicked peoples, raised up and set apart (sanctified) for the enhancing of Divine prestige. It will also be to demonstrate the Divine attributes that the Satanic hosts will be permitted later to conspire against "the camp of the saints."

Ezekiel 38:17. Thus saith the Lord God; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by My servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years, that I would bring thee against them? – Jehovah declares that FM562 these evil multitudes, who will shortly organize a crusade against the Jews, will be the ones of whom, thousands of years before, the Hebrew Prophets wrote.

Ezekiel 38:18. And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that My fury shall come up in My face. – The Divine wrath of furious retribution will be against these classes.

Ezekiel 38:19. 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. – In jealous love for His beloved people and in jealous destructive (fire) wrath against their assailants (D527) has God foretold a worldshaking holocaust of the hosts of evil in the land of Palestine, and a thousand years later of the minions of the Devil.

Ezekiel 38:20. 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. – The result will be that the men (fishes, C214) not under religious restraint (Z.'86:1), the most execrable of the people of the world (fowls, C162), the revolutionary governments (beasts, A261), and all the lowest of mankind shall be thrown into revolutionary commotion; and the nations (mountains, A318) shall be overthrown in anarchy, together with all the civil powers (walls, D40) of the world.

Ezekiel 38:21. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all My mountains, saith the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother. – God will do His dreadful work of ending this present evil world, and will call for the universal arming of mankind with destroying weapons, so that every man's weapons will be against every other man.

Ezekiel 38:22. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. – God will fight miraculously against the hosts of evil with pestilence and death, and will overwhelm them with a flood of Truth – with hard facts, to smite their hearts – and with anarchy, destruction, utter and complete. So also will the Almighty deal with the rebels of a thousand years later.

Ezekiel 38:23. Thus will I magnify Myself, and sanctify Myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord. – So will God magnify His reputation as the One to be reverenced, and the fame of His power will spread throughout the world.