Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
Gog of the Land of Magog
Ezekiel 38:1-23
1 Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, · WEB
A coalition from the far edges of the map attacks a people living without walls, and the attacker is brought by the hooks in his jaws.
The names are given without explanation. Gog, of the land of Magog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, with Persia, Cush and Put, with Gomer and Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north. What the list has in common is distance. These are the peoples at the rim of the world as Ezekiel's readers knew it, from every direction. The point of the roll call is that the threat comes from beyond the horizon, rather than from the familiar neighbors of chapters 25 to 32.
The timing is stated twice and it is the key to the passage. This happens after many days, in the latter years, and it happens to a people already restored — the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, on the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste. Everything promised in chapters 34 to 37 has occurred first. The attack falls on the security, not on the exile.
The reasoning of the attacker is quoted, and it is the reasoning of a predator rather than of a rival power. I will go up to the land of unwalled villages. I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates. The absence of defenses is the attraction. Chapter 34 promised as its great blessing a people who can sleep in the woods and are not afraid. That is precisely what makes them worth attacking, and the plan is to take the plunder and to take prey.
And over the whole thing stands an image already used twice in this book. I will turn you around, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out. The hooks were used on the crocodile in the Nile Ezekiel 29:4 and on the lion cubs of chapter 19. Gog is not described as escaping God's control at any point. He devises his own evil plan, and he is brought.
What ends it is not an army. The chapter describes an earthquake that shakes fish, birds, animals and every man on the face of the earth. Mountains are thrown down. Every man's sword is turned against his brother, and the coalition destroys itself. The stated purpose is the one the book has repeated fifty-seven times, now enlarged to its widest scope: I will magnify myself and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am Yahweh. The passage gives a profile, a timing and an outcome, and does not supply an identification beyond the names it uses.
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