Ezekielchapter 38
23 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
“Son of man, set your face against Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel spoke this oracle to exiles who had just been promised a return to their land. The fear of any people brought home after a war is the next invasion, and this chapter speaks to it. It names a ruler called Gog and a coalition of peoples the hearers knew from traders' reports and old terrors, most of them from the far north. The oracle looks ahead to the latter years, well beyond the prophet's own day. Listen for who brings the invader up, and for the reason God gives for the whole event. Readers have long divided over when and how it is fulfilled.
Context
- Who
- Exiles who could not imagine ever feeling safe again
- What
- An oracle announcing that Gog of the land of Magog will lead a great coalition against a restored Israel and be destroyed by God.
- Where
- Spoken among the exiles in Babylonia, about an attack on the mountains of Israel coming from the far north.
- When
- Spoken about 585 BC during the exile, about events set after many days, in the latter years.
- Why
- To assure the returning people that the last and largest attack on them would end with God making Himself known to the nations.
Historical context
The names in the coalition are real places on the ancient map, most of them in what is now Turkey and the lands beyond. Meshech and Tubal appear in Assyrian records as Mushki and Tabal, kingdoms of eastern Anatolia. Gomer matches the Cimmerians, called Gimirrai in Assyrian texts, a people who came down out of the northern steppe. Beth-togarmah corresponds to Til-garimmu, also in Anatolia. Magog is placed by Josephus among the Scythian peoples of the far north.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
Those northern horsemen were a live memory, not a legend. Herodotus describes the Scythians as mounted archers of the steppe who swept down into the Near East in the seventh century BC and terrified everyone they met. A great cavalry army coming out of the north was the most frightening thing a Near Eastern audience could picture.
The rest of the coalition is drawn from the other compass points: Persia to the east, Cush up the Nile in what is now Sudan, and Put in Libya to the west. Together the list means an assault from every direction at once.
The setting is described with unusual care, and it is not Ezekiel's own day. It is after many days, in the latter years, against a land restored from war, whose people are gathered out of many nations onto mountains that had been a continual waste, and who now dwell securely, all of them living without walls, having neither bars nor gates. An unwalled country was an unheard-of thing in that world; it means a people who feel no need to defend themselves.
MannaFest reads this as a still-future invasion of a regathered Israel, before the kingdom described in chapters 40 to 48, the premillennial frame. Others place it at the end of the thousand years alongside the rebellion named in Revelation, and some read it as a picture of all hostile nations rather than a specific campaign; the alternatives are named rather than argued here.
The outcome is not a battle in the ordinary sense. God brings the invader up with hooks in his jaws, and then breaks him with earthquake, confusion in the ranks, disease, torrential rain, hailstones and fire, the weather and the ground, not an army.
Significance
The exiles had just been told they would be brought home. The obvious next question is the one every refugee asks: and what happens the next time somebody comes for us?
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
This chapter answers it. The last and largest attack does come, and it is not fought off by Israel's soldiers. God says the point of the whole episode is that He will magnify Himself and make Himself known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD. The people who had watched their God appear defeated are told how the world's opinion of Him finally gets settled.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the tenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 9:1. Under the twelfth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Kedoshim 10:2, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 18:2 and Midrash Tanchuma, Kedoshim 10:1.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern.
Rashi reads Gog as a person and Magog as his people. Gog "So is the king’s name", and Magog is "The name of the nation", which he traces to Genesis 10:2 (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:2:1 and 38:2:2). The drawing of Gog to the land is a reckoning long delayed. "From the many days past that you sinned against Me, you will now be remembered before Me" (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:8:1). The land he comes against is a land of open villages, whose people "trust in their might and are not [so] afraid as to gather into fortified cities" (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:11:1).
The question at the seventeenth verse, whether Gog is the one the prophets spoke of, draws a note on who those prophets were. Rashi names Ezekiel and Zechariah, and then reports the Sages in Sanhedrin 17a, who add Eldad and Medad. They read the word for years as the word for two: "Two prophets prophesied one prophecy at one time" (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:17:1).
At the twentieth verse he sets a reading he heard beside his own. The steep places were said to be hanging rocks, "but I say that they are mounds of the towers", built up in steps of pressed earth (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:20:1). The sword called against Gog is his own army's: "Their own sword" (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:21:1). At the hailstones he gives the plain sense, stones that shine like crystal. He then reports Berakhot 54b, where the stones that stopped over Egypt at the prayer of Moses are the ones that fall here (Rashi on Ezekiel 38:22:1).
The corpus carries seven further notes on this chapter without an English text, each of them marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Ezekiel 38:1:1, 38:3:1, 38:5:1, 38:15:1, 38:16:1, 38:18:1 and 38:23:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the third verse it holds Berakhot 58a:16 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 9:9. On the fourth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 35:22:3. On the eighth verse it holds Sifrei Devarim 43:33. On the tenth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 2:1, Aggadat Bereshit 2:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 9:1.
On the eleventh verse it holds Introductions to Amoraic Literature, Part II (Notes and Interpretations for Chapters of the Talmud), Baba Batra, Chapter I 245. On the twelfth verse it holds Kohelet Rabbah 1:4:5, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 19:23:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Kedoshim 10:2. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 18:2, Midrash Tanchuma, Kedoshim 10:1 and Midrash Tehillim 19:2 there. On the thirteenth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 7:10 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 34:10:2. On the sixteenth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 82:3 and Bereshit Rabbah 98:2.
On the seventeenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 1:22, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 1:27 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 11:26:1. It also holds Sanhedrin 17a:11 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 737:3 there. On the eighteenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 16:9, Megillah 31a:16 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 16:29:251. It also holds Midrash Tehillim 8:6, Shabbat 118a:2 and Shabbat 118a:7 there. On the nineteenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 16:8. On the twenty-second verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:25, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:4 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:5. It also holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 2:9 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 7:5 there.
On the twenty-third verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 77:4, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:11:2 and Vayikra Rabbah 24:1. It also holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 885:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 885:3 there. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 38:2:1 to 38:22:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 38:1:1, 38:3:1, 38:5:1, 38:15:1, 38:16:1, 38:18:1 and 38:23:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/38.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this chapter and printing no weekly portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Gog of Magog turned back with hooks in his jaws
Ezekiel 38:1-3
the word of the LORD came to me: The word of the LORD sends the prophet against “Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal”. The older commentators place Magog among the Scythian peoples of the north and read Meshech and Tubal as the Moschi and Tibareni of Asia Minor.
Ezekiel 38:1
“So begins this classic passage in which Gog and Magog, with their allies, are drawn into an invasion of Israel only to have the God of Israel use the occasion to show Himself strong by intervening on behalf of His people and destroying the invading forces.”
Chuck Missler · The Magog Identity (article) (2002)Calvary Chapel-influenced Independent
Gog of the land of Magog: Adam Clarke calls this the hardest prophecy in the Old Testament and names Cambyses of Persia as one candidate for Gog. John Wesley denies that Gog is a single prince and notes that some place the fulfillment still in the future. Readers remain divided on the question.
Ezekiel 38:2
HENGSTENBERG supports English Version, as "Rosh" is not found in the Bible. "Magog was Gog's original kingdom, though he acquired also Meshech and Tubal, so as to be called their chief prince."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:2
“Gog - This cannot be one single person, or prince, though perhaps it points out some one, by whom the troubles foretold were begun. Some believe the time is still to come, wherein this prophecy is to be fulfilled.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Behold, I am against you, O Gog: The formula I am against you was spoken earlier against Tyre in 26:3, Sidon in 28:22 and Pharaoh in 29:3. Chuck Missler notes that God uses the invasion to show Himself strong on behalf of His people. The enemy is judged before he moves.
Ezekiel 38:3
“And say, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. Which is repeated for the confirmation of it, that so it would certainly be; that the Lord, the mighty God, and King of kings, would in his providence frown upon him, and appear against him; and his titles are repeated also, to show that all his greatness, grandeur, and power, would not protect him from the vengeance of God.”
Ezekiel 38:4-6
put hooks in your jaws: The “hooks in your jaws” repeat Pharaoh's sentence at 29:4. The allies ring Israel's known world: Persia to the east, Cush and Put to the south and west, and Gomer and Beth-togarmah from the north. Keil reads the list as gathered from every quarter against the one land.
Ezekiel 38:4
“I will turn thee back - Thy enterprise shall fail.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:4
With all sorts - Or, “gorgeously;” see the marginal reference. Omit “of armor.”
Persia, Cush, and Put: Persia lay to the east, while Cush and Put lay far to the south and west in Africa. Albert Barnes observes that adding southern peoples to northern invaders shows a general alliance of the enemies of God's people. The list reaches toward every edge of the known world.
Ezekiel 38:5
“Libya and Ethiopia, mixed with the northern invaders, are tribes from the extreme south, to show that this is a general combination of the foes of God’s people.”
Beth-togarmah from the far north: Gomer and Togarmah appear among descendants of Japheth in Genesis 10:2 to 3, and lay in the north, around the Black Sea and Asia Minor. Adam Clarke, following Calmet, identifies them with Cimmerians and Turcomanians. Genesis 10 supplies most of the names in Gog's alliance.
Ezekiel 38:6
“Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah - The Cimmerians and Turcomanians, and other northern nations. - Calmet.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:6
“Gomer, and all his bands,.... Or all his army, as the Targum.”
Ezekiel 38:7-9
Get ready; prepare yourself: Gog is told to “prepare yourself,” though verse 4 says the Lord turns him around and brings him out, so the march starts from outside. The timing is tied to Israel's restoration, “In the latter years,” against a people who “now dwell securely” on the mountains of Israel.
In the latter years: The attack comes only after Israel is regathered. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain that the land long waste is now resettled, so its people seem an easy prey. John Wesley reads the long desolation as reaching back to the northern tribes' exile under Shalmaneser.
Ezekiel 38:8
English Version means, "Against Israel, which has been waste, but which (that is, whose people) is now (at the time of the invasion) brought forth out of the nations where they were dispersed, and shall be found by the invader dwelling securely, so as to seem an easy prey to him."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:8
“The land - The land of the Jews, a people recovered from captivity, into which the sword of their enemy had brought them. Always waste - It is already two thousand four hundred years since the ten tribes were carried away by Salmanezer. But it - The land of Canaan, that is, the people of it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
advancing like a thunderstorm: The storm and the cloud picture an army large enough to darken the land. Adam Clarke compares Daniel 11:40, where the king of the North comes on like a whirlwind, and he reads both texts of Antiochus Epiphanes. Verse 16 repeats the cloud image.
Ezekiel 38:9
“Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm - It is observable that Antiochus is thus spoken of by Daniel, Dan 11:40: The king of the north - Antiochus, shall come against him (the king of the south is the king of Egypt) like a whirlwind.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
An evil plan against a land of unwalled villages
Ezekiel 38:10-13
you will devise an evil plan: The Lord names Gog's thought before he acts on it. Sheba, Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish state the motive, naming “silver and gold” and “cattle and goods” as the plunder. Gill notes the irony that the merchants ask the very question the reader is meant to ask.
Ezekiel 38:10
“Shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought - Antiochus purposed to invade and destroy Egypt, as well as Judea; see Dan 11:31, Dan 11:32, Dan 11:36. This Calmet interprets of Cambyses, his cruelties in Egypt, and his evil design to destroy the Israelites.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:10
“It came into Antiochus's mind what a singular people these religious Jews were, and how their worship witnessed against and condemned the idolatries of their neighbours, and therefore, in enmity to their religion, he would plague them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a land of unwalled villages: Unwalled villages mean a people living without defenses, trusting the protection God promised in 34:25 to 28. Gog reads that security as weakness. Matthew Henry draws the lesson that believers should expect no lasting rest from enemies, since Israel had just returned when a new sword was drawn.
Ezekiel 38:11
“But see here how the clouds return after the rain in this world, and what little reason we have ever to be secure till we come to heaven. It is not long since Israel was brought back from the sword of one enemy, and behold the sword of another is drawn against it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The Hebrew for center is literally navel, the same word used in Judges 9:37. Adam Clarke recalls how Antiochus gave Jerusalem to his soldiers to plunder and stripped the temple of its riches. The motive is plain greed.
Ezekiel 38:12
“To take a spoil - and a prey - When Antiochus took Jerusalem he gave the pillage of it to his soldiers, and spoiled the temple of its riches, which were immense. See Josephus War, B. 1. C. 1.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish: Sheba and Dedan were Arabian trading peoples, and Tarshish lay far to the west, so the question comes from the ends of the trade routes. John Gill reads them as onlookers, outside Gog's army. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear in their question the hope of a share in the loot.
Ezekiel 38:13
“Sheba, and Dedan - The Arabians, anciently great plunderers; and Tarshish, the inhabitants of the famous isle of Tartessus, the most noted merchants of the time. They are here represented as coming to Antiochus before he undertook the expedition, and bargaining for the spoils of the Jews. Art thou come to take a spoil, to carry away silver and gold, cattle and goods?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 38:13
“Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish,.... These are not any of the people that shall come along with Gog on his expedition; but some neighbouring nations bordering on Judea, who will address him in the following manner, as he passes through them, or by them.”
Ezekiel 38:13
“Sheba, &c.--These mercantile peoples, though not taking an active part against the cause of God, are well pleased to see others do it. Worldliness makes them ready to deal in the ill-gotten spoil of the invaders of God's people. Gain is before godliness with them (1 Maccabees 3:41). young lions--daring princes and leaders.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 38:14-16
My people Israel are dwelling securely: The timing clause returns, “On that day when My people Israel are dwelling securely,” binding the invasion to the restoration promised in the chapters before. The book's recognition formula lands on the nations, “so that the nations may know Me when I show Myself holy in you before their eyes.”
Ezekiel 38:14
“Now it is said, This shall be in the latter days, namely, in the latter days of the Old-Testament church; so the mischief that Antiochus did to Israel was; but in the latter days of the New-Testament church another like enemy should arise, that should in like manner be defeated.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Gog comes from the far north named for Beth-togarmah in verse 6 and again in 39:2. Babylon had also entered Israel from the north, as Jeremiah 1:14 warned. The mounted host recalls the horses of verse 4.
when I show Myself holy in you: God brings Gog so that His holiness will be seen in Gog's defeat, the holiness profaned by Israel's exile in 36:20 to 23. Wesley softens I will bring to a permission, while Adam Clarke refers the verse to the defeat of Antiochus's general Lysias in 1 Maccabees 3.
Ezekiel 38:16
“I will bring - I will permit thee to come. Sanctified - Confessed to be a great God over all, a gracious and faithful God to his people, and a dreadful enemy and avenger against the wicked. Before - ln the sight of all the heathen that are with Gog, and much more in the sight of God's own people.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:16
“When I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog - By the defeat of his troops under Lysias, his general. 1 Maccabees 3:32, 33, etc., and 6:6.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Earthquake, sword, hail, and fire magnify the LORD
Are you the one of whom I have spoken: The Lord asks whether Gog is the figure earlier prophets already pointed toward. The commentators propose Joel's northern army, Isaiah's northern invader and Jeremiah's foe from the north, and they differ on which is meant. The verse states the link to prior prophecy and leaves the referent open.
Ezekiel 38:17
“Isa 27:1; compare Isa 26:20, 21; God is represented as addressing Gog at the time of his assault; therefore, the "old time" is the time long prior, when Ezekiel uttered these prophecies; so, he also, as well as Daniel (Da 11:1-45) and Zechariah (Zec 14:1-21) are included among "the prophets of Israel" here. many years--ago.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 38:17
“It is here foretold that this furious formidable enemy should be utterly cut off in this attempt upon Israel, and that it should issue in his own ruin. This is supposed by many to have its accomplishment in the many defeats given by the Maccabees to the forces of Antiochus and the remarkable judgments of God executed upon his own person, for he died of sore diseases.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 38:17
“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 fulfillments. 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.”
Ezekiel 38:18-20
My wrath will flare up: “My wrath will flare up” and “In My zeal and fiery rage” are the most bodily terms the book uses for the anger. The shaking reaches every order of creature in Genesis's own categories. Henry sets the scene beside Sinai's trembling mountain, a theophany answering an invasion.
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,.... As before prophesied of and described: that my fury shall come up in my face; as a man's blood rises up in his face, and his colour appears, when he is wroth and angry: or, "in my nose" (s); as men when they are angry puff and blow, expand their nose, breathe through it; but against whom is all this wrath and fury?”
a great earthquake in the land of Israel: Earthquakes attend the LORD's coming in judgment elsewhere, as at Sinai in Exodus 19:18 and in Zechariah 14:4 to 5. John Wesley reads the shaking as a great tumult like an earthquake, which leaves room for a figurative sense. The zeal is for His people and His name.
Ezekiel 38:19
“For - For my own people, and for mine own glory. Have I spoken - Against mine enemies Gog, and all his herd. A great shaking - A great disturbance and tumult, like an earthquake.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 38:19
“If any ask, Why does he thus find fault? for who has resisted his will? It is easy to answer, Nay, but, O man! who art thou that repliest against God?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
will tremble at My presence: The trembling comes from God's presence. The same list of creatures in Hosea 4:3 described judgment on Israel's own land. Hebrews 12:26 to 27 takes up the prophets' theme of a final shaking for the removal of all that can be shaken.
Ezekiel 38:21-23
every man’s sword will be against his brother: Gog's host turns on itself, “every man’s sword will be against his brother,” the same panic that scattered Gideon's Midianites. The plagues gather the language of Sodom's judgment. The oracle closes where the book always closes, “Then they will know that I am the LORD,” making Gog's defeat a revelation.
Ezekiel 38:21
“And he has swords always at command, that are bathed in heaven, Isa. xxxv. Throughout all the mountains of Israel, where he hoped to meet with spoil to enrich him, he shall meet with swords to destroy him, and, rather than fail, every man's sword shall be against his brother, as in the day of Midian, Ps. lxxxiii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 38:21
“I will call for a sword against him - Meaning Judas Maccabeus, who defeated his army under Lysias, making a horrible carnage. - Martin. Cambyses had no wars in the mountains of Israel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 38:21
“Throughout - From all parts of the land, which was full of mountains. Every man's sword - As it was in Jehoshaphat's time; and these swords may be meant by the sword God will call for through all, for they ranged all over his mountains.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
hailstones, fire, and sulfur: Fire and sulfur recall Sodom in Genesis 19:24, and hail recalls the plague in Exodus 9:23 to 24, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown observe. Adam Clarke takes these as figures for a total defeat and admits that eminent scholars divide over whether the prophecy is fulfilled.
Ezekiel 38:22
“Great hailstones, fire, and brimstone - These are probably figurative expressions, to signify that the whole tide of the war should be against him, and that his defeat and slaughter should be great. Abp. Newcome supposes all the above prophecy remains yet to be fulfilled. Where such eminent scribes are divided, who shall decide!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I will magnify and sanctify Myself: This verse states the aim of the whole Gog oracle. John Wesley explains magnify as proving God mighty, just and faithful, and sanctify as declaring Him holy and true to His word. The refrain that ends the verse appears again at 39:6, 7, 22 and 28.
Ezekiel 38:23
“Magnify - Undeniably prove that I am the mighty, just, faithful, wise, holy, and merciful God. Sanctify - Declare I am holy, and true to my word.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Chuck Missler, The Magog Identity (article); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.