Ezekiel 38—Final Overthrow Of Pride
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, D. 554) 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 [D. 556], 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 (D. 556) (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.
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.
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.
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.