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The LORD's word came to me, saying, +
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"Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the
prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
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and say, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. +
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I will turn you around, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, with all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company with
buckler and shield, all of them handling swords;
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Persia, Cush, and Put with them, all of them with
shield and helmet;
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Gomer, and all his hordes; the
house of
Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with you.
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"'"Be prepared, yes, prepare yourself, you, and all your companies who are assembled to you, and be a
guard to them.
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After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into 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; but it is brought out of the peoples, and they will
dwell securely, all of them.
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You will ascend. You will come like a storm. You will be like a
cloud to cover the land, you, and all your hordes, and many peoples with you."
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"'Thus says the Lord God: "It will happen in that day that things will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil plan. +
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You will say, '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, +
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to take the plunder and to take prey; to turn your hand against the waste places that are inhabited, and against the people who are gathered out of the nations, who have gotten livestock and goods, who dwell in the middle of the earth.' +
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Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young
lions of it, will ask you, 'Have you come to take the plunder? Have you assembled your company to take the prey, to carry away
silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?'"'
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"Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and tell Gog, 'Thus says the Lord God: "In that day when my people
Israel dwells securely, will you not know it?
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You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you, and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.
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You will come up against my people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land. It will happen in the latter days, that I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when I am sanctified in you, Gog, before their eyes." +
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"'Thus says the Lord God: "Are you he of whom I spoke in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for years that I would bring you against them? +
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It will happen in that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," says the Lord God, "that my wrath will come up into my nostrils. +
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For in my
jealousy and in the fire of my wrath I have spoken. Surely in that day there will be a great shaking in the land of Israel;
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so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field, all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the
earth will shake at my presence. Then the mountains will be thrown down, the steep places will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground.
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I will call for a
sword against him to all my mountains," says the Lord God. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.
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I will enter into judgment with him with pestilence and with blood. I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, with great hailstones, fire, and sulfur. +
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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 The LORD."'
Eze 38:1-23. THE ASSAULT OF GOG, AND GOD'S JUDGMENT ON HIM.
The objections to a literal interpretation of the prophecy are--(1) The ideal nature of the name Gog, which is the root of Magog, the only kindred name found in Scripture or history. (2) The nations congregated are selected from places most distant from Israel, and from one another, and therefore most unlikely to act in concert (Persians and Libyans, &c.). (3) The whole spoil of Israel could not have given a handful to a tithe of their number, or maintained the myriads of invaders a single day (Eze 38:12, 13). (4) The wood of their invaders' weapons was to serve for fuel to Israel for seven years! And all Israel were to take seven months in burying the dead! Supposing a million of Israelites to bury each two corpses a day, the aggregate buried in the hundred eighty working days of the seven months would be three hundred sixty millions of corpses! Then the pestilential vapors from such masses of victims before they were all buried! What Israelite could live in such an atmosphere? (5) The scene of the Lord's controversy here is different from that in Isa 34:6, Edom, which creates a discrepancy. (But probably a different judgment is alluded to). (6) The gross carnality of the representation of God's dealings with His adversaries is inconsistent with Messianic times. It therefore requires a non-literal interpretation. The prophetical delineations of the divine principles of government are thrown into the familiar forms of Old Testament relations. The final triumph of Messiah's truth over the most distant and barbarous nations is represented as a literal conflict on a gigantic scale, Israel being the battlefield, ending in the complete triumph of Israel's anointed King, the Saviour of the world. It is a prophetical parable [FAIRBAIRN]. However, though the details are not literal, the distinctiveness in this picture, characterizing also parallel descriptions in writers less ideally picturesque than Ezekiel, gives probability to a more definite and generally literal interpretation. The awful desolations caused in Judea by Antiochus Epiphanes, of Syria (1 Maccabees; and PORPHYRY, quoted by JEROME on Ezekiel), his defilement of Jehovah's temple by sacrificing swine and sprinkling the altar with the broth, and setting up the altar of Jupiter Olympius, seem to be an earnest of the final desolations to be caused by Antichrist in Israel, previous to His overthrow by the Lord Himself, coming to reign (compare Da 8:10-26; 11:21-45; 12:1; Zec 13:9; 14:2, 3). GROTIUS explains Gog as a name taken from Gyges, king of Lydia; and Magog as Syria, in which was a city called Magog [PLINY, 5.28]. What Ezekiel stated more generally, Re 20:7-9 states more definitely as to the anti-Christian confederacy which is to assail the beloved city.