CHAPTER III

GOG THE CHIEF PRINCE OF MESHECH AND TUBAL (Ezek. 38, 39)

Gog's purpose-Purpose of God-Mode of prophetic interpretation Gog called by different names - First, Assyrian-Second, King of northThird, the image in Daniel - Fourth, The four beasts - Fifth, Little horn of goat-Sixth, The beast in Revelation - Manner of Gog's destruction -Lake of fire and brimstone - The Lord's glorification Fire sent on Magog and the Isles - Implements of warfare - Burial of dead - Fruits of victory for remnant of Israel — Marriage supper of the Lamb - Latter day captivities of Israel - Idolatries of latter days.

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, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 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: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya, with them: all of them with shields and helmet; Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands; and many people with thee. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them."

Gog therefore is the head and chief of this great confederation of nations, kindreds, tongues and people. This confederation consists of many great and mighty nations, and a multitude of smaller nations, and lesser people, but in the aggregate this will form one of the mightiest armies that has ever appeared upon the earth. The period when this great combination is to take place, and the people against whom they come up, is then stated, saying:

"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."

While this prophet tells us that this confederation of nations shall ascend, he does not tell us where they ascend from, nor what they afterwards descend into. But another prophet says that they shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition (Rev. 17:8). They come up out of the bottomless pit, or abyss, of nations, and go into perdition upon the mountains of Israel. The magnitude of this great army is indicated by the statement, "Thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land" (verse 9). For an army to cover with

their encampments the available parts of Israel's land like a cloud, it may truly be said of them in the words of Joel, speaking of this very army, “His camp is very great" (Joel 2:11).

GOG'S PURPOSE

The purpose that the commander of this great army and his associates have in view in coming against the house of Israel after the second exodus when they shall have been gathered out of the nations, and when they dwell securely in their own land, is plainly stated. We have already proved that when God brings Israel up out of the nations in the latter days, it will be with a high hand and with an uplifted arm, and that the nations of the earth will be confounded at all their might, as a military power, and how they will quail before the armies of Israel and lick the dust like a serpent, and move out of their holes like worms of the dust; and how Israel, when the mighty God shall plant them again in the holy land, will be high above all people, and under God's blessing will be very wealthy insomuch that they will lend to all nations and borrow of none.

Therefore there will be plenty in those days to tempt the cupidity of those great nations to go up against the wealthy nation and take the spoil. And these great nations will no doubt be keenly alive to the fact that at and since, the time of the second exodus, they have occupied a very subordinate and humble position in relation to the people of Israel, and they may desire by one grand united effort of all the mighty people to measure swords once more with the armies of Israel in deadly conflict, expecting to put them down and to rob their treasuries, for they are called "the robbers of thy people," and the Lord calls them the worst of the heathen" (Ezek. 7:24), “brutish men, skilful to destroy" (Ezek. 21:31).

The Lord puts it into the hearts of these nations to do these things, and so it is said, "The Lord of hosts mustereth the host for the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord and the weapons of his indignation." And Joel also testifies of them saying, "Before their face the people (of Israel) shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness." It was said when Israel came up out of the land of Egypt, "There was not one feeble person among all their tribes" (Ps. 105:37). And thus when Israel waxes fat and kicks, forgets God and turns again to idolatry, then the Lord does as he said, namely, brings against them the nations of fierce countenance, and he strengthens them to execute his word, as Joel (27) continues, saying, "They shall run like mighty men, they shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining (that is, the people of Israel, their kings, priests, princes and prophets, and people of the land); and the Lord shall utter his voice before his army; for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word:

for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it." (Ezek. 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" (or as the margin hath it, "shalt conceive a mischievous purpose"). "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, to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thy 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."

THE PURPOSE OF GOD

Thus the Lord makes known beforehand the thoughts and intents of the hearts of the great commanders of these mighty armies. But the Lord has a purpose in view that they of themselves discern not, for little do they think that, instead of carrying away back to their own country the spoils of the house of Israel, they themselves are to be for a spoil to the remnant, to those that escape of the house of Israel, of whom the prophet says that they shall spoil those (Gog and his multitude) that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God.

The Lord musters not the host for the battle, neither brings up Gog and his mighty armies like clouds to cover the land of Israel, to glorify the kings, princes, and mighty commanders of these great armies, but to glorify and magnify himself, and to teach those that escape of Israel and those that are left of the nations, that he is God alone, and that there is none else, as also saith the prophet Isaiah (2:10-12), "Enter into the rock and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low (verses 17-18): and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day; and the idols he shall utterly abolish."

Therefore when the Lord has employed Gog and all the nations that he is guard to, to execute his purposes and to punish his own rebellious people as their congregation hath heard in the law, for their departure from his ways, for transgressing his laws, for changing his ordinances, and for breaking his everlasting covenant, and for turning back to the iniquity of their fathers who refused to hearken to the voice of the Lord, who were turned to worship the works of their own hands, and to worship the sun, moon and stars which God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven, as Moses testifies (Deut. 4:19), when therefore Gog and his forces have been employed to execute God's righteous judgments upon the rebellious house of Israel according to the law, then the Lord will be glorified in their destruction, even as the Lord says by the hand of Ezekiel in verse 16 of this prophecy, saying, "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 prophet

Isaiah also speaking of Gog and his destiny, under the name of the Assyrian, speaks saying (10: 12), “Wherefore it shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks."

The Assyrian of Hezekiah's day was a fitting type of the Assyrian of the latter days. The Lord brought him up against Judah, but when he blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, the Lord sent a blast upon him, and the Lord said of him, "Whom hast thou reproached, and blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. By thy messengers, thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said (for the Lord knew the motions of his heart), With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the heights of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees (the chief men in Judah) thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof. And I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of besieged places."

But what saith the Lord to this boasting Assyrian? "Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb; as the grass on the house tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up. But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest" (II Kings 19:22-28); (verse 35), “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."

Thus did the Lord rebuke the Assyrian of old, who is but a type on a small scale of what will be manifested in the latter days on a grand scale, and it will be noted that the Lord says that it was himself that made the way of the Assyrian of old to prosper, to conquer and put down nations, and bear down all before him. But the Assyrian glories in himself and claims to have done all these things by his own power; and this also will be a distinguishing feature of Gog, or the great Assyrian of the latter days.

After the Lord has made his way prosperous, and he has overspread the countries and finally broken down and destroyed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, then he boasts himself, as the Lord hath testified by the mouth of his prophets, saying first, by Moses in the song concerning his rebellious people (Deut. 32: 26-27), “I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men, were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this." These words of Moses have special reference to the latter

days and to that manifestation of pride and self-glorification that the enemy will show after the Lord hath made his way prosperous.

The prophet Habakkuk also in his vision, speaking of the Assyrian of the latter days under the name of the Chaldeans, shows how they will glorify themselves and to what they will impute their success, saying (1:6), “For lo, I will raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of thy land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. They shall come all for violence; their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand."

Then note particularly what transpires, for the prophet says (verse 11), "Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god "; but adds the prophet, "Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment: and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction." The prophet Isaiah also points out especially this boastful spirit of the Assyrian, or Gog, when he reaches a certain point in his successful career, as already mentioned, for afterwards the Lord speaks of the latter day Assyrian as follows (10:5-6), "O Assyrian, the rod of mine. anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets."

But the Assyrian being ignorant of God's ways and purposes views things in a very different way, and therefore it is said of him, "Howbeit he (the Assyrian) meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy, and cut off nations not a few. For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?" Truly they are; Gog, or the Assyrian, is the head of a vast confederation of nations who are under kings, all of whom are marshalled under the Assyrian's banner, and so he saith, "Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

"Wherefore it shall come to pass, that, when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom: for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man: and my hand hath found, as a nest, the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped."

But what saith the Lord to all this boasting? Shall the axe boast itself 1 To prove further that Habakkuk is speaking of the future, see Hab. 2:14.