Please explain Ezekiel 38 and 39. What nation is Gog? Who constitute Israel? In what age of the world does this take place? What is the meaning of the burning of the weapons seven years, and burying the dead seven months? Are there two battles of Armageddon? If so, when do they take place, and how far apart? F. J. H. To the mind of the writer, the last part of Ezekiel, from the 36th chapter onward, was first of all a prophecy to the Jews, the people of God at that time. It told them just what God would do if they would yield to Him, and just what they could expect. If they had yielded to God, had obeyed His call to return, He would have restored them—nay, He would have brought up from the dead those who were sleeping, as predicted in the 37th chapter. He would have taken the poor captive nation, represented by the dry bones of the vision, and would have made it alive again. He would call back the wandering, honest-hearted ones from the various nations into which they had been driven, and restore them into their own land. That land would have been divided then on a different plan, and the new glorious temple would have been built, and God's presence would have been among His people, as predicted in the last chapter of Ezekiel. All the northern nations, their foes from the north, would have been conquered before them, and the very detail of Ezekiel 38 and 39 would have been fulfilled. Gog at that time represented all those northern Scythian nations, with all the confederacy which would have swept down upon Israel. But Israel failed to meet God's requirements. They were not ashamed of their sins, as intimated in chapter 43, and therefore God could not fulfil to them in the fulness of the vision the promises that were based upon their acceptance of His terms. Therefore the victory of Israel was only a partial victory, and the temple that they built in the restoration was a very small affair as compared with what it would have been. But the Lord looked forward from the latter days of that age to the latter days of the Christian dispensation, when there would be a far greater northern confederacy to sweep down upon the children of God, when Gog would embrace all the various nations of the north, as intimated in the prophecy of the ten kings in Revelation 17. But the prophecy will not be fulfilled in its details. It will be fulfilled in harmony with the new covenant under which the children of God live. If we will look upon the prophecy in this way, all is plain and harmonious. We may leave out the details which applied at that time, and could apply only at that time, regarding the weapons of wood, the burial of bodies. In the last great struggle, which is more fully predicted in the 25th chapter of Jeremiah, we have a better description of the war of the last days, when all the kings of the north, far and near, will be marshaled by the demons spoken of in Rev. 16:13, will be brought down to the land of Palestine, and there will fight for the world's mastery and against God. Then the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth to the other, but He Himself will come, and will deliver His people. The Bible speaks of only one battle, or better, war, of Armageddon, to be fought just before Christ comes. At the end of the thousand years there will be plans for another great battle, for the capture of the city of God; but this will be ended by the appearing of the great white throne and the glory of God, as set forth in Revelation 20.