Ezekiel 38:8, commentary and pictures

In the distant end-time just before Christ returns, after many days of waiting, the summoned northern power comes against a land restored from war and gathered out of many peoples to dwell in real safety under God's protection. That land is described as once always waste and now inhabited, with unwalled villages and goods, cattle, gold and silver rich enough to invite invasion for spoil, and its mountains are strongholds of government and worship where God's people live with liberty. What was first offered was Israel's full restoration after Babylon if they had wholly repented and returned to God, to dwell safely, defeat enemies, glorify Jerusalem, rebuild a more glorious temple and convert the nations, but they failed and returned only in small part in disobedience, so the promise was never fulfilled in its glorious detail and now typifies on a broader scale what God will do at the second coming and in the new heavens and new earth. After many days also points to the close of the thousand years of Revelation 20, when the wicked are raised and visited for execution and Satan leads the Gog and Magog forces of world evil in their last uprising against the saints' camp around the New Jerusalem, pictured with northern names because the north was Israel's region of oppressors, until God destroys them by plagues and final fire. Others understand the invader as the czar of Russia descended from Rosh, Meshech, Tubal and Magog leading Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer, Togarmah and other allies for world mastery at Armageddon against Turkey, Constantinople and Palestine, and understand the waste land gathered out of the nations as the American continent prepared as an asylum of civil and religious liberty where persecuted Israel dwells safely as long as they trust in God.

Words and Historical Setting

After many days and in the latter years point to the distant end-time, the time of the end immediately before the close of the world's history, after 1844 and just before the second coming of Christ. In that time Gog, Russia from the north quarters, comes into the land of Israel as leader of nations gathering allies for a final stroke for world mastery, and its end is destruction on the mountains of Israel in the great slaughter at Christ's coming. The same latter-years setting holds a mighty world-wide confederacy of the king of the north with no past history and yet future, headed as outlined in Revelation 17, reinstating the Papacy and coming against the king of the south, the British maritime power controlling Egypt, like a whirlwind with chariots and horsemen and many ships, combined armies and navies sweeping over opposing countries like a desolating storm. In the same prophecy Persia is associated with the power from the north that moves toward the mountains of Israel, while alongside the gathering of nations toward the coming battle the gospel gathers God's people from among the nations, including Persia and the surrounding regions.

Thou shalt be visited means called upon or summoned to do God's will, and because Gog willfully determines on his own way instead, the visitation is completed in destruction in the last plagues. After many days also describes the wicked nations remaining in the prison of death for many days, then being visited when released for execution at the end of the thousand years. After the wicked dead rise, Satan resumes his work by inciting them to capture the city of God, and they gather against Israel in a place of confinement, against the holy city, for the final judgment and destruction.

The land is brought back from the sword, gathered out of many people and brought forth out of the nations, formerly always waste and now inhabited and restored after devastation. It is part of the promises in the latter part of Ezekiel about what God would do for His people if they returned to Him, describing Israel scattered among other peoples and living in a land laid waste being gathered back to dwell safely. The setting requires unwalled villages and a land with property, cattle, goods, gold and silver valuable enough to tempt northern powers into an invasion for spoil. The mountains of Israel are the strongholds of power, the governments of nations where God's people live with some legal protection for religious liberty. They are also places of worship, which had always been waste until God's people came in, because the country had been given over to savage barbarous idolatry.

While still waste the land received persecuted members of the Israel of God and became an asylum where they lived in safety and worshiped according to conscience. Being gathered out of many people and brought forth out of the nations describes the birth of this nation from many peoples and nations, brought back from the sword when rescued from the throes of rebellion for liberty's sake after many days, nearly a century later. Dwelling safely all of them means God's people shall dwell safely there because God will protect every soul that puts trust in Him, continuing until liberties were threatened and the forced fires of Revolution broke out by which the land was rescued from war. This gathering out from troublers and from all countries into an unmolested country, where at first there is actual safety, with return to Palestine now in process and separation from the nations, is the gathering and dwelling in safety to look for as the sign in the development of events.

Conditional Promise to Israel

Ezekiel 38:8 belongs to the great block of Ezekiel 36 to 48, and to chapters 37 to 39 within it, showing what God would have done for Israel after the seventy years of captivity in Babylon if the people had yielded to Him, truly repented, returned wholly to Him, and been ashamed of their iniquities. That offer stood under the universal principle of Jeremiah 18:8-10, by which promised good depends on obedience and is withheld when the conditions are not met. Because Israel never yielded to God's plan, the promise was not fulfilled then in its full form.

What was offered was to bring all the scattered people back from the nations to the mountains of Israel to dwell safely there, to conquer all their enemies far and near and bring the kings of the north into subjection to Israel in Palestine, and to make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. With that restoration God would manifest His glory among them in the sight of the nations, dwell among them, and build a new and far greater sanctuary, a temple rebuilt more glorious than ever. The land would be cleansed and redivided among the twelve tribes, and Israel would go out to convert the nations. Had Israel met the conditions, that restoration would have included exceptional prosperity and power, and the northern peoples represented by Gog and Magog would have been destroyed before them by plagues.

Because Israel did not meet the conditions, with only about forty thousand returning from captivity in disobedience and without putting away wickedness, the promises received only a limited and small fulfillment and were never realized in their fullness and glorious detail. The temple Ezekiel described was never built, and only a shadow of it was erected by Zerubbabel. The sacrificial system connected with that temple ended when Jesus Christ died on the cross and fulfilled all sacrifices, so God cannot return to typical sacrifices fulfilled in Jesus Christ and the prophecy will not now be fulfilled literally in every detail.

Its details therefore must not all be applied literally to ancient or later times, for it is a mixed, conditional prophecy whose setting and timing are understood through Revelation's fuller, unconditional prophecies and through the clearer New Testament revelation. In that clearer light the Gentiles are fellow heirs and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, so any interpretation that excludes God's gospel work for all alike is wrong. The promise is only faintly typical in general of what God will do for His children at the second coming, when He shall punish forever those who would destroy His people, and of what will take place in the new heavens and new earth when God restores all things by His mighty power. That last-day fulfillment will come under different conditions, on a broader, stronger, and more glorious scale, with immortal inheritance and future glory given to the faithful, to true Israel.

Some events in these chapters are still to be fulfilled, but in harmony with the conditions on earth when they occur. Some take place before Christ's second coming in the clearer terms of Revelation, and some in the final battle after the thousand years. God's purposes for the wicked nations and for true Israel remain the same despite changes in time and circumstances: Gog and Magog represent ambitious northern powers whose spirit is Satan's and whose aim is to rule over others, to be punished partly before and when Christ comes and ultimately at the end of the thousand years, while Israel will be redeemed and inherit the earth made new.

Russia and Armageddon Crisis

Gog means ruler or czar, the ruler of the land of Magog and prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, that is the czar of Russia. The peoples descended from Magog, Meshech, Tubal and Rosh settled the territory now occupied by Russia, Tartary and Siberia, with Rosh, Meshech and Tubal answering to Russia, Moscow and Tobolsk. The prophecy of Ezekiel 38-39 was given many centuries before Russia existed, and its presentation of Noah's descendants after the Flood by name and by country instructs on the origin of the Russian Empire. Russia is already so powerful that one word from her stops most of the Powers and checks any one of them, the United States included, and with diplomats, spies and secret emissaries infesting every land and sending detailed information about her enemies she is still more to be dreaded, so her contemplated movements are of great interest. Japan is a means being used to turn Russia back, and Russia's movement toward war is a possible sign that the prophesied crisis and time of trouble are near when this power comes against Israel.

In the latter years, at the time of the end just before the second coming of Christ, Russia comes from the north quarters as guard and commander over allied heathen and northern powers, a leader of nations gathering allies for a final stroke to gain mastery of the world. Persia is associated with the power from the north that moves toward the mountains of Israel, already practically controlled by Russia through its finances, and its growing alignment with Russian influence lines up the nations for Armageddon. With Russia are Ethiopia, now called Abyssinia, and Libya, now the Barbary States, joined to Russia through France, and Gomer which is France, already allied with Russia by renewed treaty, and Togarmah which is Armenia, which will join Russia against Turkey when Russia enters Turkey to take it. The heathen powers of the dragon are paganism controlling two thirds of the population of the globe, including Japan, China, the Turks and India, yet to be fully wakened for their part, while the beast which is Roman Catholicism and the false prophet which is apostate Protestantism are already awake and ready. Alongside the gathering of nations toward the coming battle, the gospel gathers God's people from among the nations, including Persia and the surrounding regions.

The land brought back from the sword is Turkey and Constantinople, into whose domain Russia had entered and from which she was drawn back by a hook, even a hook of six teeth, the constraining force of the six powers of the Berlin Treaty. In the latter days Russia returns to the country from which it had been forced to withdraw, entering again with its entire army, many horsemen well equipped for battle, an exceedingly great army, and not alone but allied with several other powers. This latter-years invasion is of a land restored after war, gathered from many peoples, formerly waste and now dwelling securely, with Russia and allied nations leading this incursion into Turkish territory as part of a final campaign to seize it. Jerusalem and the surrounding country will bear the brunt of the nations' final attack just before Christ comes, for had Israel remained faithful it would have occupied Palestine as a separate people, and though Israel was scattered the evil plan of the confederacy against God still aims to secure the territory once occupied by Israel and destroy God's scattered people throughout the world. Its end is destruction on the mountains of Israel in the great slaughter where the birds and beasts eat the flesh of the slain at Christ's coming.

This gathering is the latter-day lining up of the nations for the battle of the last great day, the last universal war at Armageddon just before Christ returns, whose general outline describes the gathering of peoples for the final conflict, though details also depend on conditions Israel did not fulfill. Present wars and rumors of wars with earthquakes, pestilences and famines, and bloody strife and carnage, are its prelude and a sign of His near approach. When earth's madness and ambition are at their height and the summoned nations are gathered at Armageddon girt for battle and slaughter, Christ Himself appears for their discomfiture and ruin, in a last great northern apostasy sweeping down over the Holy Land with great power and destruction. Only then, and not till then, wars cease and weapons of war perish, and Christ as the true Solomon begins His reign to hush the tumults of the nations and bring the long-expected rest to the weary world.

The prophecy about Russia's international policy and ultimate destiny is partly fulfilled, while much of it remains to be fulfilled in the immediate and near future. The darkening sky in present events — Russia's determination to occupy Manchuria with Mongolia to follow so as to be free to turn attention and power to European Turkey, and the move by France, Great Britain and Germany to take their spheres and partition China — shows the great Gog and Magog war, a tremendous coming conflict involving all the great nations of the earth, is now close upon us. Against that reading, the chapter does not foretell Russia going down to Palestine to take a spoil and a prey from Jews literally returned there, and the literal return of the Jews to Palestine is not the sign now to look for. Adopting that teaching leads out of harmony with the third angel's message and is the beginning of many grievous errors, and because conflicting destinies for Russia drawn from this prophecy contradict each other it is safe to wait for more light before announcing its fulfillment.

Final Assault After Millennium

After many days and in the latter years look to the close of the thousand years of Revelation 20, after the unrighteous have been raised in the second resurrection and before their ultimate destruction in the final punishment of the wicked. The many days are the time the wicked nations remain held in the prison of death, and to be visited is to be released for execution at the end of the thousand years. When the wicked dead rise Satan resumes his work by inciting them to capture the city of God, and they gather against it for the final judgment.

The land brought back and gathered out of many people is the home of the redeemed, the saints' camp around the New Jerusalem where they dwell safely. Against it comes the last effort of the wicked forces of this world under Satan's leadership to crush the redeemed people of God in their own land and to take the city. Gog and Magog are the forces of world evil opposed to God and His redeemed, the same powers that once oppressed God's people now called into this last uprising. The attack is pictured with names of peoples from the north because from the standpoint of Palestine the north was the region whence came the ungodly enemies and oppressors of Israel, so those northern names symbolize the forces opposed to God and His redeemed at the close of the thousand years, not any modern nation such as Russia.

The assault ends when God destroys the attackers in the judgment pronounced through Ezekiel, by plagues and final fire. This is the final doom of Gog and Magog gathered for battle at the end of the thousand years and led against the holy city for their final destruction. As taught by those who stress its first setting, the attack and destruction by plagues belonged to a conditional prophecy of restoration to the mountains of Israel if God's people had been faithful, and was not presented as a necessary future event regardless of Israel's conduct.

America and Present Application

The land once waste and desolate, brought back from the sword and gathered out of many people and out of the nations, is the American continent, once an uncultivated wilderness prepared by its discovery for the time when God would recover His people. In the closing scenes of the present dispensation God's people are gathered from many nations into that formerly waste land, where they dwell safely or confidently in unwalled settlements and have acquired goods and cattle and silver and gold. Its being brought back from the sword is its recovery from war through the American Revolution, which opened an asylum of civil and religious liberty where the scattered remnant could gather. Its being gathered out of many people and brought forth out of the nations describes the birth of this nation from many peoples and nations, rescued from the throes of rebellion for liberty's sake after many days, nearly a century later.

While still waste it received persecuted members of the Israel of God and became an asylum where they lived in safety and worshiped according to conscience. The mountains of Israel are places of worship, which had been always waste until God's people came in, because the country had been given over to savage barbarous idolatry. They shall dwell safely all of them there because God will protect every soul that puts trust in Him, as long as they trust in God. That safe dwelling continued until their liberties were threatened and the forced fires of Revolution broke out, by which the land was rescued from war.

In the latter years Israel has been restored from among the nations to a land long laid waste and its people dwell safely, while Persia is associated with the power from the north that moves toward the mountains of Israel. Alongside that gathering of nations toward the coming battle, the gospel is gathering God's people from among the nations, including Persia and the surrounding regions. The destructions described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are apparently to occur in places other than Gehenna, showing that Gehenna is not the setting of every prophesied destruction.