Ezekiel 39:6

The chapter opens with “Therefore”, because it continues the prophecy of Ezekiel 38–39 as one message. Chapter 38 tells how Gog gathers a vast company to plunder Israel in the “latter days” (Ezekiel 38:16). Chapter 39 repeats the command of Ezekiel 38:2, “prophesy against Gog”, and goes straight to his defeat. Ezekiel spoke these words during the Babylonian exile, to a people humbled and scattered, who needed to hear that their God still ruled the nations.

God calls Ezekiel “son of man”, ben-adam, the name he uses for the prophet over 90 times, from Ezekiel 2:1 onward. It marks Ezekiel as a mortal man entrusted with the word of the Lord GOD. The verb for “prophesy”, nâbâʼ, means to speak as a prophet, whether foretelling or declaring, and the message carries God’s own authority in the words “Thus saith the Lord GOD”.

“Behold, I am against thee, O Gog” is the heart of the verse. God addresses Gog in person, through his prophet, and sets himself against him. A psalm shows the Lord in heaven laughing at the kings who rage against him and setting his own king on his holy hill (Psalm 2:4–6), and Isaiah hears God declare the end from the beginning: “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9–11). Gog is a mighty ruler, and the one who stands against him is God.

Gog is “the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal”. The word for chief, rôʼsh, is the word for head, and so for the first or highest in rank. The word for prince, nâsîyʼ, means an exalted one, a chief or ruler. Together they make Gog the head over the princes of his alliance. Some believers read rôʼsh here as a proper name, “prince of Rosh”, a people named alongside Meshech and Tubal. Meshech and Tubal were peoples of Anatolia, north of Israel, known for war and for their trade in metals, and they are sometimes linked with the Scythians or Cimmerians. Gog’s land is Magog (Ezekiel 38:2), and Magog appears among the sons of Japheth in the table of nations (Genesis 10:2). Naming real peoples gives the threat its weight: this is the strongest force the far north could send.

In verse 2 God is the one who acts at every step. He turns Gog back, drives him on, makes him come up from the north and brings him upon the mountains of Israel. The verb for “turn back”, shûwb, is the common word for turning or returning, and here God himself turns Gog’s course. Gog comes with his own greed, as chapter 38 shows, and still his road is chosen for him. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). God used Assyria in the same way as the rod of his anger, while Assyria meant only to destroy (Isaiah 10:5–7), and Nebuchadnezzar learned that God does as he wills among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand (Daniel 4:35).

“The north parts”, tsâphôwn, was the direction from which Israel’s invaders had come, Assyria and Babylon among them. Jeremiah heard that evil would break forth out of the north (Jeremiah 1:14) and warned of great destruction from that quarter (Jeremiah 6:1). Gog comes from the same feared direction, and he comes because God brings him.

The mountains, har, are the mountains of Israel, the heartland of the land God gave his people. Gog comes there to plunder, and there he falls (Ezekiel 39:4). The chapter goes on to the burial of the dead and the cleansing of the land, and to the vindication of God’s name that chapter 38 already announced (Ezekiel 38:23).

An archer holds his bow in his left hand and draws the arrow with his right. God says he will strike the bow out of the one and make the arrows fall from the other, so that Gog is disarmed before he can shoot. The verb “smite”, nâkâh, is the ordinary word to strike. The bow, qesheth, was a chief weapon of war, the means of striking from a distance, and the arrows, chêts, are what it sends. The left hand is sᵉmôʼwl, the right hand yâmîyn, and the hand itself yâd. With both hands emptied, the whole of Gog’s power to attack is gone.

Israel strikes no blow in this battle. The victory is God’s alone, and it magnifies his holy name before the world, as he promised in Ezekiel 36:20–23. A psalm praises the same work: “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire” (Psalm 46:9). Zechariah foresees the King who brings peace: “the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen” (Zechariah 9:10). And Isaiah gives the promise, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17).

This is why Isaiah pronounced woe on those who went down to Egypt for help and trusted in horses and chariots (Isaiah 31:1–3). The safety of God’s people lies with the LORD, who is their keeper (Psalm 121).

The same God fights for his people against unseen enemies. Paul writes, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). God can make the enemy’s weapons of temptation, deception, accusation, fear and despair as useless as Gog’s arrows on the ground, and believers stand by his strength, able to do all things through Christ who strengthens them (Philippians 4:13).

In verse 3 the arrows fall from Gog’s hand, and in verses 4 and 5 Gog himself falls, with the same verb, nâphal. It is used of falling in battle, and here of a defeat that ends in death. Gog falls “and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee”. The word for bands, ʼaggâph, means the wings or troops of an army, so every division of his host falls with him, along with all the peoples who joined his campaign.

God then says, “I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.” The phrase “to be devoured” renders ʼoklâh, which means food: God gives the fallen army as food to the birds of prey and the wild beasts. In Israel, burial was a mark of honour, and to lie unburied for the scavengers was the deepest disgrace. The law named it among the curses of disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:26), and Jeremiah warned that the carcases of Judah would be meat for the fowls in the valley of slaughter (Jeremiah 7:33). Later in this chapter God calls the birds and beasts to his great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel (Ezekiel 39:17–20).

Verse 5 adds where Gog falls: “upon the open field”, literally “the face of the field”, peneh hasadeh. He dies in the open, exposed and in public, where all can see what God has done.

Verse 5 gives one reason why Gog will fall: “for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.” The verb, dâbar, is the common word to speak. When God speaks of what he will do, his word is his decree, and it brings to pass what it declares. “The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11).

The title “Lord GOD” joins two names, ʼĂdônây Yᵉhôvih. ʼĂdônây means Lord, the master with authority over all. Yᵉhôvih is a form of God’s covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh. So the one who speaks Gog’s end is both the sovereign of all the earth and the God bound by covenant to his people.

The judgment reaches beyond the battlefield. God sends fire, ʼêsh, on Magog, Gog’s own homeland, and “among them that dwell carelessly in the isles”. Magog is often placed around the Black Sea, far to the north. The isles, ʼîy, are the coastlands, distant peoples by the sea, far from the fighting in Israel. Distance gives them no shelter. Zephaniah too speaks of God’s judgment as a fire that devours (Zephaniah 1:18).

The word behind “carelessly”, beṭach, means safety or security, both the fact and the feeling, and it is often used as “safely”. These peoples live at ease, sure that nothing can reach them, and that confidence leaves them open to the fire. The fire falls on the aggressors in Magog and on the comfortable far away alike, because every nation answers to God.

Verse 7 states the purpose behind all that comes before it. God defeats Gog to make his holy name known. A name, shêm, stands for the person: character, reputation and authority. God’s holy name is God himself as he is, holy and set apart.

That name had been dishonoured. Israel’s idolatry and unfaithfulness ended in exile, and the nations mocked the God whose people had been driven from their land, so that God says his people profaned his holy name among the heathen (Ezekiel 36:20–23). He had acted in the past for his name’s sake (Ezekiel 20:9), and he had charged Israel to pollute it no more (Ezekiel 20:39). The law commanded that his name be hallowed among the children of Israel (Leviticus 22:32), and Paul, quoting the prophets, says the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles through his people (Romans 2:24).

The verb for “pollute”, châlal, means to profane, to treat what is holy as common. “My holy name” stands twice in this verse, first as the name God makes known and then as the name he will keep from pollution. “I will not let them pollute my holy name any more” is a promise that God himself will change his people. Ezekiel has already told how: he will sprinkle clean water on them, give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them, so that they walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:25–27).

“And the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.” The nations will see that the God of this small people is the LORD, holy and supreme, and present in Israel. This acknowledgment comes through his public acts of judgment and deliverance, and it may or may not bring a nation to saving faith, but it is undeniable. The prophets look ahead to the same end: “all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour” (Isaiah 49:26), and “unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isaiah 45:23).

Verse 8 opens a new paragraph in the KJV, and it seals the oracle: “Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.” The verbs are bôwʼ, to come, and hâyâh, to be or come to pass. God speaks of Gog’s defeat as already accomplished, though for Ezekiel’s hearers it still lay ahead. This way of speaking, often called the prophetic perfect, tells of a future event as finished because it is certain. What God has determined is as good as done.

“This is the day whereof I have spoken” ties the event to God’s earlier words, the fury he promised to pour out on Gog in Ezekiel 38:18–23. The day is the appointed time of judgment and vindication, and it arrives exactly as God said. God is no man, that he should lie or change his mind (Numbers 23:19). He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending (Revelation 1:8, Revelation 22:13), so the end he declares is sure.

The New Testament shows the same God winning the same kind of victory through his Son. Ezekiel was a mortal “son of man” carrying God’s word. Jesus is the Son of Man who will be seen sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven (Mark 14:62). Before the cross he said, “now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). On the cross he disarmed the principalities and powers and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them (Colossians 2:15), so believers are more than conquerors through him who loved them, and nothing can separate them from the love of God (Romans 8:37–39).

His cry “It is finished” (John 19:30) answers the “it is done” of verse 8. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and God gave his Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish (John 3:16). His blood purges the conscience to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14), which is how God keeps his people from polluting his name any more.

All power in heaven and earth is given to Christ, and he sends his disciples to teach all nations (Matthew 28:18–20), so that the nations come to know the LORD through the gospel. The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:7–9), so in Christ God’s holy name is made known in full. He must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:25–27), and he waits until they are made his footstool (Hebrews 10:13).

When he returns, John sees him ride out as King of kings to judge and make war, and the birds are called to feed on his fallen enemies, as Gog’s army fed them (Revelation 19:11–21). After that come the great white throne (Revelation 20:11–15) and the holy city where God and the Lamb are the temple (Revelation 21:22) and there is no more curse (Revelation 22:3). In the end every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9–11).

These eight verses show God holding the whole course of a war in his hand. He names the enemy, chooses his road, empties his hands and decides where he falls. The might of the north and the ease of the far coastlands count for nothing before him. God is our refuge and strength (Psalm 46), and his people’s safety rests with him.

They also show why he acts. God cares for his holy name, and that care is good news for his people, because he keeps his name from pollution by cleansing them and giving them a new heart. His purpose reaches beyond Israel to every nation, that all may know he is the LORD.

And the passage ends on the certainty of his word. “I have spoken it” in verse 5 becomes “it is come, and it is done” in verse 8. The God who speaks of a future judgment as finished is the God whose promises of salvation, restoration and glory are just as sure.